Evolution of the Cricket World Cup

A global event is always one of the important points in time in the history of any sport. Athletes and sports persons competing from across the world fighting for the title generates enthusiasm and interest like nothing else. Talk to someone about the history of football and you will find that the discussion is almost always centered around a World Cup. The Tennis has Tennis-Open tournaments, F1 has Grand Prix. Cricket is no different. The ICC Cricket World Cup as it known now is the most prestigious global one-day Cricket tournaments that are hosted and it has produced some of the most gripping One-Day International matches in the history of cricket. Here I present my views on Cricket's most-followed tournament. I start with how I started following the World Cup after which I discuss how the different World Cups have fared and how they have evolved with the passage of time. As it turns out, my views are largely centered around India and its progress in the World Cup many a times, but it is nevertheless quite interesting.

My first World Cup was the 1999 one held in England. I was born in 92 around 20 days after the end of that year's World Cup (you may say that I arrived on earth after watching it!) and I wasn't old enough to remember anything during the 96 one. I remember two games of the 99 world cup - one was India against Sri Lanka for that partnership between Ganguly and Dravid (I hadn't seen such a big parternship before and was expecting and waiting for a wicket to fall soon - I just thought that's the nature of the game!) and the second was the semi-final between Australia and South Africa - perhaps the latter one more etched because of the number of times I have watched it since but I also remember it because I could not understand back then why Australia had won the match even though the scores were level.

Our generation has seen Australia dominate from the time we gained our senses, but India hadn't played too bad either starting from the late 90s and into the 2000s, so it was not so much of a surprise to me that India did so well in the 2003 World Cup as it was to my father and his cricket-following friends. My father's generation had seen India losing more matches than winning, so they were always a little pessimistic about India's chances - always wary of an imminent collapse. I watched the 2003 World Cup in light of this pessimism, but by the end I had realised (even though we lost the final) that we had a good team and a great World Cup.

Let me also talk a bit about the previous World Cups - about which I have heard from my father and my grandfather and also from some of the video footage captured during that time.  The first match of the 1975 World Cup had the then underdogs India pitted against the host nation England - a match where the English made 330 odd runs to which India responded with just 132 runs from the entire 60 overs with Sunil Gavaskar scoring just 36 runs of 174 balls which he later admitted to be his worst innings. But the 1975 World Cup is more known for showing how a great leader united a bunch of different players from different islands playing for different counties into a team which had character - it was the period where the West Indies were champions, both on the field and in the people's hearts.

Interestingly the first two world cups had no fielding restrictions. West Indies arrived in the 1979 World Cup as defending champions and favourites and they played like that too - a big credit for this goes to the swashbuckler from Antigua - Vivian Richards. In the final of 1979, the English captain tried to take advantage of the lack of field restrictions and sent all his fielders to the boundary. But that made little difference to Richards, who played one of his best innings in the World Cup to give West Indies their second trophy.

The next four World Cups were all won by a team that was probably the least expected to win it at that time. India, Australia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka were all underdogs to start in their respective victorious campaigns. But they all had a captain who had a pivotal role in the side's victory. Kapil Dev, Alan Border, Imran Khan and Arjuna Ranatunga have all gone on to be remembered as one the best leaders their cricketing sides have ever produced and they have inspired many great players in the subsequent generations.

Coming back to 2007, I was fairly confident of India's chances and hence was absolutely gutted when I saw India lose to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in the manner they did. It was a terrible performance from India to be polite. I did not have much idea about the role of pitch and other factors in a game at that time, but I am sure I wouldn't have been able to convince myself otherwise even if I had known about such things.

But the year 2007 was an important year for other reasons. It changed my life as a cricket follower and also changed the history of Indian cricket. India were in England after the disappointing World Cup. It was the 6th ODI of the 7 match series. India were up against a stiff target in a must win game. It was night time in India and I was watching the match at home with my father. I generally used to comment on a lot of things during the match, most of which would be meaningless. But that match I was particularly quiet. For the first time I had a weary feeling in my chest - a feeling of anxiety - the closer we got the more it grew. And I clearly remember the joy and relief I had on my face when Uthappa hit the winning runs. It was a match where I evolved from just a cricket watcher to a cricket fan. From then on, I started concentrating really hard and watching every ball closely, especially when India was batting. I started listening to the commentary very closely and learning as much as I could from as many sources as were provided on the television during a live match. You can say that I was in good cricket-following form. I carried this form into the ICC World T20 held that year, which was a turning point in Indian cricket, changing our attitude towards limited overs cricket and also giving us a great leader in the form of Dhoni.

