People throw stones, you turn them into milestones!!

Long awaited. Had to write about him. My childhood hero whom i grew up watching. Life still comes to a standstill when he bats. So presenting some never fading memories.

# India V SA (Hero Cup Semifinal)SA needs 6 runs of the last over. A million dollar question, Azhar will give the ball to? Answer:How could he? No way, he cant bowl the last over. But in the end it proved out to be one of the greatest gambles ever taken.That curly haired boy bowled a perfect last over to give India a 2 run victory.

#India V NZ (Auckland)Sachin sent to open the innings for the first time due to absence of Siddhu. Some players are known for strokeplay, some for timing, some for sheer butchery. Tendular displayed all three traits at will.

# Australia in India (1998)No cricket lover can forget this. This was the year in which Sachin scored as many centuries and runs which many people do not score in their whole careers. Publicised as Sachin V Warne series. Warne definitely had a dream start in Chennai Test match first innings. But after this he started dreaming about Sachin. Sachin hit him all over the park with utmost authority,grace and ease. This didnt stop in India ,later in Sharjah he played two of the best innings in ODI. Sharjah series will be remembered for two things. Sachin and Tony Greig.This was the headlines "Sachin Tendulkar beat Australia, and won the Coca-Cola Trophy for India, on his 25th birthday.". Such was the Sachin storm that even 11 Australians, a Pakistani umpire and even a sandstorm werent enough.

# India V Zimbabwe(1998, Sharjah)You can call it Olonga's bad luck or whole Zimbabwe's bad luck that Henry Olonga got Sachin out of a short ball. Anyways what followed in the next match will haunt Olonga throughout hs life, in other words Warne has company :P. Sachin singlehandedly humbled Zimbabwe. He hit olonga,strang to every part of the ground. Even Ganguly's words could not abate the storm.

#Pakistan in India(1999,First Test)India needing some 271 runs to win were the favourites until they were 6/2 and then 82/5 but still match was not in Pakistan's hands as Sachin was still at the crease. He single handedly with a little support from Mongia took India within striking distance. India were 254/6 when the pain became unbearable. Years and Years of carrying Indian team on his back could be seen today. And in a rush to get over with it he played a shot which he would wish he never played. Our last 3 batsmen couldnt score the remaining 17 runs and in the end it was just 12 runs short of being one of the greatest innings of all times.

#World Cup 2003 Tendulkar's return was written off by everyone. And after the dismal NZ series Indian team was struggling. But Champions are those who rise when everone else is falling. He came back all guns blazing. A six of caddick through mid-wicket was a sight to watch. But the moment was India V Pakistan. India were chasing 287. Pakistan could hope for an easy victory especially when you have Wasim,Waqar,Shoaib,Razzak. But do these matter? The day belonged to someone else. He derailed Rawalpindi express in his first over itself with a six over deep point and followed by a classical straight drive.Rest is.....history.

#VB series final 2007.So Dhoni's young brigade wasnt showing much promise. What do we do now? He rose to the occassion yet one more time. Mind you, he is going to do the same again in next final ;).

Lifeline!!

Remember the famous game show "Kaun Banega Crorepati?". No, No, I am not going to leak out questions for the game show nor have I any stake in Start Plus, so not promoting the game show. But just wondering what would life have been if it was a KBC game show. If everyone had 4 lifelines to use to take life's decisions ;).

1. Which school you wanna join??

Ans. Guess you dont need lifeline for this. Your parents have already answered this one. ;)

2. Which tution to join??

Ans. Phone a friend ? :P

3. Which stream to take?

Ans. 50-50. Bio or maths (Commerce people dont seem to use lifeline on this question ;))

4. Which college to join??

Ans. Audience poll.

5.  To your girlfriend on the question of marriage?

And. Can we please flip the question? hehe.

PS- This questionaire has no connection with any living person.Certainly not me.

