Response to Leebron’s Latest

Filed under: life — Tags: , , , — sohum on August 20, 2010 at 11:08 am

David Leebron sent another email out to those alumni that had emailed him as well as posted the email up on the web for everyone to tear to pieces read. The letter in it’s entirety is available here. Although that does seem like a temporary URL, so I will include inline quotes from the actual message.

First, it bears reiterating that we are not selling KTRU.  We are selling the 50,000 watt broadcast license and radio tower.  This is not a trivial distinction.  We don’t claim of course that KTRU will reach the same audience, although the ability to reach audiences through the Web and in more places is growing rapidly. Some who wrote in objecting to the sale of the tower and license live well beyond its broadcast range.  They must understand that their access to KTRU will remain unchanged.  The critical question that must be asked is in what ways the student experience will be changed as a result of this decision.  Students will still manage the station (along with its general manager Will Robedee), design its programs and serve as DJs and announcers.  They may reach somewhat fewer people, but their audience will be increasingly global, and their opportunities for experience not significantly diminished. The question is not whether providing the KTRU experience is worth almost $10 million, but rather whether the difference between a Web-based-only format and the 50,000 watts justifies allocating all of those resources solely to KTRU.  In addition, we had to take into account that a radio broadcast license was most likely a declining asset over the long term as a result of changes in technology and consumer preferences for accessing music.

The points in bold are the ones that are interesting, in my opinion, and worth contending. From a birdseye viewpoint, either Leebron doesn’t understand the whole web radio idea or his advisors are misguiding him. The points I and others have made are pretty straightforward: (1) consuming media on the web is an active activity–radio is passive, (2) people don’t really listen to “radio” on the Internet… the Arbitron numbers Leebron references in his first email have much more to do with growing internet access than the web medium taking over, and (3) until the Internet becomes ubiquitous in consumer cars, there is still a market for radio activity (lawl at word juxtaposition, there).

I have lied when I said I have never listened to radio on the Internet. Back when I was in middle school, I tuned into a couple of Shoutcast channels in Winamp from India. I had a 56K connection so my experience was understandably frustrating, but at the same time, the whole idea of Internet radio has been around for ages. It’s not that the idea is good/bad, it’s just that we are not ready to replace conventional radio with Internet radio, yet. We can’t even guarantee 3G connectivity nationwide yet (if all cars were equipped with 3G radios and could use that to stream Internet radio, I guarantee you that latencies would be through the roof since the bandwidth is so low) and we are talking about the Internet taking over conventional radio?

With the proliferation of iPods and other mobile music players, how many people actually listen to radio while sitting down somewhere? The number of people who want to tune into some third party playlist from anywhere outside their car is extremely small, since there’s already music you know and like in those locations. Comparatively, not all cars are equipped with the functionality to easily tap into your mobile music library, which is why people turn to radio instead of carrying around a book full of CDs (all cars these days are equipped with CD players by standard).

Going back to the Internet > radio argument that Leebron makes, there are two technologies we are waiting on. The first is citywide Internet access, or WiMAX or 4G as it is also known as. WiMAX providers exist in a very limited number of cities in the U.S. right now. Houston is one of them, but there is only one provider (Clear) which means that they have a price monopoly (and they sure are charging it, at $40 a month). Let’s talk economics for a second, here. Do you think people will shell out upwards of $25/month when competitive WiMAX is available compared to free radio? According to Arbitron, in 2007, 3.4 percent of radio listeners tuned into satellite radio (think Sirius or XM), which was a paid radio service. That’s a tiny, tiny percentage. Let’s pretend that it has doubled since then (unlikely given economic conditions). Less than 7 percent of listeners of radio actually want to pay money to listen to radio. How viable is it that people will be willing to pay for citywide Internet access to listen to music on the go?

Secondly, there’s the whole client side perspective. If we pretend, for a moment, that ubiquitous Internet access is available for free for the entire population of Houston, you’ve still got the issue of tapping into the resource. The number of users who currently have Internet access built into their cars is minuscule. There’s no trend suggesting that will explode, either. For one, automakers aren’t going to start including built-in WiMAX antennae into their cars until the technology has invaded society. You’ve always got the option of buying a third party service, but going by the above numbers for satellite radio, one can make assumptions about how many people would invest in that technology.

The short of it is that radio isn’t just going to wither away and die overnight. There’s still a market for conventional radio until citywide Internet technology catches up. It will inevitably happen, but it hasn’t happened yet. The selling of this asset is premature at best, and the justification of it by pointing to Internet popularity is invalid. The number of Internet users is always growing. The slow growth of technologies that allow Internet radio from being accessible is what’s keeping radio still alive today, and it’s well and truly alive.

Second, I do want to address the issue of confidentiality and the lack of discussion or consultation regarding this sale.  This is indeed a serious objection.  We have tried since my arrival to have open discussion of both fundamental issues regarding the future of Rice and all important issues that affect students.  These have included every aspect of the Call to Conversation, and especially the expansion of the student body.  This openness was the policy we followed in our discussions about a possible merger with Baylor College of Medicine.  Input from students was critical in determining the size, location and design of our two new colleges and the renovation project in the south colleges.  This is certainly our preferred mode of making decisions, and the standard against which we should be judged.

Well since it is his preferred mode of making decisions, Leebron can hardly complain that we are judging the administration against the standard in this discussion. The only options they have is (a) admitting they were wrong in their process or (b) going back on their decision (which is just an extension of a). They can obviously choose neither of these options, which is most likely, in which case they’ll have to deal with the consequences of destroying the trust.

The special circumstances of conducting a bidding process for a broadcast license and negotiating the terms of the transaction required confidentiality. We sought advice about the best ways to conduct this process from those with deep experience in the sale of university-owned broadcast licenses.  They advised that we needed to have a confidential process. This troubled many of us, and we asked ourselves throughout the process whether we could bring students and others into it, but concluded that this would not be compatible with the negotiations we were undertaking and our ability to bring them to a timely conclusion.

This paragraph is long without saying anything at all. What are these “special circumstances” that are alluded to? Who did you consult that had such a deep experience that apparently didn’t do their research on Rice University and it’s ideals? Basically what Leebron’s saying is, “We had to be confidential because the process required confidentiality.” Why did it need to be confidential? What would happen if it weren’t confidential? Is it possible that people would have opposed the sale and hence broken it down? I would suspect that that’s the major reason, which basically means that they had the process be confidential so that none of the stakeholders could comment on the process and potentially derail the process. It seems the administration lied to the University of Houston Regents, as well: “We knew that some Rice students might be upset, but the way it was portrayed [by Rice] was that it was a small and insignificant number and that they would manage it. We never got the impression that it would cause an uproar.”

To me, this paragraph basically admits that the administration was aware that what they were doing was wrong (“this troubled many of us”) but decided to go ahead anyway because they’d rather get the cash than follow the precedent that they had set with involving the student community in discussions. It is an exaggeration, but this is akin to a democratic government suddenly acting in a tyrannical manner, something that should only happen in the deepest of crises.