The 2011 World Cup was by far the best of the 10 World Cups in terms of crowd support, overall coverage, media involvement, skill levels and general hype. It was also my first ICC tournament as a Cricket-fan and not just an India-fan. Of course, India ended up winning the World Cup, but didn't always look like doing so. Many a times in the group stages, India were under more pressure than the other teams to perform in front of their crowds. Australia played well during the group stages - although one of their two tough games in the group - the one against Sri Lanka was washed out and so they weren't really tested until they came up against Pakistan. I also liked the role played by the associate teams in the tournament. They managed to beat a few teams and scare a few others. More importantly, they managed to expose weak links that some of the strong teams carried. Australia had come to the World Cup with a pace-heavy attack and Kenya managed to exposed just how dangerous that tactic could prove in the subcontinent especially towards the latter stages with the pitches getting slower and lower. This was exactly what undid Australia in the quarter finals - their only spinner Jason Krejza proved ineffective on a track where they needed him the most. South Africa played well too until the quarter final where they just, well let's say they just imploded. New Zealand slipped under the radar through the World Cup except in the game against Pakistan where they managed a 100 runs in the last 5 overs. This was in contrast to England who were always in the news for their up and down campaign. But both were run over by a rampant Sri Lankan side with devastating openers and a ruthless Captain. Sri Lanka played well and were strong favourites to win the cup when they reached the final. Then came India vs Pakistan, the most important and the most watched game of the tournament. It did indeed turn out to be the thriller that it was expected to be with India holding their nerve at the end to reach the final. India then played their best cricket in the final at Mumbai where despite the pressure of chasing a big total in a World Cup final and despite Sachin falling early, two Indians - Gautam Gambhir and MS Dhoni played the innings of their life to give India its second World Cup. India also became the first host nation to ever lift the World Cup - thanks largely to the coach Gary Kirsten, Paddy Upton and Mike Horn who gave some sound mental advice to the team. And also thanks to Captain Cool MS Dhoni.

Comparing and contrasting the World Cups, I think the first few World Cups displayed aggressive batting and fearless captaincy. The next few World Cups from 92-2003 were won by sides with a better bowling attack in terms of skill and temperament (although i know Ricky Ponting played a blinder in the 2003 final). The last two World Cups have seen an increase in the skill and the power hitting levels of the batsmen due to which it has become even more imperative to pick up wickets at regular intervals during the game. The current World Cup (2015) is no different. At the time of this writing, the group stages have just been completed and the focus has been on taking wickets. The teams at the top of the groups are the teams which have managed to pick up a lot of wickets. Having said that, power hitting talent is a must in your side. I feel England lacked that and this along with improper man management was the cause of their early exit from the World Cup.

The last few World Cups have seen an increase in the size of the bats which obviously favours the batsman. To counter that, the ICC changed the field restrictions to just four fielders outside the inner circle in the middle overs and at the death. Although this has resulted in many teams playing five frontline bowlers and looking to take wickets all the time, it still has played a lot in the hands of the batsmen who have made full use of it - most of the totals in the group stages have been 270+ with a lot of strong teams scoring 330+ many times.

A different thing observed this World Cup is the change in helmets that some player have decided to use in response to the injury which led to the death of Phil Hughes. There is no standardized version of these helmets yet but most of them have a protection now on the back of the neck which can avoid the ball sneaking through that gap. Let's hope this becomes a standard so that no other batsman has to face the tragedy faced by Phil Hughes.

There has also been the use of the Decision Review System (DRS) in the last two World Cups. It is generally not used when India is playing in a bilateral/tri-series, but it is mandatory for ICC tournaments. India suffered a little in the previous World Cup where their tied match against England involved a controversial decision in which the system gave Ian Bell not out. But overall the system has been good and no team has fared too badly.

