The rise of Zaheer Khan, the greatness of Kapil Dev

Zaheer Khan had a great tour of NZ and raised his credentials not only as India's best current pace bowler in test matches, but also one of the three best. The other two being Kapil Dev and Javagal Srinath. The comparative figures of these three at the end of their 65th test are given below.

Bowler	T	I	O	M	R	W	BBI	BBT	Avg	ER	SR	5WI	10WT
Kapil Dev	65	105	2301.2	462	7048	251	9/83	11/146	28.07	3.06	55.0	18	2
Javagal Srinath	65	118	2479.2	587	7104	233	8/86	13/132	30.48	2.86	63.8	10	1
Zaheer Khan	65	119	2160.2	440	7107	210	5/29	9/134	33.84	3.28	61.7	7	0

It is obvious from above that overall Zaheer Khan is now India's 3rd best pace bowler and his record is improving in the last 2-3 years.

Even now, Kapil Dev stands supreme above all others. His record deteriorated in the later stages of his career with the strike rate dropping by over 9 balls per wicket and average bloating up by 1.6 runs per wicket. This was countered somewhat by significant improvement in the economy rate.

Neither Srinath nor Zaheer ever got close to Kapil's peak strike rate of 51.1 in his 24th test, Srinath's best was 60.8 in his 55th while Zaheer peaked at 60.3 in his 49th. At the same point in all their careers, the gap is still significant.

Between Srinath and Zaheer the numbers are favourable enough for Srinath to take the 2nd position. But Zaheer's record is improving from an intermediate decline and he could close the gap to match Srinath. Catching Kapil is another matter altogether.

This just goes to show how significant Kapil Dev was to Indian cricket if one adds his superior fielding and great batting skills. Inspite of Sachin Tendulkar, Kapil is by far India's greatest cricketer. In tests he has 40% of Sachin's runs and a World Cup. Sachin would need @174 wickets to be in the same league and win a World Cup as well. And if one goes by a per match contribution, the gap is larger esp. in Tests. In Limited Overs it is probably slightly tilted towards Sachin, but the World Cup deficit could dent that.

Guns and Bloody Roses

Yet another tragedy waiting to happen. A man of Vietnamese origin killing himself after shooting 13 people dead in Binghamton, NY, continues America's sorry story on gun violence. Then we have the usual scenario of reactive law enforcement doing its thing after the fact. Too little and definitely too late. I am more surprised by the surprise expressed in media over these incidents, when the chances are so much higher in the gun possession prolific US than elsewhere.

Some pundits have proclaimed through studies that there is definitely a connection between economic downturns and increase in violent incidents. Even a quick look at history will show that. Wasn't it poverty that lead to the violent takeover of the American continent by Europeans at the expense of indigenous cultures? They are reluctant to connect the difference in potential for violence with and without a gun.

A person with a knife or club or stick can rarely coerce 4-5 or more persons to bid his will unless he is a Bruce Lee/Rambo type of a fighting superstar. A person with a gun definitely can, even if he is the ridiculed 5 foot 80 pound local wimp. He could coerce 5 NFL footballers if he wanted, so long as they were unarmed and he was.

The promoters of gun culture in the US portray it as their right to defend themselves from attack in a violence prone society. The proliferation of guns actually makes the US a far more violence prone society in the first place. And in the majority of cases, the gun is used as a weapon of offence or coercion far more often than for any self defence. In a number of serial killing cases, the gun plays a very important role, though victims may be killed in some other way. One has to just go through the entire list of prolific serial killers in the US (which somehow seems to have a higher number here as well) to see how effective a gun made them.

So, inspite of having the world's best means, resources and technology to deal with crime, the free gun culture is a massive achilles heel to the entire US security infrastructure. They have the cure and no clue about prevention. This leaves it seriously vulnerable to terrorism in the future (Update below) . A patient enemy just needs its combatants to have a clean record, migrate to the US, get citizenship in the 6-10 year period and arm themselves and carry out coordinated massacres across the country. If they are open to suicide, this leaves a reactive law enforcement, however quick, too late to help counter such a strike and hence ineffective.

Till the US gets the balance between the freedom to carry a gun and the ease of using a gun for violence against fellow citizens, similar incidents will continue to be common place. The US will continue on all fronts including having the most people in prison, having the most in solitary confinement and having a massive drug control problem.

Update. The Pakistani Taliban is claiming credit for the massacre, though it is more likely a bluff, but this is sure to give them and the US security structure something to think about.

Cricket - 2nd Test, Efficient Kiwis, Overconfident Indians

As the 2nd test unfolds, it looks more and more true that Yuvraj Singh is not a test match batsman. It also shows that Virender Sehwag is a predictable one. He will take risks no matter what the situation.

The Kiwis have always played international cricket based on a limited pool of talent. Their main weakness is the lack of depth in their teams. Due to this, they rely on their strengths which are

1. Efficienctly using their limited resources
2. Being tactically smarter than their opponents
   
3. Avoiding obvious mistakes

If one stays with them on these three fronts, their lack of depth gets exposed. Just watch them play Australia or South Africa. They more or less get muscled out.

