Attempt to compare Cricket and Football World Cup

It’s the Cricket season. First the international focus with the ICC World Cup 2011 and then the domestic blast of IPL 4. 

Now that the #WC11 is already underway, some concerns are being raised that fewer teams contesting would make the game more competitive and enjoyable. First it was in the reports that the 50 over game is under threat and only the success of #WC11 can make it survive, then it was about minnows not giving any competition to the stalwarts.

2010 saw the FIFA world cup and now every “paul” is referred to Psychic should make you understand the popularity of the game and general interest in it. Immense competition and ‘Vuvuzelas’ made the game more enjoyable and it was a huge success both for the spirit of the game and economically too, especially for the hosting country.

Just to compare two of the most famous games and their impacts here’s a small Comparison:

Vs 

The Game:

·         Football as a game wins because of the speed, lesser play time and more action. It is played in more countries of the world than Cricket.

·       Cricket has been traditionally a longer scheduled game and is evolving to be a shorter action packed adventure with the 20-20 world cup and the likes.

The Impact:

·         FIFA 2010 was supposedly the most viewed event in the sporting history. I do not think #WC11 will be able to surpass that record.

·         Impact of Cricket however, on the sub continent is very huge more so because of the lack of football action.

·         In India Cricket is the last word. Think it like this: How many people would leave a India vs XYZ match for FIFA qualifier or for that matter UEFA cup match, leave alone the domestic matches.

Media and Promotion

·         While ESPN has a $ 2 billion USD contract to broadcast he games around the world FIFA had sold its rights to multiple channels across countries and some free to air channels too.

·         Although in terms of sheer advertising revenue FIFA would loose because of the shorter version of the game and lesser slots for advertising, it will still be ranked higher because of the more eyeballs it grabs.

Although the points try to make an emphasis on football emerging to be on the upper hand against cricket, but personally I am more of a cricket spectator than football. Hope to see some great moments and intense action in the upcoming games. 

If you like the idea of comparing the two games, leave your views in the comments.

The curious case of Internet Meme

Disclaimer: The following post is a very useless post about one word that got me into spending some time on the net discovering what I present below. Please read further only if you have nothing better to do except wasting time on Facebook applications.

Type any twitter handle into Google and we get to see a host of websites using twitter feeds, twitter handle groups, follower lists, re-tweets etc. I found something interesting here’s a screenshot:

It was interesting to find the last website, at first I did not much understand the meaning of the website except may be it filed my tweets with cricket as the keywords. But I was interested to know the meaning of the word “meme”

As per Wikipedia:

A meme, a relatively newly coined term, identifies ideas or beliefs that are transmitted from one person or group of people to another. The concept comes from an analogy: as genes transmit biological information, memes can be said to transmit idea and belief information.

When I checked into the website www.tweetmeme.com I came to understand that what it did was, to classify the most shared or rather discussed links on the micro blogging site twitter. The what how and why has been answered by them here

So what is the concept here? I thought it may be just a stand alone website catering to twitter like the ancillaries to big businesses. But no, we now have many such “memes” across the internet that helps the reader to check out the latest trends and discussions on the web on a particular topic of interest. For example techmeme is solely catering to technology news and updates being shared by us the users.

This is pretty much what I could do with one word. If you are genuinely pissed off after reading this article, vent your anger in the comments section.

Amritsar Trip - Learned. Experienced. enjoyed.

Type Amritsar into Google and you would get the Golden city name with images of the Golden Temple. But it is not only Golden Temple, there are two very significant places Wagah Border and Jalianwalah Bagh. 

Amritsar is a must visit place for young children who read about the Indian history and to develop the pride of being Indian. I understand that this sounds a bit like lecturing and already known facts being juggled but actually its only after visiting the place I can surely say it is sure going to give you goosebumps when you visit both the places.

Following are few photographs that must be there on the internet but sharing them here:

The Indian Gate at Wagah Border

The place in jaliawalan bagh where Dyar gave the orders to kill the innocents.

The wall that took 28 bullets

Although the city is a relatively small one, people are very cooperative and there is a general feel good factor among one and all. I have visited a few temple and shrines but Golden temple is very different. The experience is surreal to say the least. 