Going forward, students and others are entitled to hold us to our word that this is not a precedent.  We believe that the confidential process we undertook was a necessity in these very specific and unusual circumstances.  We believe equally that this must be a very rare exception to our commitment to involving students in the decisions which affect student life.  Indeed, we have certainly taken note of the very strong feelings expressed on this issue, and thus might in the future strike a different balance between confidentiality and consultation even when the needs for confidentiality are high.

Like I said before, it doesn’t help restore any confidence if you say, “we heard you and we’ll remember it for next time.” This issue needs to be dealt with. Guarantees need to be made that the administration will not act in this manner in the future. It probably needs to go into the bylaws of the way the board of trustees acts because, frankly speaking, the trust that would allow the university community to believe these words has been shattered.

The bottom of the matter is the fact that the administration should have consulted the KTRU management prior to making a sale. It is entirely possible that the two parties could have sat down at a table and looked at ways to cut costs/increase revenues such that the asset wasn’t being “under-utilized”. Many have come out with suggestions–ranging from daytime programming by KUHC and nighttime programming by KTRU to adding shows that appeal to the masses more, such as to reach a compromise between the service KTRU provides and what Houston at-large wants. If KTRU hadn’t been a willing party in these negotiations, then the administration would have the ammo they required to go through with the sale, regardless, having made a legitimate attempt to engage the management with needs to change the way the station was being run. Instead, the administration chose to consult nobody and conduct all negotiations in secret, hence they are in the middle of this PR mess.

Third, I want to reiterate and perhaps amplify what we have said about the use of the proceeds.  A portion will be used to help fund the construction of the new servery for Will Rice, Lovett and eventually Sid Rich.  This has been a high priority for our students, communicated with passion and frequency over the years. (This is not, as some have assumed, part of the expansion of the student body, but rather part of our plan to improve the quality of our older colleges.)  It will enable us to markedly improve food quality and variety.  The majority of the resources will be applied in ways strongly informed by student input.  We expect this will include first and foremost support for KTRU as Web-based radio so that our students can operate a station on the cutting edge of technology.   We also expect that some of the resources will be used to expand media opportunities for our students more broadly, bringing to more students a more diverse array of choices in this arena.  Other uses, such as lighting an additional playing field, have also been mentioned repeatedly by the students as one of their top priorities, but no decisions have been made, nor will they be made without substantial student input.  It is not irrelevant in this context that the students have voted down KTRU blanket tax increases.  These votes have indeed indicated the need to expand our resources for student opportunities in other areas.

These are all viable uses of of the proceeds, although I would argue that the servery construction is related to the expansion plan. If I am not mistaken, Lovett was expanded to absorb parts of Baker’s New Wing and Will Rice had expansions made as well. These expansions may be marked down as “improvements to older colleges” but they are expansions nonetheless. It makes sense, then, that they will need a larger kitchen to serve the needs of the new residents. However, the question is raised as to why this servery must be built at this very moment in time, with the economy being in the state that it is. Surely, this is a time to be a little more conservative with new construction?

Also, as Danny Mee pointed out in his open letter, in 2004 the Rice Athletics program was losing $10m a year. That number may have grown due to economic conditions, but let’s assume that it has stayed the same. Wouldn’t a better fix be to cut down some of the spending on the athletics program, towards which most of the student population is apathetic anyway, and move that into a budget to improve student life? I can see where the building of an East Servery could theoretically be a pressing matter but other things such as adding lighting to another playing field is something that should probably be attempted when we are working at a budget surplus rather than a deficit.

Last, I want to address those of you who said you would likely withhold future contributions.  We regard each and every contribution as a wonderful act of generosity, and those from alumni as expressions of their love and gratitude for their Rice experience.  You are of course entitled to decide not to provide that support to Rice, and I cannot object to the choice you make.  But frankly, if all our graduates took the view that if the university makes a decision with which they strongly disagree they will not contribute, we would not receive any donations at all, and we would be a much weaker university and able to offer much less to our students. Some of our most generous donors have been people who over time have very strongly disagreed with decisions the university has taken.  But they have understood both that their desire to make our university ever stronger, and stronger forever, as well as their desire to return some of the benefits they feel they have received, argue persuasively for their continued support.  We cannot eschew all change, and all hard decisions, simply because some of our graduates feel so strongly that they threaten to, and perhaps ultimately do, withhold support. It will be a loss, and not only to our current and future students, but in fact to our alumni as well.  We urge you to continue to make your views known to us.  The passion of Rice students and graduates is one of our great strengths.  But so too is the fact that the vast majority of our graduates choose to support the university even when they take issue with particular decisions or directions.

In my humble opinion, the university is much weaker now because the views of the community–both current students and alumni–cannot be taken respectfully when making a large decision that affects a substantial amount of people. Leebron suggests that some of their most generous donors have strongly disagreed with the decisions the university has taken. I’d like to ask how many of these people continued to donate when those decisions were taken without any input whatsoever? The issue here is not as much the decision that has been made but the manner in which it was made. If the administration had attempted to engage alumni prior to making negotiations or even during the process, the final decision would have been an informed one. Even if the university decided at the end that the sale of the KTRU transmission equipment and license was the correct decision, alumni wouldn’t have been as miffed because they did get a chance to voice their concerns and know that the administration heard them.

What we have here is the administration acting unilaterally and then assuming that the community, despite disagreeing with the decision, will continue to donate regardless of the fact that they had no opinion in the matter. I would seriously question the motives behind making large donations to the university fund if the administration continually makes decisions on how to spend that money without making anyone aware of the decision process.

I think Leebron and the administration still have a lot of explaining to do and have to at least make an apology and admit that the process they followed was not in the best taste.

Rice Killing KTRU: A Perfect Crime?

Filed under: life — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — sohum on August 19, 2010 at 11:08 am

On a recent visit to New York, I had the opportunity to watch a play titled Perfect Crime. This play claims to be the longest running product on- or off-Broadway and has utilized the same actor in the leading female role for all those years. However, this piece is not a review of that theatrical production, but a look at how the Rice administration may have created another definition for the phrase that is the play’s name: a perfect crime.

What are some of the factors comprising a perfect crime? In the play, the crime was perfect because no one knew that it had happened, or at least that’s what I was able to understand given my limited comprehension when it comes to confusing storylines. I would say that we have a similar situation here with the Rice-KTRU situation, except that the crime that has been committed isn’t legally going to be recognized as a criminal offense.

Let’s take a look at the recent history of the Rice-KTRU conflict. In 1991, KTRU was donated a 50,000 watt transmitter that allowed their signal to be broadcast outside just the vicinity of the Rice campus. From what I understand, the asset itself was titled to Rice University, as were all the related legal documents (FCC license, etc.). There was a tacit understanding back then that Rice, as an educational institution responsible for the intellectual journey of its students, would basically allow a sandbox for the KTRU organization to play in–give them a real radio station to test their talents and share their music while providing the backing that a well-ranked, private educational institution could provide.