The current Indian team has the depth but tends to loose ground on the above points. When they don't, they also dominate New Zealand like they did in the first test. This test, they have lost on all three counts with dropped catches, and rash shots.

The situation has been made worse with Dhoni missing. It costs India their best keeper by far, a strong lower middle order batsman and an inspirational captain. Kartik has already contributed a dropped catch. The gap between him and the next best options for captainship also seem collosal now.

As for Yuvraj Singh, there is no way to hide him after this test. He will have to play the innings of his life to make up for his lapses in this test to save his test career.

Nano - a better review

I found R Jagannathan's review of the Nano in the context of India's urban traffic issues in DNA's Opinion section interesting.

I agree with his view that the 2-wheelers occupy significant space if braking distance is considered in traffic. But this applies to traffic in Mumbai where some form of lane discipline still exists. Not so valid in others where 2-wheelers usually slot into any gap available and hence occupy less space, not that it makes for a pleasant traffic situation.

Jagannathan says that cars should be cheap but roads should be costly, charged for usage just like any other utility. So, the more one uses it by private transport, the more one pays. So, only the rich will use the road more often even if more people have cars. This point though is a valid one to control traffic congestion.

The other issue is the age old one of improving public transport, nice in theory, not so in practical implementation. It will need political will, a most risky option for any politician. This 'will' can only come to the fore if it will cost an election not to use it.

Tennis - Nadal pulls ahead

Nadal pulls ahead

By adding the first major grand prix tournament at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells right after his Australian Open win, Rafael Nadal has pulled further away from Roger Federer. This time there was no Federer in the final but Andy Murray. The final though, showed that if Murray is finally almost at par with the top two, Nadal is by far the more adaptable, tactically sound player.

This tournament exposes a growing chink in Federer's earlier impregnable armoury of tennis skills. The backhand unravels under stress. Relentless pressure on Federer's backhand coupled with disciplined shot making helped Murray win 6-1 in the 3rd with Federer as good as giving up. Troubled times indeed for Roger but more mental than physical.

Under normal conditions, the final would have been a tough to predict match. In fact, given Murray's recent wins over both Federer and Nadal, he would have had a slight edge. But he showed an inability to adjust to unfavourable, windy conditions and succumbed easily 6-2, 6-1. This tournament gives the winner 1000 points and Nadal extends his lead further from Federer even as Murray closes in on world number three Novak Djokovic.

7 Reasons not to disable Right Click on Browsers

Sites disabling normal functions within the browser such as right click, copy, paste, selection etc. have the following faulty thinking.

Most of their visitors are there to copy their content.

1. This is more likely to turn visitors away as it interferes with their normal use of a common application.
2. It creates a negative image of the company (suspicious and non trusting).
3. It inconveniences the majority for a potential transgression by a small percentage of visitors.

Those who want to copy their content now cannot.

1. Most scrapers can easily bypass the above restrictions.
2. Users intent on copying can easily get the source code and extract what they want.
3. Covering for all browser types and their versions is not worth the effort.
4. Since most methods involve javascript, disabling scripts usually bypasses this or breaks the site.

It is like a shopkeeper asking each shopper to go through a security check before entering their shop. All it does is turn away visitors and can lead to potential losses rather than any of the perceived gains.

The blocking process creates a very negative image of the site and company and causes loss of brand value. After all the site is there for a purpose, not exactly to post one's trade secrets but to promote the business.

P.S. Came across a more detailed view from 2002 at Sitepoint by Rosemary Wise. Amazing that the problem still exists seven years later.

The larger Nano issues

As mentioned in my earlier post, if it succeeds, Nano will be a major business triumph making them Tata the dominant car manufacturer replacing Maruti.

Tata has officially launched the Nano as the world's cheapest commercial car. This is expected to lead to a rise in car ownership in India. It is considered beneficial if one is to believe the media hype surrounding it.

As with all issues, the Nano launch will have its pros and cons, its supporters and critics.

The pros

1. An affordable car to a larger population base in a country where transport facilities overall are very poor.
2. Greater mobility as a car can carry more people over longer distances, also it is less tiring as it is compared to riding a bike.
3. All households having an income enought to afford two bikes will now afford a car.
4. It helps leverage the advantage of the improving inter city transport infrastructure (albeit slowly)
5. With a larger car owning population, the government will be under more pressure to ensure good infrastructure (hopefully)
   

The cons

1. The demand for fuel will go up significantly if the car is a major hit across the country.
2. The number of road fatalities will go up what with an already poor record at current traffic volumes.
3. The poor won't have much benefit except maybe a little less strain on public transport.
4. The generally poor infrastructure and endemic corruption in corporations will mean that urban India will have more traffic stress.
5. Cities will suffer additional traffic congestion.
6. Traffic pooling, though nice in theory, is unlikely as people who buy a Nano won't keep it at home.

I might have missed a few obvious ones in both of the above. For me, as of now the cons outnumber the pros.