There has been an increased use of technology to promote the World Cup this time - with Star Sports telecasting all World Cup matches live for free on the Internet on their website starsports.com and also on their apps on Android, iPhone and other major mobile platforms. The ICC has also launched an official app for the World Cup for mobile phones where the cricket fans can stay updated with the latest happenings of the World Cup. The ICC has also launched an official World Cup game for desktop and mobile which has generated interest among fans.

Talking about fans, they are and will always be the heart and soul of all World Cups. They are the reason the World Cup is such an important thing - they bring the World Cup alive with their passion, they inspire their teams to perform. A group of passionate fans cheering in the stadium can lift the morale of team and help them win in difficult situations. A classic example of this was the India vs South Africa game at MCG in this World Cup where the stadium was filled by a crowd of 86000 people, most of which were Indians. The amount of support for India and other subcontinent teams while playing abroad is just phenomenal and it's great to see their passion for the game. There is nothing better in sport than to see passionate and colourful fans enjoying their time in the crowds.

This was my view on the World Cups so far and how they've changed. Do let me know your views in the comments section below.

(Stats source: Cricinfo)

(This blog post was written as a part of the Blogger Dream Team Contest)

Your Team doesn't need a Manager. Your Team needs a Leader.

You are in office, sitting at your desk, minding your own business. You know you might not be the best but you still enjoy what you do. Then suddenly an email comes. You are invited to a meeting. You go in the conference room and see your team there. You realize you have a new Manager/Lead/Head. He introduces himself, talks about what he wants to do with the team, you listen. You wait. You wait and wait and wait. And then he talks about it. He talks about the "process" he wishes to put forward. He talks about the "expectations" he has from the team. He talks about the "responsibility" that team should have towards the company. You realize it is another one of those captains who would do well "on paper" but not in the real world.

I don't know why but most professional organizations today prefer trained managers/handlers as compared to intuitive leaders. These handlers specialize in "getting work done" out of people rather than motivating them to do it. They prefer to make sure the individuals abide by the law of the "process" rather than learning and growing themselves. I don't know why it's called a team, it looks like a group, the individuals don't learn from each other - Hell, they dont even learn from themselves. The captain is the most bizzare person in the team - he wants to get the work done - without getting his feet wet - and he doesn't take any responsibility if something goes wrong either. These are the characteristics of a team "owner", not a team "leader".

After looking at just a handful of leaders across different fields it becomes pretty much certain that leadership is something you can't obtain with beauty, brain or money. As my favourite Cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle very rightly puts it, "You can't just wake up one morning and say, 'Right 9 AM, Time to Lead'. That just doesn't happen". It has to come from within. And for this reason, good leaders stay the way they were before they became good leaders. It is because they had those qualities from a very young age and were shaped a great deal by it.

More than the skills, there are some features that distinguish good leaders from the not-so-good leaders. First and foremost is the respect for everybody else, not just in the team but in the entire community. It is natural, people only respect you when you have respect for them. Great leaders though, have not just respect but strong sense of belief in themselves and their team. They allow the team to follow their example. They impart this belief in the individual's mind and motivate him to realize his/her true value. This is the reason why quality people come from environments which have a good leader. Good leaders are also appreciated in the way they carry themselves. They generally have good ethics and moral values and are equally great to hangout with outside their profession. This quality of being a good person is what makes a lot of people want to be like them, which in turn produces some more good leaders. Another important quality is the strength to accept responsibility and stand by one's team when the team is going through tough times. It is easy to pick a scape goat, everyone loves to do it. Good leaders realize the truth, accept it and stay by it.

Such people are found in almost all fields. I am a cricket fan and I find a lot of similarities between the philosophies of life and the game of cricket, so most of my examples are always from cricket. Cricket has had it share of leaders as well. In fact most world cups have given the game a new leader. Clive Lloyd, Kapil Dev, Alan Border, Imran Khan, Arjuna Ranatunga, Steve Waugh, Ricky Ponting, Saurav Ganguly, Ian Chappel, MS Dhoni to name a few. Of all these, I have only observed Dhoni very closely and I am certain he fulfills all the requirements I mentioned above.

