Excursions avatar

Excursions

Thoughts

We had a nice little family dinner at a cozy, laid-back barbeque restaurant. It was evening full of delectable food, soothing music and lots of laughter & chatter. Plus some learning 😬

So I finally jumped the ship - upgraded to iPhone XR from SE. As much as I liked the smallwe form factor, it was always tempting to use and find comfort with the larger screens of all the available screens around. And just a couple of hours in, I see why these are preferred 🧐

The ICC World Cup deserved a better end than what played out on Sunday between England and New Zealand. All the debates and controversies around the match marred what was a very well fought match. It soured what England achieved and left New Zealand with lots of ifs-and-buts 🏏

India's loss in World Cup Semi-Final ๐Ÿ

So India lost to New Zealand in Semi-Final of the ICC world cup 2019. I have some thoughts.

  1. It’s heartbreaking as hell. Almost at a level of 2003 Final defeat to Australia.
  2. Fact that India lost doesn’t make it a bad team. They had a couple of shortcomings — all surfaced together at the most inopportune phase of the tournament.
  3. India had a light middle order, fear was top order failure would be challenging for them to handle — exactly what happened.
  4. You can’t call yourself the champions as long as you keep depending solely on your top 3 and bottom 3 players for majority of the matches. It was always risky going in. There are no bowlers who can bat or batsman who can ball. Something that 1983 and 2011 WC winning Indian cricket teams have in common.
  5. Players like Sachin and Sehwag and Yuvraj and Raina who could always spring a surprise and give you a wicket - in addition to the runs they score - were dearly missed.
  6. Specifically this match was a series of wrong choices - review lost unnecessarily on the first ball. Tweaking of the settled bowling unit, and also the team towards the later part of the tournament. Dhoni’s batting position, especially after early wickets - he had to have walked in at 5/3.

Anyway, all said and done, India remain a very good cricket team. They need to work on the middle order - identify those players who bring in a secondary skill. They haven’t lost any respect — it’s a sport afterall. For someone to win, someone’s to lose.

This ICC Cricket World Cup is of One Day International (ODI) cricket — one day. Deciding finalist via a two-day match just doesn’t make sense - plus it isn’t fair to either side. But then it is the price to pay for scheduling one in England 🙄🏏

Came across this essay on how it is never too late to be successful and, hence, happy. It made me wonder what exactly is the relation between success and happiness? What leads to what? I continue to believe success is subjective, happiness, the state of mind.

If you have watched or are watching the Chernobyl series, you just can’t miss the companion podcast where the creators talk about the show. It is absolutely fantastic - thanks @Bruce and @vasta for recommending it. Makes me wish every show out there had such a podcast.

I started watching Chernobyl this week — 3 episodes in and it has already made me realize how grave the effects of the disaster was. I went in without any idea what the show is about. So, I just wasn’t ready for the hard-hitting aftermath it started with. But am hooked.

Ah, the hype that was created all around the cricket match of ICC World Cup - India vs Pakistan - by the media has worked on me. I may stay hooked up to the live telecast now. And then there are invites to the group events. Just can’t avoid the craze 🏏