Year: 2007

• Karnataka seems to have been badly let down by its batsmen. The only game so far where they’ve even secured a first innings lead was against Himachal Pradesh, where Dravid led them with a double hundred (Karnataka went on to win the game by an innings). One look at the season’s run getters chart shows where Karnataka has been faltering – the highest run getter is Dravid, who has played only two games so far.
• The main reason for Karnataka doing so well last season was Robin Uthappa, who was the highest run getter in the season. He has badly failed this time, scoring a solitary fifty, and the rest of the batting hasn’t shown much teeth. The captain Yere Goud must be held singularly responsible for the loss to Saurashtra. Five to get from five balls with a wicket in hand, and he takes a single to give strike to the number eleven – who gets promptly bounced out.
• Interestingly, Karnataka’s bowlers seem to be doing quite well if one looks at the charts, with three of them in the top 10 among wicket takers. Apart from the ongoing match, they seem to have done quite well, only to have been let down by their batsmen.
• When the groups were formed, it was expected that Group A would be a quadrangular contest between Bombay, Delhi, TN and Karnataka. Delhi have performed to potential, topping the group. However, tied for second place with Bombay are the surprise packages of this competition – Saurashtra and Maharashtra. Even Rajasthan and HP, who bring up the rear in the group, have been no pushovers.
• Delhi has been helped by some extremely strong batting performances, with everyone save Sehwag contributing and making big hundreds. Aakash Chopra made a strong claim for a recall to the Indian team. However, in the name of aggression Sehwag has been preferred. Delhi have also been well served by their bowlers with Pradeep Sangwan being outstanding. They haven’t really missed the injured Ashish Nehra and Ishant, who is in the national team.
• Saurashtra received a boost with their close win over Karnataka and they seem to be in a good position to qualify for the semis. It is likely to be a kind of knockout between them and Bombay in the final round. Cheteshwar Pujara tops the run scoring chart, while their fast bowling pair of Jobanputra and Maniar have done extremely well. Jobanputra also chipped in with a crucial lower order fifty against Karnataka.
• However, the surprise package of the group has been Maharashtra, who till recently seemed to be in an excellent position to qualify. However, given that they aren’t doing too well in the ongoing game, they may not make it. Read this piece by Siddharth Monga for more about the team. I don’t think I can add anything to that.
• Group B has been much more closely contested, with only two points separating the last six teams, and Baroda qualifying easily. Newly promoted Orissa were thought to be the whipping boys of this group. However, a couple of strong performances – led by the indefatigable Debashis Mohanty – have put them in a good position to even challenge for the title. Bengal, with their excellent pace attack, prepared a green top at Siliguri, only for the idea to backfire with Debashis Mohanty and B Mohanty (a debutant) belting Bengal. This match reminded me of the Hyderabad-Bengal game last season, where Hyderabad prepared a green top at home, and it had backfired badly with Bose coming up with a superb performance.
• Speaking of Bengal, they were expected to do well this season given the return from injury of SS Paul to partner Bose with the new ball. However, due to a large number of defections to the ICL, their batting has become over-reliant on Manoj Tiwary, and has sunk and swam with his performances. Their captain LR Shukla is now playing almost as a specialist batsman and bowls only occasionally. If you recall, he was in the shortlist for the 1999 World Cup as a fast bowling all-rounder! Thankfully, when it came to final selection, the selectors had looked beyond the shortlist and picked Mohanty. Anyways, Bengal has collapsed once again to UP, with a bowling pitch at the Eden Gardens backfiring badly.
• The thing with group B is that a large number of teams have been badly hit by the ICL. Bengal lost half its batsmen and its keeper. Hyderabad lost all but two players from last season (hat tip: Baada). Arjun Yadav, son of ex-India off-spinner Shivlal Yadav, has hit back strongly at critics who said that he was made captain because of “quota”. He seems to be Hyderabad’s most consistent run getter this season. They seemed to be prime candidates for relegation from their group until their come from behind win over Andhra. Given the volatility of the group, one won’t be surprised if they qualify for the semis.
• My bet for relegation from this group is Punjab. They too have been badly hit by the ICL, and playing their last game now (this group has an odd number of teams, so Punjab gets a bye in the last round), yet to win a game and are joint last in the group. My prediction is that Mohanty at Mohali will be too much for Punjab to handle, and they are unlikely to beat Orissa.
• UP have had a mixed season, and are still joint last in the group. However, I expect them to beat Bengal in this round and stay afloat. Raina has been batting well, but Kaif hasn’t. Chawla too has been okay-ish and I think they’ve missed RP. They should stay on I think.
• Any new India hopefuls? Raina might have been knocking back on the door, but unfortunately for him, the batting lineup in both forms seems quite saturated, and he might have to wait a while more. Pujara will continue making it to shortlists but I don’t expect him to be capped soon. Basically if Yuvraj is finding it tough to get a spot in the test squad, none of these chaps can, unless he’s a specialist opener. And looking down the list of run getters, the top openers are the discarded Chopra and Ravi Teja of Hyderabad and LNP Reddy of Andhra. Don’t see any of them making it. As mentioned earlier, Uthappa has failed badly this season, else he might have stood a chance in the longer variety.
• Amongst bowlers, Pankaj Singh has already made it to the squad. And despite their splendid performances I don’t see the likes of Ashok Thakur (HP) or Sandeep Jobanputra making it – if not for anything else, they are left armers and we have a surfeit of them in the national team right now. The same logic might keep out Pradeep Sangwan, who looks like a decent prospect. He might make it sometime in the future.
• And of course, the best part of the season has been the two close finishes in the previous round. Both games went right down to the wire, with all three results having a significantly non-zero probability when the last ball was bowled. I read on cricinfo that in the history of Ranji trophy there have been less than five games with a victory margin of less than five runs. And now you have a 2-run margin and a 3-run margin. What joy!
• And a word also has to be written about the changed points system. Now, teams earn a point if they draw a game after conceding a first innings lead. This has significantly contributed to making the game more interesting.

