Oh no! Not again...

If there ever was a case of a picture saying a thousand words:

The secret to removing The Great Man has been revealed: let him get to 95. I think - don't quote me on this - he's been dismissed almost half a dozen times in the nervous nineties over the last year. Mohan, you fancy a statsguru of his ODI scores since the bilateral series with South Africa in the UK before the Test tour of England? The one they won 2-1? Perhaps you could it append it to this post.

Postscript - 23 November 2007
Some flowing prose from a favourite cricket writer, Rohit Brijnath in The Hindu:

Tendulkar’s body may have healed and allowed him a fuller expression of strokes, but it is his confidence in himself, confidence that was shaken and rattled surely but never extinguished, that carried him on. He still gets beaten some days, but he is also more fluent, too, astonishing no less in his ability to rack up scores of 99, 93, 8, 17, 99, 8, 55, 71, 94, 30, 0, 16, 43, 79, 47, 72, 21, 4, 99, 29, 97 in his last 21 one-day innings.

What does Tendulkar play for? Team, himself, pride, records? Maybe he plays because part of him is just a boy who finds himself when bat meets ball. Maybe he plays because of a boy agog in the stands. Maybe he has summoned this last reservoir of energy to show a kid, now old enough to understand, why, for 18 years, the world has made such a fuss about his father.

FIGJAM

A good friend told me yesterday that this was the acronym the Aussies use as a nickname for Kevin Pieterson. It stands for 'F*ck I'm Good, Just Ask Me.' I've always called him "The Ego,' but his performance last night was simply awesome.

He has been accused, and one suspects always will be, of showmanship and a singular devotion to himself, but as long as he can produce match-turning innings as he did at Lord's on the fourth day, his team-mates will be mad to complain.

I suppose the same descriptor could be given to Shane Warne as well, but few batsmen can change the course of a game, with such minimal support and under such trying conditions:

England were in danger of being bowled out for under 200 today. The Indian bowlers did themselves credit in the morning session. The sun was shining and the conditions were not helpful to swing bowling as they were on the first three days but the Indian medium pacers stuck to a run-denying line, and RP Singh combined some sharp balls with the knack of picking up wickets to reduce England to 132 for five a few minutes before lunch. Considering that England had lost six for 26 in the first innings, India were in with a chance.

As it happened, England lost their last five for 31. In between, though, Matt Prior stayed with Pietersen long enough after lunch for England to add 120 runs in 25 overs. Prior wasn't a spectator, but the session after lunch bore Pietersen's stamp. His game is based far more on calculation than on instinct and he picked his spots surgically.

I suppose India still have a chance - since rain is a chance event. Thank god I learnt about influence diagrams last semester. Remember anything in an oval is a uncertain event. Let's hope the gods of managerial decision science smile down on the Indians tonight - failing that, let's hope someone makes a big hundred.

Another engineer changing the world

An interesting article from cricinfo about The Mont. Some nice issues about the immigrant experience in Britain.

It's certainly hard to imagine Panesar would find the time these days to do anything as lofty as the "Mathematical Modelling of Physical Systems", which was the title of his final-year dissertation. "Basically you have to simulate a pendulum, using a java programme - an applet." He enthusiastically simulates a pendulum, using his precious spinning finger. "The user sets the settings: the speed of the pendulum, and the time and the distance. And speed equals distance over time." By now he's a daze of gesticulations. "It'll oscillate to whatever time is set. If it's a short time, it oscillates quicker."

His delightfully hyperactive explanation reveals once again Monty's child-like awe for, well, pretty much everything. But in the grand spectrum of all things awesome, there was one moment in his life that will never, surely, be matched. That came on March 2, 2006, in the 18th over of his first spell in Test cricket. Panesar leans forward and his voice drops to a reverential hush.

"It's crazy. Think about it, someone from my background, who'd basically come from a park pitch, and there I was, bowling to my hero, Sachin Tendulkar, who I'd seen all the time on TV. It was like - well, I'm playing Test cricket now, but let's look at the opposition ... Sachin ... Dravid ... Sehwag ... Laxman ... Dhoni. And you just hold your breath and think 'Oh ... my ... god'. That's when it hits you. I used to play cricket in the park, and now I'm here. In India."

What happened next has already passed into folklore. "I was just lucky it hit his pad before his bat," says Panesar. The ball pitched, bit, straightened, and Tendulkar was on his way, lbw for 16. The dream debut wicket. After the match, Tendulkar signed the ball which is now "preciously" locked away in Monty's bedroom. On it, Tendulkar added: "Once in a blue moon, mate, never again."

A stirring fightback from india today... faaaatta-faaaat!