I was supposed to take off to India on Friday evening from JFK and reach home on Sunday morning. But I came to know the flights are not taking off on Friday afternoon. Satish and I made a journey to JFK to find out about alternate reservation as I could not get to speak to any human being (only answering machines). After we went there they told me that the flight has been indefinitely delayed. They gave us a phone number to contact which started calling on Friday night onwards after coming back to Albany. On Saturday there was no update. Sunday morning there was no update and so was at around 10:00 AM.
In the meantime I called another phone number given by some call center in India. This was the contact to reach Air India counter at the airport. They told me that flights are taking off. Then I rented car and reached JFK checked in my baggage and realized that that flight is taking off at 07:30 PM instead of usual 09:30 PM. I still had to return rental car. But some how I made it to gate at 07:00 PM. But the flight eventually took off at 09:30 PM. After reaching Mumbai, I realized that the connecting flights were also cancelled as it was another eventual Europe bound flight. So I had to collect the baggage and get immigration done. This procedure took about 3-4 hours and I waited for another 1 hour get Indian Airlines connecting flight. This flight took off at 06:05 AM and I finally landed in Bengaluru International airport at 08:00 AM Tuesday morning.

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There are several versions of a professional cricket match.

Test Match: This is played over five days. In olden days it included 5 days plus a rest day in between. So it was played over 6 days. Here each pf two teams  will have  two innings each. Whoever has higher cumulative batting score (runs) will win the match.

One Day Match: As the name suggests, it is played in a single day. Each teams bats for limited time(for fixed number of overs).  After first team bats and accumulates some runs, the second team tries to chase the score. If the team batting second over takes first team, then it wins. If it fails to reach first team’s score then the first team wins. If the scores are leveled then it is a tie. This version of cricket was first played in during 70s in last century and became very popular in 80s to first decade of 21st century.

Twenty Twenty: This is the truncated and most recent version of a professional cricket match. Here each team bats twenty overs. It lasts for about 2- 3 hours. Because of its  shorter and fast nature, it is becoming very popular.  While international matches of this version are yet to gain popularity, the domestic league in India( Indian Premier League is gaining lot of popularity). One of the recent matches had about 37.5 million people watching it.

While studying here in United States, I had several interesting experiences.  While I am not involved in the incident which I am going to tell, I think it is worth writing and discussing about it. In Masters Degree everyone has to complete some core courses. If you get a grade below “B” then you are suppose to repeat it. Usually either the percentile or percentage of 90 plus is an A, 80 plus is B and 70 plus is C and so on.  There was one student who got about something like 79 in one of the core course and the professor awarded him C grade. Note that this 79 is either average or weighted average of all individual exams in a semester. Now that the student in question did not make “B” in core course, he had to repeat it again. To avoid this, went  to professor and asked that he was very close to “B” and therefore it was unfair that he got a “C”. He got few marks/points less in final exam because of a stupid mistake he made.  The professor justified his grading and he told him that if the student were to design for constructing a dam against a river and makes a very small mistake, then whole bridge will collapse and it will be catastrophic. So even a small mistake counts and so professor says his grading is justified.

While professor’s answer was academically brilliant, with his analogy, all students who gets less than 100 should not get passing grades.  It turns out that the professor had never  constructed anything in his life as he is in the school for his entire life(either studying or teaching).

• Ball:  A round object used to play the game of Cricket. It is made of some heavy material made from some tree and is buried inside leather which is stitched. In five day version of Cricket, a red color ball is used. Shorter version white colored ball is used
• Bat: A thing made up of wooden which is used to hit the ball
• Batsman: Who hit the ball
• Bowler: Who throws ball. There is a particular way a bowler has to do this. This is called bowling.
• Pitch: 22 yard distance where the ball is bowled into by bowler.
• Wickets: 6 sticks of which three each stand on either side of pitch. The open top space between these sticks in covered by things called “Bails”.
• Wicket Keeper: Who stands behind batsman and collects balls which are unattended or missed by Batsman.
• Boundary: An oval shaped mark which marks the end of cricket field. Often a rope is used to mark the boundary.
• Four (runs): When hit by Batsman, the ball crosses boundary with one or more bounces on to ground before crossing.
• Six (runs): When hit by Batsman, ball crosses boundary without touching the ground.
• Out: This is referred to Batsman. This is a situation when man in a coat decides that Batsman is no longer eligible to stay at the pitch.