In 2000, the Rice administration first flexed its muscles by requiring a certain amount of time being devoted to sports programming of the Rice University sports teams. A fair ask, in my book, except that it wasn’t exactly handled well by both parties. The reports suggest that a conflict ensued when KTRU DJs were required, without prior notification, to operate the station during a sports broadcast during a regularly scheduled show. They retaliated in a not-entirely responsible fashion by playing music over the broadcast during the end of the game. The administration, instead of working with the station manager to alleviate the problem and come up with a more deterministic solution, decided to lockout the students and take control of the station. Protests and petitions followed and eventually the station went back to normal.

It seems, however, that the Rice administration back then was just looking for a reason to try and take over the station. They were waiting for one slip from the station administration to swoop in and take control. They failed back then because of community intervention. They failed and they learned.

Skip forward to 2010, a couple of days ago when the news first broke that Rice had engaged the University of Houston as a buyer for the station transmitter and broadcasting rights. Rice’s official statements suggest that negotiations have been ongoing for several months. An interview with KTRU Station Manager, Kelsey Yule, suggests that “the station was put on the market over a year ago by the administration without student or community input or even notification.” In addition to the fact that no one who ran KTRU knew about the sale of the transmitter is the timing of the actual sale–during Rice’s Orientation Week (O-Week) when the vast majority of students on campus are freshmen along with a few advisers who are upperclassmen or recent grads.

While it could certainly be coincidental that the UH regents just happened to have their meeting at this point in time, a quick look at the regents’ meeting schedule shows that they meet every 3 months. Their last meeting was held in May, a few days after the graduation of the Class of 2010, and at a time where bad press could certainly have tarnished Rice’s reputation, especially in the college rankings that they like to gloat over these days (USNews, Princeton Review, etc.). Instead, the administration waited till the summer had settled in, the number of KTRU DJs was at a minimum and the rankings had come in. The carnage took place during a week where the majority of the students at Rice were just excited to be at college and meet new people, without having to worry about some of the student-led institutions that comprised the university.

No matter how I look at it, it seems obvious to me that this was a meticulously planned and perfectly executed offense by the Rice administration. They took care of all the issues from their previous attempt to take over the station–it was done discretely and without the knowledge of anyone except the negotiating parties compared with the previous attempt, which was as blatant an attempt at a takeover that you could take. The final offensive play here was executed at a time that the defense was sleeping, having already been blindsided by the lack of any knowledge of the negotiations in the first place. Current students involved in KTRU aren’t allowed back on campus until Saturday of this week unless they are involved with O-Week. They can’t move in before then so they obviously wouldn’t have been chilling around on the streets of Houston in case their beloved station was being taken over.

Leebron, on his Twitter feed, only says “negotiations did require confidentiality.” There’s no explanation behind this statement or why the standard procedure of utilizing NDA’s could not have been employed to keep important stakeholders in the loop. To me, it seems like the administration didn’t want to even effectuate that process because they knew what they were doing was essentially stabbing a student-run club with visibility outside of Rice and that would obviously have some level of opposition. What I can’t understand is how anyone advising the administration could have allowed them for a second to believe that people wouldn’t be hurt by the process followed. And if the administration was aware of this, then it just demonstrates how awfully arrogant they have become. They are, in effect, demeaning themselves by essentially suggesting that the very student population that they strive to educate are too stupid to weigh in on the discussion.

So, was this a perfect crime performed by the Rice administration? The very fact that Rice legally owns all the assets and hence control over its exchange immediately means that the sale itself couldn’t have been a crime. The real crime here is against the current student population and alumni population of the university. The fact that Rice didn’t respect those individuals or entities enough to engage them in the negotiation process. In that regard, this most certainly is a perfect crime. Those individuals couldn’t possibly have expected that an educational institution that they loved and that nurtured them could stab them in the back so quickly.

RIP KTRU… Rice administration has screwed themselves

Filed under: life — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , — sohum on August 17, 2010 at 1:08 pm

As anyone who cares would have known by now, the Rice administration has okayed a $9.5 million deal for the sale of KTRU radio frequency (specifically the license and the tower) to the University of Houston, so that they can set up a classical music channel (KUHC) and convert their current KUHF frequency to a dedicated news channel. Several people have commented on this situation already (see additional links at the end) so I figured I might as well contribute my opinion.

First of all, let me preface this by saying that I was anything but an avid KTRU listener. I didn’t have a car at Rice so I didn’t really have the option to tune into any radio station so the only music I heard when I was a student was on the internet or through recommendations from other people. The one show I did follow somewhat closely was MK Ultra, which was an electronica show hosted by Paul Thompson, my roommate junior and senior year every Friday night that featured 1-hour sets from 2-3 professional DJs in Houston.

That said, most of the problems I have with this whole situation is the procedure that was followed. I first learned about this at around 10pm last night from the aforementioned Paul. There were a total of 2 news articles on the subject, online. One a rumor published by houstonpress and the other a more concrete piece by the Houston Chronicle. This morning, things are much more publicized and out in the open, and the Rice admin is beginning to see how many people they upset by the poor process they followed.

KTRU, as I understand, has existed as a student-run enterprise for 40 years. The new 50,000 watt transmitter has existed for 19 of those 40 years, serving out content to the city of Houston. But the administration didn’t think it would be a good idea to engage students or alumni or really anyone, whilst potentially destroying the work put in by all those volunteers throughout the decades. The decision certainly makes sense from a financial perspective, but it reeks of arrogance and a continued disconnection from the people who actually comprise Rice.

When I decided to attend Rice back in the spring of 2005, the primary factor in my decision was the relatively cheap cost for a great education. In my four years at Rice, the annual tuition grew 16%. That may not seem like a very large number, unless we look at it contextually. The tuition grew about $6000 from 2005-2009. Right now it stands at a bit above $40,000 a year. Over a standard 4-year curriculum, kids that are matriculating today will have to pay about $25,000 more than I did 4 years ago. That is a mind-bogglingly large number, especially given the fact that we are in the middle of an economic recession.

The current administration is trying to shape Rice into something that is completely different from the Rice that I researched when I was applying and the one that I attended. And I don’t think it’s for a particularly appreciable cause, either. It’s not as if a Rice degree in the 90′s or early 00′s was worth less than one now–in fact, ironic as it may be, I think a Rice degree was actually worth more back then than it is now, despite causing a fraction of the cost. Providing smart, young individuals a longer rope than most conventional colleges do actually worked and as the old adage goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Yet, that’s exactly what they’ve done. The administration has trekked down a path of expansion without concern for how it will affect the quality of education for the individual. They’ve built 2 new residential colleges and expanded more within a matter of months but academic buildings are continuously ignored when it comes to upgrades or new additions. The administration is constantly meddling in cultures and traditions that are entrenched in the history of the university and KTRU is just the newest one in what is likely to be just one more in an unending wave of destruction.

In Leebron’s email (which conveniently has not been sent out to all alumni–it didn’t get delivered to my mailbox), he claims that the station will be sold so that the money can be better used to augment facilities that affect more students. Such as using the money to build the new East Servery. If you ask me, it seems like the administration is quickly finding out that it’s plans for gung-ho expansion of the university weren’t thought out very carefully, and with the economy severely affecting their endowments, they’re in a bit of a cash-press. They can’t back down from their major investment in the expansion of the school as that would appear weak, so instead they have targeted a cultural institution that most students won’t care about. In doing so, they’ve successfully cannibalized the KTRU radio station, a goal it seems they shared with the previous administration, and created a new generation of disgruntled alumni.