Nirvana

As I am nearing the end of the book "Fermat's last theorm"  I am starting to feel a li'l enlightened (dunno why :P). I have started reading mathematical puzzles on internet, also started devoting some time thinking about a few Number Theory axioms,rules. So decided to keep everyone else also in loop and share any thoughts on any new mathematical topics,statements i come across. This new post is entirely dedicated to such findings. I will keep on updating the post with new things i learn or find on the web. Most of them should be known to you but it doesnt hurt to go over them yet another time ;). Please post anything you want to add in comments section and I will edit the post :P. Lets start rocking.

[1]  2⁵ + 2⁷ + 2⁹ + 5³ + 5⁴ =  5² + 7² + 9² + 3⁵ + 4⁵

Did you know the above equality?

[2] A very well known puzzle. Most of you must have heard of the puzzle but do you know the solution?

Imagine that you are a contestant on a television game show. You are shown three large doors. Behind one of the doors is a new car, and behind each of the other two is a goat. To win the car, you simply have to choose which door it is behind. When you choose a door, the host of the show opens one of the doors you have not chosen, and shows you that there is a goat behind it. You are then given a choice; you may stick with your original choice, or you may switch to the remaining closed door.

What should you do to maximize your chances of winning the car? 

PS- Special mention of Mr. Suhas Rao who introduced me to the book and helped me realize the world beyond eating  and sleeping :).

FRAGADDICT

For the benefit of the mortals the title represents my name in quake. No No I am not immortal, actually in quake you can get spawn 'n' number of times making you virtually immortal ;). Quake is a first person shooter game where you need to shoot the fist person you meet :P. Sorry, just kiddin, just search of "first person shooter" on wiki or google and you will know.

So a few question that we answered till now.

1. What is quake?

A. A first person shooter game.

2. Who plays it?

A. Everyone. Even "keyser soze" can play it :P.

So is it just about fancy names? Well not really, its about regeneration,humiliation and holy shit. Its about scoring that crucial flag when other team is leading and you hear a "1 minute warning". Its about killing the attacker coming with quad-damage and regeneration. Its about timing opponents armours,shards and health. Its about crying that holy word "Fuck" everytime someone kills you. Its about binding your keys to send the most funkiest of messages.Its about skipping lunch to get a slot to play. Its about pressing "F1" to kick someone. Its about discussing quake all night long. Its about running back after finishing exam,not to study but for quake. Its about those golden days that cannot be forgotten.

Bangalore rocks? Does it? ;)

So from the title of the blog its easy to understand that it is going to be about Bangalore. So i have been in Bangalore now for about more than a year. 

Question: What do i like about Bangalore?

Answer: People :) 

Question: Are Bangalore people really so nice?

Answer: Its nothing to do with niceness. Its just so many of them.:P. Just kiddin actually more than 50% of my college junta is in Bangalore.

Question: What about weekends in Bangalore?

Answer: You go to one of the two malls in Bangalore, Garuda or Forum which are less of malls more of railway station. You can meet everyone staying in Bangalore at these two places on weekend.

Question: What else can you do?

Answer: Watch movies. That sounds good,right. You need to book tickets 3-4 days in advance and also need to shell out 300 Rs for a movie. 300 Rs, you kiddin me? I get a PVR ticket for 100-150 in Delhi. Ya you do but this is Bangalore.

Question: How about food?

Answer: Again you need to book your place in advance. And all of them *hu-ha expensive.

Question: How about transport?

Answer: Please dont ask me this one. It has the worst traffic of all places. You are scared to cross the road.  Metro contruction covers 80% of the roads. Autorickshaw will cost more than your movie ticket.

Question: Do you find anything good about Bangalore?

Answer: I do. You can visit places around Bangalore. Its almost at centre for so many nice places to visit. You can go for "go carting",paintball,wall climbing etc sports but to get to them you will have to cross that traffic :P. Also food however expensive,it is good.

Not the best place to be in, but a nice place to hangout with friends.

*hu-ha--- An exaggerated term used to denote SUPER EXPENSIVE.

Duckworth-Lewis System Revisited.