I hope the organizations will realize some day that their current approach is too mechanical and would look to add a human touch to it. Then instead of following a "process", they would let individuals play their own game. Monotony would be replaced by Innovation and the individuals would become better professionals as well as better persons in life. There is always hope and room for improvement. May sanity prevail!

Final Evaluation Passed

I just passed the final evaluation for Google Summer of Code 2012. Feels Good ! :D

I am working on the same project, Choqok with the same guy, Mehrdad.

This time though its more fun ! ( and some money as well ! )

The certificate and T-Shirt looks good but it all about the feeling that makes it all an awesome experience. 

What is the one thing that I would like to change about the profesors at DA-IICT ?

What is the one thing that I would like to change about the profesors at DA-IICT ?

There is a belief in the air that the initial 5-6 years of DA-IICT were "Dream Years" for the Institute since the students were believed to be talented and were very much interested in doing research and innovation. With the passing years, though there has been some change, something that can definitely be felt. We can always argue that the criteria for selection, i.e. the AIEEE exam has degraded in its value. But I believe the students are still talented enough. Where then is the problem ?

The answer to both the above questions is the same : " The attitude , or rather the mindset, of some of the professors towards the students of the current batches is a little off-path." (I obviously dont have a sureshot proof of this, but judging by the clues that I shall provide later, it might be true.) And this is exactly what I would like to change. When I compare DA-IICT with the Top IITs, there was always one significant difference that I have felt - in IIT there are good and bad students, and the sometimes difference between them is vast. In DA-IICT, students might be average but all are of the same level more or less. This difference, however, is fastly eroding. We are embeding in us a part of IIT's culture, but unfortunately, the bad part.

Its almost as if the professors think "Chalta hai. Students ko kuch padi nahi hai. Koi iska benefit nai uthayega. They just dont care." before presenting any oppurtunity to the students to present themselves ( not to speak-up, but to present some quality (not necessarily academic) work). I am not talking about Assignments or home-works, they are mostly monotonous. I am talking about Ideas - allow the students to live the subject by allowing them to make some effort towards creating innovation. Of course, there are students who hate all this - in some cases they form the majority, but that by no means should discourage the teacher from providing oppurtunities to students.

Another clue that we can derive is the way our answer papers are presented to us. It almost defeats the entire purpose of exam. I believe exams are meant not only to asses students but also to deliver feedback - timely and correct feedback. There are a few professors today who either dont deliver papers on time or dont make sure that it is checked correctly. Sometimes the papers are corrected by TAs who have no idea what is going on in the course and they expect an altogether different level from the students. The result - students suffer when they dont live upto the so called "expectations" of the TAs - I have seen one of my professors admit that getting TAs to correct the paper can be nasty in such situations for the professor himself - there are a lot of rechecks of things that were never wrong in the first place. Every student has a right to view his answer papers on time and properly corrected, so the professors MUST show the papers. Not showing them on time/ giving improper feedback  does not help the student to assess himself as to where he stands and how he needs to position himself for the coming part of the course. Amir Khan's dialogue from 3 Idiots " Is se Knowledge badhegi ? Nahi. Sirf Pressure Badhega" fits relevantly here. Also, I strongly feel that the professor ought to make sure there is a key for the question paper and that each student MUST get his answer paper back so that he can keep it for future reference. Some might argue that the students themselves are culprits at times - they cheat, they dont pay heed, they dont learn from their mistakes - but that by no means is a valid arguement for a professor to restrain himswlf from all the above.

At the end of it all, I wanna say that this applies to some of the professors as there are professors I know who provide ample feedback to the students on time - and this helps the students more often than not. And this is exactly how it should be. We need Professors - Teachers - Mentors - Guides who can show us the way. We dont need Bosses who control us ( not referencing any one in particular - due respect to all). This is definitely the one change that I would like to see in the professors of DA-IICT. Si esto sucede, he visto todo en DAIICT !

- Pankaj Bhambhani

Questionnaire for my SEN (Software Engineering) project

Hi there,

Below is a small Questionnaire for my SEN (Software Engineering) project which I would like you to fill. It'll help me a lot.

If you feel this form looks a little cosy here, you can go directly to the form here

GamePlay Form

Hi there,

Below is a small Gameplay Form which I would like you to fill. It'll help me a lot.