Phew, never imagined I’d write so much. I know that I should’ve been doing this more regularly.

As you might have figured out,

, kodhi and I were supposed to go to Sikkim and Bhutan. then, bj’s leave got suddenly canceled and he had to back out and it was just the two of us. And about a week before we were supposed to leave,

comes to Bangalore and comes up with this brilliant idea. He says if we can chuck the trip to the north east and go somewhere close by, Sathya (who was about to finish a project and thus get leave) and he could join us. And that instead of two of us boring each other for fourteen days, four of us could have fun for four. I’ll cut the story here, get back to abusing bongs for rioting in calcutta and get on with the story.

We were going to Highlands Home Stay near chickmaglur for a couple of days. We were to reach there on Monday and were planning to leave on Wednesday. Manu was to come back to bangalore while we would go on to goa. Everything seemed fine. Except that it was already Sunday morning and we were yet to decide on transport.

The idea was to rent a car, maybe from Avis. However, none of us was taking responsibility for it. Then, my mom threw a fit and told me that she won’t allow me to drive in the Ghats and that we should hire a car with a driver. However, what were we to do with a car and driver when we were staying at one place for two days? Numerous SMSs and conference calls later, we had decided to go by bus, and I promptly booked tickets up to Chickmaglur. There was going to be a little problem here, as described later.

The jeep from the estate was bang on time picking us up from the Chickmaglur bus stand. It was as rickety as it got, as we headed away from the town, after buying enormous quantities of bottled water, soft drinks, biscuits and beer. We were soon off the main road and into the Ghats, and the air got colder and the views got better. And the roads got bumpier. Also, I should mention here that the leg space in the jeep was minimal and we were in acute danger of falling victim to deep vein thrombosis.

We stopped at some random village on the way and there was a change of jeep personnel. Our drivers got off to be replaced by a new pair of drivers and about a kilometer later, we had gone off road and into dirt tracks. It had also gotten dark by now. A while before someone had mentioned that Chickmaglur district was a Naxal-affected area. A while later, someone remarked that the jeep drivers were naxals and were out to kidnap us. Why else would there be two guys in front, we asked ourselves?

The darkness and the path that we were taking convinced us that these guys were indeed naxals, and we were indeed being kidnapped. A couple of times we did ask the guys where they were taking us. And they replied “estate”. We were totally at their mercy, and could do nothing about it now. The road twisted and turned and the jeep clattered and clanged. After what seemed like an eternity, we saw a few electric lights. A lone colonial-looking house in the middle of nowhere. We had reached.