For the benefit of those who dont know what Duckworth-Lewis system means..It is a method used in the game or cricket to derive approximate score a team needs to score if match is shortened due to some match interruption.

The two main assests that duckworth system looks at are:

• Wickets
• Overs

Fair enough as these two are the most important assets in a cricket match. 

Now look at the scenario Bangladesh has 5 overs left and 3 wickets remaining(doesnt matter whoever it is) against Australian bowling and say if Australia has 5 overs remaining and 3 wickets remaining (Ricky Ponting,Craig White,Brett Lee, Stuart Clarke) against Bangladesh bowling.

Which one would you think more favourable to get to the target?? ;). Current duckworth-lewis system rates them as equally favourable by giving them equal targets. But shouldnt we take care of the fact that may be Australian wickets are valued more than the Bangladeshi wickets.

So you have the problem statement. But whats the solution to it? Okay i am not just a quizmaster here. Lets try to solve this together.

So what are the most important assets in a cricket match.

• Wickets
• Overs

Did I write the same as Mr Duckworth and Mr Lewis? :P.  Okay, lets give these guys credit for guessing the right assets. But these assets are not of equal value for each team. Take this for example:  Is a 2-bhk in Delhi  same as a 2-bhk in New York?? If your answer is no, your answer is same as mine.Okay lets start then.

• Overs are important but we should also take care whether out of the remaining overs we have a powerplay? What say? If first batting team had got 3 powerplays and second team got 2 and match is shortened, it doesnt look fair.
• If batsmen to follow is Rahul Dravid or Yuvraj Singh. I dont mean any disrespect for Dravid, infact i am a great fan of him and his game. I just meant to bring to notice the strike rate and form of batsmen to follow. So we can look at str. rate/ Bat Avg of the batsmen to follow for last 5 innings.
• Opposition bowling. However great a batsmen is, you always have a greater chance of scoring against Sreesanth than Brett Lee or Nathan Bracken or Dale Steyn. So we can incorporate last 5 innings of bowler.
• Or if its difficult to include individual performances...lets take average runs made by the team in last 5 innings and average runs conceeded by bowling team in last 5 overs.

I would just like to conclude by saying that Duckworth-Lewis system is by far the best system we have now for ODI but i think due  to changing environment like inclusion of powerplays and  increasing differences in talent pool of different countries, its time we include these factors in calculating the total. We dont want some day Hongkong beating Australia just because they had wickets left even though those wickets are not worth it.

Counter intution.-UPDATED

I never had book reading on the top of my priority list. But ya, have had a few small stints with books.  Highly inspired by a very close friend of mine, recently i have started looking beyond Chetan Bhagat for books to read.

So the first book i took a task to read is "Fermat's last theorm". Its the best fiction story you may be able to lay your hands on. Just kiddin, it has nothing to do with fiction. Its all truth may be a little myth but no fiction for sure.  Its all about mathematics.Wait dont be scared,its not complicated mathematical proofs. I am not going to write the proof of some complex mathematical equation here nor am i capable enough to do so :P.

Anyways what mainly it teaches us is that "Everything is Maths".But what i learnt mainly from a first few pages is...not everything thats looks intuitive is correct. A small example for the same would be..If there are 23 men in a room. What are the %age chances that 2 people will share same birthdate?

So going by intuition first.....there are 365 days in a year, ok ok it can be 366 also. We have 23 people. So to share same birthday among 365 days for 23 people ,probability seem very low.At most a 10% chance.

Now lets see the right answer if you havent calculated by now. It will come out to be slightly greater than 50%. Amazed?? If the group size is increased to around 30 the chances are almost 100%. Doesnt sound right?? This is COUNTER INTUITION.

How many group of 2 can we make out of 23 people?? Those many groups and 365 days....does it sound right now?? :)

PS- My first blog. Just wanted to start by writing on a topic which i found interesting. Not everyone is excited by Mathematics so apologies to those who find it boring. 

Update: On popular demand here is the solution to above question :P, atleast i think so that this is the solution :D.

It should be 1 - ((365C23)/(365)^23)== .50729 approx.