2010 Australian Open Tennis final was played last Sunday and Britain’s Andy Murray and Switzerland’s Roger Federer played against each other for the championship.   Until that point, Roger Federer had 15 Grand Slam titles and Andy Murray was yet to win his first Grand Slam.  Earlier, 2 had met at United States Open 2008 final where Roger Federer won the championship.   While Andy Murray is known for his defensive skills Roger Federer’s aggression is well known.  Before Sunday’s match, both of them had played 10 times against each other. Andy Murray had won 6 and Federer prevailing in 4 matches. Interestingly, Federer had won last two of their meetings.  During pre-match press interviews, Federer played mind games about how he has the edge over Andy Murray. He tried to over ride the fact that Andy Murray had beaten him several times by saying that he was not at his best when Murray won matches against him.

                Usually, Andy Murray plays a waiting game. He does not take risks and wins majority of points by his serve and opponent’s errors.  This usually works in low profile tournaments and in early rounds in Grand Slam tournaments. But he does not change his style during later stages of Grand Slams. While this style helps him win against low profile players, it may not work in a major semi-final or a final. On Sunday final, Andy Murray tried his defensive style in first two sets and Federer won them easily. He tried aggression in 3^rd set and it was very close. But it looked like it was too late.

Now that Australian Open Grand Slam tennis tournament is on, I got reminded of those moments when we used watch tennis in India when I was a teenager. At that time, the most popular grand slam tennis tournaments were French Open and Wimbledon open. Because the matches played in Europe during day time were aired live in evening in India because of the time lag. The evening being a popular time slot, tennis coverage gained popularity.  When we watched tennis, there were at least 5- 6 people including cousins.  Not all of us were following one player.  We used to have arguments, discussions and celebrations during tennis matches. There was this guy Becker who was called boom Becker for his style.  Then there was Steffi Graph, Jim Courier, Stefan Edberg and many more.  Then in 90s, I watched Pete Sampras dominating Wimbledon finals. He did not loose even a single Wimbledon final which I watched. His technique, serve and volley were impeccable. During the course of the match he stayed very composed. I don’t remember him loosing his temperament any time. He was a true champion. While Sampras dominated Wimbledon, Jim Courier and Andre Agassi came good in Australian open and French open grand slam tennis tournaments.

This is about happenings in  NBC over late night shows. A while ago, about  1 year or so, NBC’s  Jay Leno show was broadcasting at 11:35 PM exactly at CBS’s David Letterman show. Conan O’Brien Show followed Jay Leno show.  These are two shows in TV which I like to watch. Since they were both aired at the same time, it was very inconvenient to watch both of them.  After sometime, NBC moved Jay Leno show to 10:00 PM and Conan O’Brien was given 11:35 PM slot.  Looks like Jay Leno show is not doing as good as they had expected.  NBC is also going to broadcast the winter Olympics.  So they want their prime time 10:00 PM slot back from Jay Leno. So they ask Jay Leno to go back to 11:35 PM at the cost of Conan O’Brien show which would move to 12:05 AM.  Looks like Conan O’Brien did not agree for this.  There was some news that he may move to Fox Network.  Looks like the things are settling down now. NBC is paying about 40 million to Conan O’Brien to walk out of NBC network.  In addition to other items,  the package prohibits Conan from saying bad things about NBC.  Events like this since a month or two have made these late night shows very entertaining.