If you feel this form looks a little cosy here, you can go directly to the form here

Optimisation – A Devil Unleashed

Optimisation – A Devil Unleashed

"Optimization hinders evolution."                - Anon. (Source: Internet)

I don’t know how my Professor was feeling when he was teaching us to write a so-called “Optimal Algorithm”, but I was not feeling good about it. I have never felt good about Optimisation in general, and this was no exception. I’ve never hated engineering in my life, but this was probably the first time I was feeling oblivious about an aspect of engineering. Optimisation was probably getting more share of assiduity than it deserved, and in my mind I could imagine the fate of engineering if things continued to be how they are.

"More computing sins are committed in the name of efficiency (without necessarily achieving it) than for any other single reason — including blind stupidity." 

— W.A. Wulf (Source: Internet)

“Optimisation has always been a natural part of engineering”, a friend of mine once said. True however he may be, I caught a different but equally true meaning of the statement – “Optimisation is only a part of engineering”. But the way I’ve spent my two (and a half) years here indicates me that we’ve hardly done anything but optimisation. Adding salt to the wound, one of our professors once claimed “All Engineering problems are, beyond a point, money related problems”. I know Technology hardly has any fault in this, but then there is no fault of Science either. It is mostly the domain and aspect of the problem – the “application” factor as we can label it that causes  Optimisation to creep in. (Just because I am writing Optimisation in Camel Case every time doesn’t mean I have any sort of reverence towards it, Nota Bene.)

I have always believed that Everything in life has some pros and cons – what may look good in one aspect may be bad in some other. But everybody has some priorities – it is like a window – we can’t see the entire world through it – but we pick only those things that look good while viewing from that window. This ideology again has its own advantages and disadvantages.

"The First Rule of Program Optimization: Don't do it. The Second Rule of Program Optimization (for experts only!): Don't do it yet."                 — Michael A. Jackson (Source: Internet)

Optimisation, as I believe, is by all means born to create hierarchy. For the very same reason, I have never understood why Optimisation is done in case of algorithms – the ugly and complex algorithm is chosen over the beautiful and simple one. Why don’t we realise how unjust it is for the beautiful algorithm to get rejected? What if such beautiful algorithms get livid and spark a riot tomorrow? Does the human race today have any protective measures to fight algorithms?

“Everyone by now presumably knows about the danger of premature optimization. I think we should be just as worried about premature design - designing too early what a program should do.”               Paul Graham (Source: Internet)

At the end of it all I can only say that Optimisation in the form that it portrayed – as being of religious importance to Engineering – appears Paranormal to me. As a precautionary measure for a Layman passing by, every Institute should have a “Beware of Optimisation” Board on its Entrance. As I conclude, the fate of Engineering appears clear to me. Either it has to threat Optimisation out of practice or someday some of its own  tools  (a revolting Algorithm for example) will seal its fate.

-         Pankaj Bhambhani

Science, Technology, Technique and the Blackbox

Science ? - The intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment

(Source:Google)

Technology ? - The application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes (Source:Google)

Technique ? - A way of carrying out a particular task, esp. the execution or performance of an artistic work (Source:Google)

Blackbox ? - In science and engineering, a black box is a device, system or object which can be viewed solely in terms of its input, output and transfer characteristics without any knowledge of its internal workings, that is, its implementation is "opaque" (black). Almost anything might be referred to as a black box: a transistor, an algorithm, or the human mind. (Source:Wikipedia)

Are they “all” interconnected ?

My thoughts : Science is everything and everything is science. (In reference to the above four).

Technology, Technique and Blackbox are all Science behind the scene. All Science.

If we (by “we”, I mean the End User) interpret Technology, Technique and Blackbox – all as a job or an aid for a job, then we can think in this way. - They can all be considered as a Development Kit (DK). Just in case of softwares, we have Software Development Kit (SDK), which are all just libraries of code behind the scene, we can think here that Technology is nothing but a Development Kit (DK), which is nothing but Science behind the scene.