Additional Links

Facebook: save ktru
Twitter: @savektru @ktruriceradio
Web: savektru.org petition
Blogs: BurnDownBlog houstonpress

houston rockets 2010-2011

Filed under: basketball — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — sohum on July 16, 2010 at 1:07 am

I’m going to go ahead and take a premature look at the Houston Rockets outfit for the upcoming NBA season. Premature because Morey may still have a few aces up his sleeve. If so, these will probably have to be sign-and-trades since it appears that we have used up our salary cap while renewing the contracts of Kyle Lowry and Luis Scola.

Starters

#0 Aaron Brooks (PG)

Aaron Brooks will come back as starting point guard after a stellar year last season, where he won the Most Improved Player honor from the NBA. Brooks led the NBA in three pointers made last season and took on the role of our primary scoring option (at least for the beginning of the season) as the Trevor Ariza experiment kind of failed and Kevin Martin was finding his feet.

This season, Yao is back which means that our guards should get even more open shots as teams try to crowd the middle and double Yao. This should mean more open looks for Aaron Brooks and as long as he keeps up the performances, more points. With several scoring options on the team now, with Yao back and Kevin Martin having the summer to work his way into Adelman’s offense, Brooks will have to tone down his shooting game a bit and look for his teammates. Let’s see if he’s up for the challenge!

#12 Kevin Martin (SG)

When the rockets pulled off the blockbuster deal earlier this year, signing Kevin Martin, Jordan Hill and a couple of other guys, they were making an investment in a young shooting guard who could become our primary scoring option after Tracy McGrady moved on. Kevin Martin took some time to find his feet in Adelman’s offense and although his final season numbers left a bit to be desired (about 21 PPG), he did miss a significant portion of the end of our season, due to injury (and the fact that we were probably not going to qualify to the playoffs).

Here’s hoping that Martin has worked his way into Adelman’s offense over the summer and that he is less of a ball-hog. That stuff worked in Sacramento where apart from Tyreke Evans, he was the only dependable scorer, but the Rockets are looking at several scorers on the roster now, so Martin will need to share the ball a bit. He’s got to be our go-to guy, though!

#1 Trevor Ariza (SF)

Trevor Ariza was our main pickup last offseason after being a pretty clutch player down the stretch for the Lakers in their 2009 NBA championship. With Artest leaving for the Lakers, it was effectively a trade. Artest had been okay for us–his defense had been good but his offense left a lot to be desired.

Unfortunately, Ariza has struggled with more of the same problems during his year at the Rockets. Of course, it was unfair to ask a player coming off the bench to start and be our primary scorer, but I do think Ariza’s talents were overrated a bit.

Ariza contributed 15 points a game last year, but what he was best at was his defense. He’s not as strong as Artest by any stretch of the imagination, but he plays the passing lanes really well and he can finish strong on fast breaks. His nearly 2 steals a game was good enough for #6 in the league. His defensive contribution is inarguable but he definitely needs to improve his shot selection to continue to justify his place in the starting line-up (although we don’t really have much in the bank to replace him with).

#4 Luis Scola (PF)

Luis Scola just signed a huge contract with the Rockets. Although it has not yet been confirmed, the contract is rumored to be worth $47 million over 5 years. Considering that Scola made a little over $3 million last year, that can be considered quite a huge upgrade. And he’s worth it, too.

Scola is an absolute workhorse and probably cannot be matched in the league for hustle. He’s new to the league but he’s shown that good talent can succeed in any league. With Yao out for all of last season, Scola had to step up and help the undersized Chuck Hayes guard the paint. His offense wasn’t bad, either, putting up 16 points a game along with 2 assists. His stat line was certainly impressive.

With Yao back in the starting line-up, Scola will be even more effective in offense on the weak side. Defensively, he’ll probably allow Yao to play smaller minutes and help out a guy like Jordan Hill or Chuck Hayes coming off the bench at the center position. Scola is on the wrong side of youth, though, so his 5-year contract may well see him finish off his career in the Rockets uniform. Let’s hope he can continue contributing as he did last year. Oh, and let’s also hope that he stops flopping so much.

#11 Yao Ming (C)

For a team that was missing it’s starting center (and such a huge one at that), the Rockets did pretty well to finish as the only team in the league with a winning record but no playoff berth. Of course, Adelman tweaked our offense quite a bit to have us run more and play smaller, especially with our 3-guard line-ups and with Chuck Hayes starting at center.

Our offense this year is going to be a lot different with Yao coming  back, and especially a ginger-footed Yao coming back (one who cannot really run the court, if he even had that ability before–luckily we have Scola for that!). However, it will not hurt to have a shot-blocking presence in the paint once again.

At his peak, Yao was getting 20 points and 10 rebounds a game. He’s going to be a lot less than that statistically speaking, but I think he’s going to have a huge effect on the intangibles. With Brooks, Martin and Ariza all able 3-point shooters, we should be able to work an inside-outside game into our offense. We just need to keep Yao healthy, which means he’s probably going to have low minutes. I sure hope Jack Sikma has been working Jordan Hill into NBA shape!

Bench

The Rockets have the luxury of having one of the deeper benches in the league, although some of that advantage is wiped out by not having an incandescent (I’m stealing a word from NBA 2K10, here) starting line-up. Let’s take a look at our bench:

Centers

Our back-up centers list consists of David Anderson and Chuck Hayes with Jordan Hill filling in sometimes. Certainly not an impressive list, but one that is capable. David Anderson is a different kind of center in that he has almost no post game but has a really good outside shot. However, towards the end of last season he was showing off a few post moves, so hopefully an offseason with Sikma will have done him wonders. The Chuckwagon is… well… the Chuckwagon. He’s not going to blow anyone away, but he’s had a few good games.

Power Forwards

Our power forwards list consists of Jordan Hill, Jared Jeffries and Patrick Patterson. Of this bunch, I think Hill is probably the biggest prospect because he’s young, tall and athletic. Recent press from Sikma suggests that Hill hasn’t developed as quickly as desired. I’m hoping that they are just being tight-lipped about it! Jeffries is a decent back-up forward. He gets a lot of offensive boards and doesn’t like dunking. He’s more in the team to fill up minutes and I suppose clear cap space next season when his contract expires. Patrick Patterson is our first round draft pick but I unfortunately did not follow enough NCAA basketball to comment on him.

Small Forwards

Our backup small forwards come in the form of Chase Budinger, Shane Battier and Mike Harris (if he get’s re-signed from the D-League). Budinger could be more accurately classified as a shooting guard given how much of a scorer he is, but he’s usually not playing that position when he’s in the rotation. Budinger remains one of our shinier prospects off the bench next year. Battier used to be our defensive backbone but his performances have fallen off a bit. I personally think his best basketball is past him, but he could still be useful, given that most of our current line-up is all offense and not so much defense. Harris came from Rice (woot!) and has been dominating the D-League without managing to secure a long-term NBA contract. He’s around more for backup due to injury.