Highlands estate is a 250-acre coffee and pepper estate, and lies in the middle of nowhere near chickmaglur, in the Bababudangiri range. They also grow pepper and cardamom along with the coffee, and the estate gets its water and power from a small stream that flows through. A turbine has been placed in the stream, and thus the estate is self-sufficient in terms of electricity. There are no mobile phone signals available, so you are completely cutoff from civilization. The rooms are comfortable, though the hot water in the loo is muddy.

It was a nice lazy day and a half that we spent at highlands. We took the occasional walk, once to a “sunset point” (I went there alone – the others decided to turn back halfway; and by the time i reached there the sun had set) and once to the little stream that flows through the estate. Simple south indian breakfast lunch and dinner were served to us at the appropriate times. There was coffee available, though none of us took a liking for it! such irony. The views were spectacular, as was the weather. Just the hint of sunlight but there was still the chill in the air. And there were the long bitching sessions.

One of our two evenings there was spent star-gazing. We were so far off from civilization that we could see a sky full of stars. So full that we couldn’t even spot the Orion (the only constellation we can easily see in the city)! We watched a few shooting stars. Followed the path of a few satellites. Tried to remember some high school physics. And Sathya was explaining some random involved mathematical concepts.

On wednesday morning, before we left the estate, Sam (the owner of the estate – a fairly young chap) took us on an estate tour. It was as if we were back in school as he explained to us the coffee growing process, the processing process, the kind of beans, the coffee market and the like. We got talking about the ubiquitous cafe coffee day. He said that the owners of coffee day own some 10,000 acres of plantation, and are india’s largest exporters.

The way back was once again by the rickety jeep. This time, it was in broad daylight and there was only one driver. And we followed the same dirt path back. We were confident we weren’t being kidnapped by naxals this time. And Sam had anyways told us that there were none in Chickmaglur. Most of them were in the Sringeri area. Soon, in due course, our phones started buzzing with SMSs. We were back in civilization. And planning the next leg of the trip.

After a quick run of the A* algorithm (in this stochastic case), there were two clear routes. One was to go to Mangalore and then take an overnight bus or a train from there. However, the earliest we could reach Mangalore would be at nine pm, at which time it would be next to impossible to find an overnight bus. We settled for the other option.

Kodhi has had a hate-hate relationship with Shimoga. He?d been there only once before, and that was for an inter-college fest where he didn?t particularly do well. The fest on the whole had turned out to be a disaster, with the only positive being that kodhi had fallen in love with a classmate. I don?t know if I?d be adding much value if I were to tell you that that love story (kodhi and his classmate) didn?t last too long.?

It was six in the evening when we reached Shimoga, and the first thing we did was to assess options. The hunch that had led me to take this path was that the Shimoga-Karwar market would be well-served, and if we could get to Karwar, goa wasn?t too far away. This assumption had been based on the fact that one of my relatives used to frequently travel between Shimoga and Karwar!

One look at the board in the Shimoga bus stand destroyed all hope. The only bus to Karwar was at ten in the morning. There were a couple of rays of hope, however ? there were two overnight semi-deluxe buses going ALL THE WAY to Panjim. The worst case wasn?t too bad, we decided. Quick enquiries around the bus stand revealed that there wasn?t any other bus to the coast. There was one overnight VRL bus but that was all booked. My uninformed estimates had gone horribly wrong.?

Murphy seemed to be in full form that day. Further enquiries at the counter at the bus stand revealed that there was no reservation for the bus to Goa, and that we had to ?buy tickets on the bus?. The worst case suddenly looked infinitely worse. I noticed one Volvo to Bangalore that was to start at half past eleven. In the worst case we could go home by that, I declared. We still had four hours to kill before we could make that decision.

Now, Shimoga is an extremely small town. Much smaller than I had assumed it was ? the last time I?d been there was twelve years back. In this kind of a place, there can?t be too many good ways of spending four hours. The benches of the bus stand weren?t an option. Now, working for a firm like Unilever is that you have contacts literally in every nook and corner of the country. Kodhi tapped on these and delivered his verdict ? there were two good hotels in the town – Samrat Ashok and Jewel Rock.?