It just takes a weekend plan to get away from busy Delhi to reach this place. On a different note food is great here. For the non vegetarians to dig on special chicken. There is a Dhaba called Shankar dhaba on the route to wagah border, do not miss the Malai chicken there and the lassi is also a must at any place but people will guide you to the most famous one easily.

P. S: We also caught our very own Siddhu Paji along with the budding MP from Himachal before their Lal chowk campaign. Courtesy a friend Nilesh Taunk below is the photograph:

The Dawn of the Eastern Sun!!

Sourav Chandidas Ganguly has had a brilliant cricket career filled the Grandeur and Drama just like a Karan Johar-Yash Raj movie; but it has come as a big shock when two days of glamour filled auction could not create a buyer for the splendid Captain.

Photo courtesy: www.bollywoodmantra.com/
So why did no one show interest in the Man, the Maharaja of Bengal!!

In order to find the actual reason I have gone through quite a few articles on the net and few newspapers but no clear ideology seems to have come out and almost everyone is shocked.

KKR had made the scene almost clear of not retaining him after not retaining him. Most people then had commented that he could bought at a lower price in the auction and to retain him the management needs to sacrifice much cash. Unfortunately he could not find a taker in the other nine teams too.

Times of India has mentioned in their article 'Black Sunday' marks the end of Ganguly's IPL innings: “it was baffling why teams like Pune, Kochi and Deccan Chargers — who had plenty of money in their kitty — refused to go for Sourav even though they didn't have enough Indian batsmen on their rosters.”

Almost whole of Bengal has started their Monday in protest against the humiliation of DADA! Even die hard SRK Fans (some of my very good friends) have staged their protest across the social networking platforms. Few things:

• Why did Mr. Ganguly raise his base price? Obviously, He must have thought that he would not find many takers. The idea is if his base price was low even then he could have fetched a handsome amount had the teams bid for him so keep the price high to at least take home a good, “respective” amount.

• What next for KKR? By now I am sure the Management has started to feel the tension of finding low ticket sales and chances of empty Eden(My God!)

One good option is to use him off the field as mentor, Coach or advisor but this will not work. Why? Answer is here

First, I had thought that the teams were making right choices looking at the horizon of three seasons, the fitness levels and availability of fresh talent in the pool at lower the prices. But that is only one side of the business. What about the brand KKR?? Without the Kolkata Knight Rider will not make any sense. It is a fact that without DADA the K in KKR will be lost.

I read on Twitter, SMS doing the rounds - "My name is KOLKATA and I don’t play without GANGULY. No Ganguly, no KKR, I was sure that this “chingari” is going to become a big flame and now Mr Khan has resorted to damage control with some kind of offer to Ganguly in the management team but I am sure Dada will not accept it.

So much for playing with heart and performing at the peak levels in the IPL seasons; In the end all that matters is Money Honey!!



Christmas weekend to Mandarmoni

Seldom do we plan things so accurately that the implementation happens point blank. The Christmas Eve holiday made the most opportune time for us to get away from the crowded city to a serene beach. Mandarmoni is a beach resort slowly taking over the tourist choice from Digha for the Bengali looking to spread the legs in the weekends.
Anyways with the Christmas season most of the resorts were full and we were lucky to get a good bargain of a package stay at The Blue Lagoon, not a luxurious resort but the guys were good at service to say the least. The day one was engulfed by journey to the resort and we could only enjoy the night at the beach.

On the Christmas day, we took on the sea and had loads of fun. The evening was spent on a boat ride at the Mohana delta; we started from the river and went on to the sea riding on the waves, watching the sun set into the sea was a beautiful experience. Our trip was supposed to end on the third day with a bus ride back to the city, but the morning tea brought some thoughtful sparks of adventure and we changed course.

We took detour to Digha via a lonely beach at Tajpur, because the other evening we noticed Parasailing happening at that beach!! Anyways we were not lucky to get the feel of flying without wings, but adventure on the mind something had to be done, so we chose rafting on the waves. We could not imagine such activities in Bengal and always thought Rishikesh or Goa is the place to be for these activities.

For a non swimmer going into the water is always a matter of apprehension, but the guys gave us the confidence and we jumped in, fighting the waves trying to coordinate with the Oars we had a lifetime experience. These guys have made a very nice package with group activities filled with adventure. The name of the group is Himalayan Retreat and one needs to book the dates in advance to enjoy the nature and adventure.