Guards

The final two players off the bench are Kyle Lowry, who recently signed a 4-year deal worth $24 million, and Jermaine Taylor. Taylor is a scrub, so not much to talk about him (apart from his great athletic ability). Lowry if a player who is coming into his own in the NBA, as our 3-guard rotations demonstrated last year. He’s great at running the fast-break and drawing fouls and he’s also worked a hell of a lot on his 3-point shot. Lowry is a pass-first point guard so he would be useful in situations where Brooks is not shooting well. Definitely a good guy to hang on to, although I foresee him being traded away towards the end of his contract.

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So that’s basically it! I’m pumped for the NBA season although there are still several months to go!


ICC vs. FIFA, Part 1

Filed under: sports — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — sohum on July 02, 2010 at 2:07 pm

This will be a 2 or 3 part piece comparing these two sporting governing bodies that host the two largest sporting spectacles by viewership in the world. Beware of rantiness!

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This seems like as good a time as any to compare these two world bodies of a global sport. Both the International Cricket Council (ICC) and the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) have been at the center of controversy over the last few weeks, albeit for very different reasons. Let’s take a look at each organization’s problems.

FIFA is in the middle of hosting the world’s largest sporting event, at least by viewership. The FIFA World Cup is a global showcase of some of the world’s most well-paid athletes and is a spectacle that is much larger than the globally reaching Olympics. Football/soccer is a game that anyone in the world can play anywhere as long as they have a rotund object that rolls around and the imagination to conjure up goalposts out of items lying around or, well, imagination.

However, FIFA has had it’s share of controversies during this world cup–almost all of them stemming from very poor officiating. Like cricket and most other sports, football uses humans to officiate and referee the game to make sure it’s played fairly and within the rules. Unlike almost every other sport played at an international level, these officials have no benefit of using any technology. This lack of technology has very strongly highlighted the err part of the “to err is human” idiom.

It started out with some very tame offside calls and non-offside calls. Fine, that’s okay since the offside is very difficult to pick out during live coverage, even for a viewer. However, this quickly grew into unfathomable calls (such as the mysterious foul that was called on the US against Slovenia, erasing their game winner) and ones that were downright wrong (such as Lampard’s goal being discounted because 2 yards into the goal was apparently not quite enough). There was also an offside call that went against Mexico against Argentina that could have been used as a precise example when explaining what the offside rule was to a newcomer to the sport.

Anyhow, humans make mistakes and that’s acceptable. What is unacceptable is the lack of accountability both by FIFA and the referees themselves. And the lack of desire to actually move the game into the current decade. Let’s tackle the first issue here–accountability. It took a ball that was yards into the goal being called a no-score that required Sepp Blatter to publicly apologize to the relevant national football associations. The other way Blatter has responded to criticism of his referees is by sending them home. Wouldn’t it just be easier for the referees to apologize themselves and accept that they’ve made a mistake? Or in some cases, explain the thinking behind the call (I’m still looking at that US goal against Slovenia and wondering where the foul was called).

When Jim Joyce missed a call that robbed a pitcher of a perfect game, he apologized publicly in the press conference that followed. He actually felt bad. I’m sure if FIFA referees were provided a mouthpiece to voice their sorrow for missing a call, much of the football-watching fraternity would be appeased. Sure, they’d still be pissed off, but at least they would realize that they were right (and they have been right). Just sitting quietly and pretending a problem doesn’t exist just aggravates it further. Throughout the last few world cups, mistakes have been piling up quicker and quicker. And they’re becoming very evident thanks to technology.

Which brings me to my  next point: technology (see that awesome segue?). As I mentioned earlier, FIFA is probably the only global sports organization that has shunned technology to be used to improve the quality of games. And in my opinion, it’s shunning is completely ridiculous. People who are agreeing with FIFA here provide reasons such as “maintain the human element” and “maintain the flow of the game”. Let me pick apart each of these points one-by-one.

The only reason we used the human element in the first place is because we had no way to rewind time. If there were cameras available when the sport was first played, do you think we would still have preferred to pay 4 guys to twiddle their thumbs and run around in short shorts and striped flags? No. The concentration would be to get the call right–after all the rules were designed for a reason. As a viewer of many, many sports, I choose to watch the game because I want to see uber-talented athletes compete against each other. I don’t watch basketball, cricket, football, soccer or any sport to see referees maintain the human element. The players are human–they’re hardly competing using controllers hooked up to a PS3! When watching football, I want to see a side clawing back to even a game or take a late lead or see an inch-perfect through pass beating an offside trap to set up a striker on goal. I don’t want to see the referees lifting their flags, blowing their whistles and shoving plastic cards in players’ faces (although the cautioning system is very warranted and one I think a lot of other contact sports could do with).

Secondly, the detractors of technology claim that technology would affect the flow of the game. Excuse me! Are we watching the same sport? Maybe this argument would have made sense 5-10 years ago when players played a tough game. Now, football is probably the most interrupted game out there. Play constantly stops and starts and stops and starts as the smallest of touches causes players to fly to the ground as if they’ve been laid out by a bareknuckle boxing champion’s knockout punch. I would really like to see a comparison of how many fouls we had at the 1998 World Cup compared to the 2010 World Cup. I think the increase would be several-fold.

Furthermore, when any controversial decision happens, minutes are wasted while players argue with the referee and the referee consults all his help. In fact, many a time, the correct decision has already been displayed to TV viewers before play has restarted. I would argue that going to technology would actually save the time wasted by the arguing and the bickering–since play would actually be reviewed, players could have no complaints because they would obviously have been right/wrong.

So how should one address this problem? I think allowing referees to attend press conferences is a must. FIFA may think it is protecting the referees by preventing them to address the media but I think it is doing a lot of harm to their image and the referees image. While referees who make such poor decisions in such a huge public light are always going to have it follow them around for the rest of their career, the least they could do is allow an asterisk to a note that says that the official in question actually admitted he was wrong and was sorry.

As for technology, I think it needs to be slowly inducted into the game. I’m not for the whole microchip idea in the shoes and the ball to determine offsides–that seems overly unnecessary. I think technology should be used in two cases: (1) whenever a goal has been scored whose validity is called into question (offside, goal-line decisions, fouls, etc.) and (2) when a player has been fouled in the box to determine if a dive was involved. There’s no need to spend a bunch of money developing goal line technology or stationing officials all over the field. Taking these two steps combined with the TV replays already available would help the game significantly and not waste too much time on the field. A fifth official would simply be reviewing the TV evidence while the game is progressing and if they see a bad call, just walkie into the main official on the pitch.