Same is true for technique and black boxed approach. A Technique – like driving a car – can be considered as a Development Kit (DK) which is nothing but an abstraction of a set of scientic principles which are aidful for that job. These scientific principles are moulded for easier and quick manipulation for the particular technique or job. When we learn a new technique, we dont learn anything new, we only combine a set of scientific principles that we already know and mould them in a manner that we can easily remeber and can quickly use.

In the case of a car, we can clearly realise that the actual working of car engine is pretty complex and what we really see is an abstraction of the science that goes in the making of the car engine. What we see is the Steering, the Gear, the Clutch, the Acclerator and the Brake. We think of our car in terms of these parameters, hence , these parameters comprise our Development Kit (DK). The Car does not appear to us in terms of its science, in terms of the actual scientific principles that lie behind the scenes, but those principles are “moulded” for easier and quick manipulation – it is really easy for us to view the car in terms of the Steering and the Gear rather than to view that car in terms of its complex interconnections. This is a very good example of a black boxed approach. Another good example is the Computer – very similiar to the above example works on complex interconnections but is viewed differently and abstractly.

It can be concluded from the above that Technology, Technique and the Blackbox are no different from science, at least behind the scene, and therefore should not be viewed differently either. This observation can help us keep our minds composed in case we face a new Technology, because we generally need not learn anything new, we only need to mould science together to achieve success.

Season of KDE

Hi,

I took part in Season of KDE this year (2011) and I worked with Choqok - a Microblogging Client. Choqok had support for three Microblogging services as of now - Twitter, OCS (Open Collaboration Services) and Laconica - and we planned to add a fourth Service - Facebook.

More specifically Akonadi has its own resource library for interacting with Facebook - it can get friends, events, notes, photos, etc. We used this library for our "Choqok Facebook Plugin".

As of now, this Facebook Resource is bundled with Akonadi Resource , but they soon plan to release KFacebook as a separate library for Applications that want to interact with Facebook .

The First Part of the Job was to broaden the Facebook Library to be able to add , retrieve and manipulate Facebook Post Objects - the news feed and the wall posts,
Once this was done, building the rest of the plugin wasnt going to be very difficult, though it wasnt a piece of cake either :) . The code of other microblogs proved to be very, very beneficial in approaching the development as well as in clearing the queries.

As of now, the Choqok Facebook Plugin can be used to post "text" messages, it can show your Facebook "Home" Timeline - wherein it can show links and text status with ease. For Photos and Videos, we have a link of the photos in the status in place of actual Photos/Videos. And, of course, there is a link to the current Post, using which you can view it on Facebook.

Currently, the facebook plugin is not merged into the main Choqok Repository, but is avaialble as a sub project on github. You can download the reposotory here ( it is named "Choqok-Trial"). Build it and try it out. Leave feedback as comments. You can also contact me personally on my email pankajb64@gmail.com

A big Thanks to my mentor - Mehrdad Momeny for guiding me through and to Thomas McGuire for helping me with Akonadi Facebook Resource. Thanks to the entire KDE community in general for such a warm welcome. :)

I have included some of the snapshots of the Choqok Facebook Plugin. Check out





Thanks
Pankaj Bhambhani.

Banana 3ds max

Some time ago I was trying to learn Autodesk 3ds Max as a part of Game Development. I tried to create a bunch of bananas, but the bananas ended up looking like toothpaste tubes. It is shown below.

My FPS Game in Unity

I recently created a simple First person Shooter (FPS) game with the Unity 3D Game Engine.

And its now running on Google's Servers (on Google App Engine).

Here's The Link. Try it!!

My First Unity FPS Game

P.S. : You may need to install the Unity Web Player if you don't have it installed already.

Java Game Development - Video Tutorials

Bucky Roberts has prepared video tutorials for Game Development in Java
and many other exciting video Tutorials.

He's done a really good job.

Check out his website here

Java Game Development Tutorials can be found here

Thanx.

A Nice Article

Welcome To My Blog.

Hello,



I am Pankaj Bhambhani, a Software Engineer from Mumbai, India.



I am not very much fond of blogging but I occasionally do love to share my interests with the world.



I  love Programming , Game Design , Cricket and more.


I would occasionally pen down my thoughts here. If you find them interesting, do let me know in the comments section and do share them with others as well.

Thats all folks !! 



Signing off



Pankaj.

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