If you are a regular reader of economics blogs, you learn to think in terms of incentives. So, when Sathya asked for the auto driver?s opinion of the two hotels, and the guy suggested the one farther away, we had to take it with a bucket of salt. After checking out the one close by (it was right opposite the bus stand), we decided to experiment with the other one.

The problem with a small town like Shimoga is that there is no eating out culture. The only people who eat out are occasional visitors to the city, and this means that there isn?t much of a market in restaurants. Jewel Rock, which is supposed to be the best in Shimoga wouldn?t score anything when compared to restaurants in Bangalore. And it?s strange when you go to what is supposed to be the town?s best place and find yourselves at one of the two occupied tables!?

Endless orders for Bournvita sustained us till nine o?clock. All the while I kept wondering what kind of life people in this town had. Having lived in Bangalore, my mom says that she can?t even think of living in Mysore now! Going by that I wonder how bad Shimoga can be. I could never think of living in such a place.

Back at the bus stand, we were told that the bus to Goa (which was coming from Mysore) was running late and that we might have to wait. While making these enquiries, I also figured out that a large number of people were waiting for the same bus. Death were there.?

In the meantime, following repeated SMSs from his girlfriend and thoughts about work, Sathya was putting max NED. I mean, he had lost all enthu. The problem with NED is that it is highly contagious. If someone you closely interact with is suffering from a lack of enthu, it is very likely to rub off on you also. The situation looked ominous here. Sathya was already into full-blown NED. Us being in Shimoga, Kodhi wasn?t in his best spirits. And the thought of having screwed up the trip for everyone had kept me down. The Volvo back to Bangalore beckoned.

In bleak times such as this, all you look for is for a thread to hang on to. All you need is a ray of hope. One little positive thought that you can latch on to in order to drive the negativity away. Some small thing based on which you can feel good about yourself. That was the day I realized why people drink when depressed. The temporary high the spirit provides, if harnessed well, can get the person back into good spirits. It maybe temporary, but a temporary ray of hope is all one needs. It?s like the famous Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) case. All it needed was some additional capital to tide over the crisis. It was known that finally it would all end up well. All it needed was a temporary infusion of capital.?

Kodhi and Sathya were seated on a bench at the bus stand, along with all the luggage. I was on the lookout for the bus, waiting to literally catch it. And my immediate objective was just that ? to spot the bus before the crowd, jump on and catch seats. There was a ray of excitement that this provided. If only I could achieve this, it would be small compensation for the mess I had got us into. It might even provide that kick that might make the rest of the trip memorable.

I have a ?history? in catching seats. For two years, I traveled 12 km across the city to NPS Indiranagar by a BTS bus. During the time, I learnt the nuances of ?catching? a seat on the bus. This art would be perfected later when I was at IIT. Chennai Express would arrive at 1445 to Chennai, only to depart as Lalbagh Express an hour later. Traveling in the general compartment in this was yet another experience. I?ll probably write about that in a separate post. For now, it?ll suffice to mention that I honed the art of catching seats there.

The last time I had felt such a sense of accomplishment might have been back at fourth term at IIM, when I had cracked the derivatives course. I was on top of the world. Sathya was to my left, talking on the phone. Kodhi across the aisle on the right. We were in the penultimate row of the most rickety bus I?d ever been in (not counting the local buses in Madras). A few seats were broken. Once in a while, we would get thrown off our seats as the bus negotiated a pothole or a speedbreaker. And I was still feeling good.?

I had been the first guy to get into the bus as it rolled into the Shimoga bus stand. I had jumped in even before it had stopped, and caught three seats. There was a kid who had entered the bus through a window in order to catch seats, and I even beat him to them. The old skills had no doubt proved to be extremely useful. I was to assume at that point that this would carry me through the rest of the trip. Unfortunately, the rickety bus, lack of sleep and extreme tiredness would prove to be our undoing.

During my brief stay at the Shimoga bus stand, I learnt much about the geography of North West Karnataka, and also about the travel markets in the region. I also learnt of the general geography of the region, including the various roads. I learnt of the various classes of buses, and also a bit about consumer behavior. For example, over short distances the class didn?t matter. The premium to be paid for a higher class wasn?t too high, which meant people you?d expect to travel by the ordinary classes would take luxury buses for short distances. Immense learning were.?