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Cricket has suffered from similar problems for ages. For a game that is several centuries older than football, I think the ICC has done a great job in inducting technology into the game. In the next part of this series, I’ll look at how the ICC has approached technology with regards to the international game and where they have gone right or wrong. Finally, I’ll take a look at the political aspect of this discussion, since that’s the issue that has plagued the ICC recently.

whinoceros

Filed under: technology — Tags: , , , , — sohum on June 10, 2010 at 1:06 pm

Recently an article came up on my Google News about the new “background image” option on the Google homepage. It was an article on PC World ruminating about why some people are complaining about the new background image. I read it and agreed with most of it, but most honestly, I was wondering, “What kind of people would actually complain about this?” I expected it to be some minor percentage of people who have nothing to do, but as I scrolled down to the comments section, I was really flabbergasted by the number of people who actually had an issue with the new homepage.

To recap, Google added the ability for you to specify a background image on your Google homepage, the effect of which made it look a bit like Bing (but in reality a lot different–Bing’s graphical homepage is actually a lot more feature-ful). Furthermore, you could actually choose which “theme” you wanted and could even upload your own stuff or do a Google Images search for a graphic you wished to use. What’s the issue?

Apparently some Google users feel like they have some ownership of how the page should look. There were actually people demanding that Google return the homepage to the default state or add some sort of “easy to click” option to do so. Really? It’s just a homepage. The page behaves exactly the same. The only thing I’m really worried about is whether the Google logo will still be customized on special days–as that’s the only reason I actually go to the Google homepage (I use my Firefox search bar for everything else).

Seriously, people, find something better to complain about. Like that oil spill or whales dying or something.

Super 8 Round-Up: India vs. Sri Lanka

Filed under: cricket — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — sohum on May 11, 2010 at 3:05 pm

Another match, another loss for the Indian team as we bow out from the Twenty20 World Cup taking, in all probability, the West Indies with us. This match was particularly bad for us because we made a great start to a game and some apathetic batting once again prevented us from not only winning the game, but winning by the 20-run margin that we required to keep ourselves in the running for a semifinal spot.

A good start, for the first time in the Super 8 stage…

India started out well with a new opening partnership of Gautam Gambhir and Dinesh Karthik. Karthik looked energetic and lively and gave India a good start along with Gambhir. Karthik fell to a ball that stopped on him and produced a leading edge, but Raina and Gambhir steadied the ship. In fact, India reached 90/1 after the first 10 and it looked like we were really well-placed to make a strong score and be in with a chance to remain in the West Indies.

However, it was important to note that we weren’t really scoring our runs in boundaries or sixes–more in singles and twos. The pitch and outfield were certainly slow (it took GG about 3 overs to figure out that he shouldn’t pose after each of his drives, which cost us about a run every shot), but it seemed like we were content with poking it around and building a base. Fair enough…

Anti-climactic finish to the innings…

With a finishing crew boasting of big hitters such as Yuvraj, Yusuf, Dhoni and even Rohit, who can tee off on his day, it seemed like the stage had been perfectly set. But what ended up happening was extremely strange and anti-climactic. The hits just never came. As we moved into the 13th/14th over, I began to worry that we had left it too long. Big hitting doesn’t just happen. You can’t flip the switch and start stroking sixes. But it appeared like that’s what we thought. The overs leading up to the slog overs actually decreased our scoring rate. Instead of getting at least a run every ball, we were getting 3-5 runs an over.

When the time came to slog, we all began playing Jadeja-esque cover drives (you know, the type where we need three sixes but he middles it straight to cover?). I think mentally we were already out of the tournament and the players just didn’t make the effort to adjust to the different pitch. We ended up with just 163 runs on the board, scoring a measly 73 runs in our last 10 overs. Worse, we lost only 4 wickets. There was no intent and no execution. To keep ourselves in the hunt, we’d have to bowl the Lankans out for 143 or lower.

Great start with the bowling…

Our bowling innings got off to a dream start with Jayawardene and Jayasuriya back in the hut in the first 2 overs. I believe Sri Lanka were 6/2 at one stage with captain Sanga and Tillakaratne Dilshan at the crease. Dilshan clearly held the key, from my viewpoint at that stage. He was the one who was capable of keeping the scoring rate going while Sanga dug in and prepared to last it out till the end. And Dilshan did exactly that. He took a sword to the Indian attack that should have been rampaging. Instead of keeping the runs down in the Power Play after taking the two early wickets, we leaked them.

Luckily for us, Dilshan holed out to deep mid wicket off a mis-time sweep shot, both physically speaking and from the context of the game. Sanga gave him a piece of his mind, and it looked like we were back in the hunt again. The very able Angelo Mathews joined his captain at the crease… I can’t remember off-hand but I think this guy has been a thorn in our flesh in the past.

A Sanga special followed by a bludgeoning finish…

Sangakkara built a wonderful base based on singles, twos and the occasional boundary and then did what our top order should have done–hit out. He rendered Harbhajan Singh largely useless today and smacked a few sixes off our part-timers as well. Sri Lanka looked to have been out of the hunt from the perspective of the game, but always kept the magic target of 143 at an easy 7.5RPO with wickets in hand. By the time Sanga perished to a Vinay Kumar slower ball, Sri Lanka were well on their way to knock India out.

Angelo Mathews ensured that with a series of powerful strokes that found and crossed the boundary with ease. Again, the distinct contrast between the Sri Lankan death bowling and our death bowling was easily evident, as was the application and intent of their finishers compared to ours. They just wanted it more and it couldn’t have been more obvious. When Angelo Mathews was run out, Sri Lanka had not only knocked India out, but they were well back in the game, requiring 3 runs off the last ball. They had done this courtesy of 3 consecutive sixes–2 off Vinay Kumar and 1 off Nehra. With 3 runs required off one ball, the advantage had to be with India, since the Lankans basically needed a boundary to win the game. Perera, who had bowled so well earlier in the game to restrict the Indians, finished with a flourish and dispatched the ball over the cover boundary to complete a magnificent win for the Lankans.

What it means for the West Indies…

India can now confirm their return tickets from the Carribbean, but Sri Lanka and West Indies are still in the hunt for the second semifinal spot (it would take quite a massive loss for the Aussies to be knocked out). The equation for the Windies is as follows:

Batting First: West Indies need to win by 24 runs or more
Fielding First: West Indies need to chase down the total between 16 and 18 overs depending on the target.

Super 8 Round-Up: India vs. West Indies

Filed under: cricket — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , — sohum on May 09, 2010 at 12:05 pm

Both India and West Indies needed a win to keep their chances in this tournament alive at more than a statistical improbability. Once again, it was the former World Twenty20 champions India who played a poor game of cricket and thus have effectively booked an early flight home. Just as in the previous edition, where back-to-back losses against England and South Africa led to our non-statistical elimination, we now rely on a rickety-bridge sequence of events to occur for us to have a chance. More on that later.

Starting off with poor team selection…

When captains stick to players who have failed, they are putting a vote of confidence in those players. This is generally a good thing to do, except if the player you are putting your confidence on is as pathetic a Twenty20 player as Ravindra Jadeja. I singled Jadeja out for a bashing in the previous match and I will do so here, again. However, today Dhoni takes the blame for selecting him in the first place. Once again, Jadeja made his effect felt in the match in all facets of the game. He started off with a misfield off a simple pick-up in the circle early in the game. He then went on to drop Chanderpaul, who added only 9 more runs but more importantly allowed a huge opening partnership to set the platform for a late onslaught.

When he came on to bowl, Jadeja leaked 27 runs in his 2 overs, which puts his total at about 60 runs in the 4 overs he has bowled in this edition’s Super 8. His first over featured 2 sixes in the first four balls, which coupled with the fact that he had given 6 sixes off his last 9 balls in the previous match, meant that Jadeja has given 8 sixes off his last 13 balls. That’s better than a six every other ball. That’s 4 sixes an over. Yet, he gets selected by Dhoni.

Finally, Jadeja was issued a vote of no-confidence by Dhoni when Harbhajan was sent in ahead of him in the batting order. A good decision, too, because Bhajji actually knows how to wield the long handle. Jadeja couldn’t even clear the infield when he was batting. In fact, he couldn’t even hit the ball in the air when we needed it to rain sixes. Sure, you don’t have the talent or strength to smack a maximum, but what about intent?

To summarize this tirade, please get Ravindra Jadeja the hell out of the Twenty20 squad. I don’t care if  you select him for ODIs or Tests but this guy should be way behind in the pecking order. India would have been so much better off by picking a real bowler and not going in with three specialists only. Sure, there’s the thought that our batsmen would be skittled out by the short deliveries (which they were. But if 7 batsmen are going to get out to bouncers, the 8th one isn’t likely to play a game-changer. Jadeja contributes nothing with the bat or ball. We should have played Piyush or Vijay Kumar.

Batting continues to struggle against short bowling…

The Indian team has NO EXCUSE for this one. They could have played the “surprise” card at the World Twenty20 in England last year when we were bounced out by the West Indies and then England. However, we’ve now had 10 months to fix it. We’ve known that the Twenty20 World Cup is going to be in the West Indies for a couple of years, now. We’ve known that we are shit against short bowling. But instead of doing anything, we prepare for the fiesta that is the IPL and its flurry of flat tracks. The fact that we don’t have a single pace bowler who can hit 140k’s is embarrassing in itself. The fact that international grade cricketers can’t pull the ball is pathetic. How the hell are these guys going to play ODIs and Tests outside of the subcontinent?

The mathematical uncertainty…

There is a tiny ray of hope for India to qualify to the next round. First, Australia will need to wallop both Sri Lanka and West Indies. Then, we will need to wallop Sri Lanka. This will put Australia at 6 points and India, West Indies and Sri Lanka at 2 points. However, for this to happen, Sri Lanka will need to be destroyed by both Australia and us since their NRR is at an imposing +2.850 compared t our -1.575.  I’ll post a mathematical update at the completion of the Australia-Sri Lanka game in the event that Australia win. To recap, if Sri Lanka win, India is mathematically eliminated. This will put Sri Lanka at 2 wins and since Australia and West Indies both have 1 win each and play each other, one of them will have 2 wins, which is more than India can manage.

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Australia go in with 5 front-line bowlers. India went in with 3. </discussion>

Super 8 Round-Up: India vs. Australia

Filed under: cricket — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — sohum on May 07, 2010 at 3:05 pm

India played Australia today in the first Super 8 match-up of their group in a pretty one-sided match. Both teams looked pretty strong on paper but one team came out strong and played almost perfect cricket (Australia) while India faltered at almost every juncture. The only change Australia made was to play Mitchell Johnson in place of Ryan Harris. India made 3 changes: GG for Dinesh Karthik, Rohit Sharma for Piyush Chawla and Zaheer Khan for Praveen Kumar (who was injured, anyway). The extra batsman (Rohit) raised some eyebrows, but in hindsight ended up a good decision (more on this later).

A rare maiden followed by some ordinary bowling…

India started out really well with Harbhajan opening the bowling in an increasingly obvious “change-up” move. Bhajji started things off with a well-bowled maiden in an over that featured flight, variations in pace and length. While Watson and Warner were still getting their eye in, Bhajji stuck to the basics and bowled good line and length. That’s something no other bowler managed throughout the rest of the innings.

For one, all our bowlers save for Harbhajan had some sort of addiction for the long hop. I don’t know if it was because they were nervous and were letting go of the ball late or if they were just inept. Everyone from ZaK to Nehra to Ravindra Jadeja to Yuvi to Yusuf bowled rank long hops. Watson (who has modified his Twenty20 game to feature a baseball-like swing) and Warner made the most of it by taking advantage of the short boundaries to amass sixer after sixer. At one stage, Ravi Jadeja had given away sixes in six straight deliveries (although 3 of them were the end of one over and the other 3 the beginning of his next). It was particularly frustrating that I, the viewer, knew exactly what the problem was. Ball after ball our bowlers would pitch it short and the batsman would hoick it away for a maximum. The Aussies hit 16 sixes, which is just one short of the record for most sixes in a Twenty20 innings.

Pulling it back to make it a manageable target…

When I left to watch the rest of the game at the local Manchester United Pub in Phoenix Mills, the Aussies had about 160 in 16 overs. By the time I reached my destination, India had pulled it back to give only 25 runs in the last 4 thanks to some decent bowling by Yuvraj, Zaheer and Nehra (I didn’t get a chance to watch any of these overs). 185 against a quick Aussie line-up on a flattish pitch is no easy task, but it was certainly better than staring at a 200+ target. I was quietly optimistic, although my cousin had suggested before leaving that the Indian batsmen, having seen the Aussies smash short balls from their spinners all afternoon, would attempt the same unsuccessfully against the Australian fast bowlers. A more accurate prediction had never been made…

Poor shot selection leads to an ordinary start

Gambhir and Vijay seemed to start off on the right foot–the front foot, that is. I didn’t expect Australia to feed us with a barrage of delectable long hops, but it seems like our batsmen expected it. After a quiet, but safe, start, the innings began to unravel. Vijay, Gambhir and Raina fell within the space of 10 balls, all to pathetic shots. Vijay tried to force a delivery to the leg side that could have been comfortable hit down the ground, Gambhir hit an extremely ugly mistimed pull to mid-wicket and Raina top-edged a horrible pull shot off Tait that is guaranteed to get him some short bowling for a few more years of his young career. The three shots not only effectively gave us an extremely poor start to a difficult run chase, but demonstrate that even our batsmen hadn’t come to the game with their brains in their heads. First it had been the bowlers who seemed adamant to drop every ball short with their lack of pace, and now the batsmen were trying to pull 90+ mph bowlers across the line with all their power. It was a disaster waiting to happen, and it happened.

Rohit shines as the middle order collapses

At 17/3, you’d expect some sanity entering the proceedings and the batsmen at the crease trying to play themselves in. Unfortunately, that was not to happen. Yuvi was outdone by a brilliant yorker from Nannes (I think it was the first yorker of the day, too, I don’t recall our bowlers bowling anything but long hops) in what I thought was the only Indian wicket where the batsman could be given the benefit of the doubt. With Yuvi dismissed, I lost all hope of a miraculous comeback. Dhoni and Yusuf confirmed this, the former with a completely unrequired slog to long-on and Yusuf with a mindless swipe that caught an edge and flew in the air before being pouched smartly by Warner, running in from the deep cover-point boundary. At that stage, India were 42/6 and it looked like we would be bundled out for less than Bangladesh a couple of nights ago, and in fact less than 100.

Luckily, Rohit Sharma began playing a beautiful innings that allowed us to save some face and, more importantly, some net run rate (although we still ended the day with a NRR of -2.45). Sharma was the only top-order Indian batsman who tried playing straight (apart from Dhoni, I guess) and he was the only one who demonstrated how short the straight boundaries were. Rohit ended up with 4 fours and 6 sixes in his innings and even mistimed lofted drives were clearing the boundary with ease. While Watson and Warner played awesomely powerful innings, there’s no doubting that they were aided by the small field–something that no Indian batsman attempted to use to their advantage.

Harbhajan and Zaheer played cameo innings before the innings fizzled to a close on the back of a Shaun Tait over (Rohit probably should have sheltered the two instead of putting them on strike against Tait–but it would have taken a very optimistic and egotistical batsman to do that with 2 wickets in hand and 50 odd runs to get in 3 overs). In fact, Harbhajan was the second highest scorer at 13 runs (third was Extras) and he outscored Murali Vijay, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, Yusuf Pathan and MS Dhoni. Combined. I think that statistic tells all, really–the Indian batsmen didn’t really apply themselves at all (except for Rohit).

Things to take from this game…

India still have 2 games to go and if we manage to win both of these, we could possibly still qualify to the semis. Of course, being beaten so strongly isn’t going to do any favours to our NRR. As I type, it looks like the West Indies will fall short against the Sirils, so we have to hope that they beat the Aussies and that the Lankans lose to the Aussies (and we win, of course, against both of these teams…that’s a necessity). It’s never nice to play the NRR game, though. In the two previous editions of this tournament, we have been in a similar situation–requiring victories of our final two Super 8 games to go to the semis. In the first edition, we won against England and South Africa and the rest, as they say, is history. Last year, though, we lost to those very teams and hence were knocked out. I would definitely take West Indies and Sri Lanka over England and South Africa, but it’s safe to say that it is an uphill climb from here.

Other comments I have to make are as follows. First, Ravindra Jadeja. I don’t know how this bloke still makes it to our Twenty20 team. He was a crap Twenty20 player last year and he is still an insult to many more qualified players in our country. The guy’s only saving grace is his economy while bowling (I believe his economy hovered around 7.00 before this game) and that went for a toss today. His batting just isn’t aggressive or imposing enough to be a factor in a Twenty20 game–he’s not going to win games as a finisher and he doesn’t rotate the strike well enough to recover from early wickets (such as today). As I remarked around this time last year, when Jadeja almost single-handedly lost us the game against England, he just does not deserve his Twenty20 cap. Today, he caused a massive momentum shift from a decent first 2 overs to one where he gave away 19 runs. I’m all for him playing in ODIs and Tests (in a few seasons, of course), where he has more time to work his game, but he’ s not a good player for this format.

Second, short-bowling. It is obvious that we have troubles with short bowling. This was evident in the game we played last year, against the West Indies, where all 7 of our wickets fell to Bravo/Edwards and our first three wickets had been snaffled out for 29 runs. Not a lot has changed this year. It seems our batsmen still feel like every short ball must be pulled, regardless of pace, line and (lack of) talent. Yuvi is the only batsman in our team who I can confidently say knows how to pull the ball. The other guys need to work it out in the nets, not in the middle of a crunch game against Australia. We will likely be tested with the short balls against the West Indies on Sunday with Kemar Roach and Jerome Taylor both 90+ mph bowlers. Sri Lanka will be slightly better, but we may well be out of the tournament by then (not to mention our old tormentor, Ajantha Mendis, seems to have hit some form).

Finally, opening is an issue for us. We have been spoiled by the ease with which Virender Sehwag dents opening attacks. Sehwag is good at using the pace of the bowlers he faces to get his runs. Although he struggles against the short balls, he is smart enough to know that he can’t pull a brisk pace bowler against the line and instead employs an uppercut shot. With the boundaries as short as they are, Sehwag could well have got a couple of sixes in that direction and made the Aussies rethink their bounce strategy. As it stands, our openin lineup right now is very weak indeed. Gambhir has looked like he misplaced his bats in his kit and Vijay only looked good against Afghanistan, against whom he only scored at a strike rate of a shade over 100. Our opening partnership needs to click if we want to survive till the next round of this tournament.

the fake con

Filed under: life — Tags: , , , — sohum on May 03, 2010 at 7:05 am

If you’ve ever had to purchase a product in India that requires at least some level of continued customer interaction, you’ve probably come across what I’m labeling here as a fake con. What exactly is a fake con? It is something that, throughout the process of the event, feels like a con but ends up being legitimate. Doesn’t sound great and it isn’t, either. This is how a sample fake con goes:

  1. You contact Company X about Product Y.
  2. The sales rep. of the company does a good job convincing you of buying the product. You decide to go ahead and buy it.
  3. The sales rep. promises delivery of Product Y the next day. An experienced fake conner will realize this could raise suspicion and promises delivery in 48 hours or something to that effect.
  4. The intended date of delivery swings around and there’s no sign of delivery.
  5. You get in touch with the sales rep. in the afternoon, after lunch. He promises delivery in the evening.
  6. Evening turns into night but there’s no sign of delivery.
  7. You get in touch with the sales rep. in the late evening, just before dinner. He promises delivery the next morning.
  8. You give the sales rep. a piece of your mind, but you were expecting some sort of delay in delivery (this is India after all).
  9. The next day, you repeat steps 5-7. You are now getting annoyed.
  10. The day after, the sales rep. phone appears to be out of service. In reality, the sales rep. is just ignoring your calls.
  11. You try calling customer service but of course they have no record of your application for Product Y. In fact, you have to call several different customer service centers and give a lot of information. The standard response is that they will tell you to wait another period of the initial waiting period (for example, 48 hours).

This is how it is so far. There are now two paths you can follow. If you happen to know someone senior level in Company X, you get in touch with them. Power hierarchy works as good as it always does and:

12. You get delivery of the product that day.

Your saga thus ends. You never hear back from the original sales representative. He has clearly been humbled. However, not everyone has the benefit of this situation so what probably happens is:

12. You make more calls, more complaints.
13. You finally realize the hopelessness of your situation and give up trying.
14. You get delivery of the product a few days later.

As you can see, it feels like you are getting swindled the whole way, but what is actually happening is that the level of service is extremely poor. The product and company are legitimate, it is just that the sales team is too disconnected from the delivery/engineering team and in general they are just too lazy. There is no respect for a customer’s time and no guaranteed response time.

Most recently, this happened with us with TATA, whose high-speed internet service plan we were trying to get so that I could VPN effectively. Just a few days prior to that, a similar thing happened to my cousin when he was trying to buy a car. It’s happened for ages and I have no doubt it’ll happen for ages more. There just seems to be no semblance of professionalism and accountability in some customer-facing industries in India.

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