Match report - TGCC v. Churchill

Chasing a low score of 94 in 40 overs wasn't ever going to be a big challenge, even on the low, slow, green Fullers wicket. Nick H and Freddie opened the batting Nick pretty much went on a Sehwag style rampage with smashing nearly 7 runs an over for the first 6 overs. Freddie as usual was blocking the other end and scored about 1 run in the 60 run opening stand. Nick mixed some fantastic off drives and lofted pull shots and was particularly punishing of the bad bowling from the near end. Very soon, they switched to an off spinner and Nick using his feet really well to him lofted a couple of fours over mid-off. From the far end though, the other opening bowler, big lad over 6 feet 4 inches was generating a fair bit of pace, bounce and swing and was consistently beating both the opening batsmen outside the off stump. His hard work was finally rewarded when he Nick's off stump cartwheeling and TGCC were and 60/1 after 12 overs.

The Churchill captain made some quick bowling changes causing a bit of a middle order crash, TGCC were very soon 85/4. I came on to the crease at than point and 5 balls and a couple of boudaries later, TGCC had successfully won the third Sunday game in a row. Important to mention that Freddie carried his bat through the innings, scoring 3 runs out of the 96 scored by TGCC. Talk about blocking one end !

Earlier in the day, our opening bowlers, Charlie and DJ hit the perfect on and about the off stump line beating the opening batsmen consistantly. The best part was that both the bowlers were extremely disciplined and bowled no wides or no balls. DJ produced some good chances off his bowling with two catches just falling short of slips and one being dropped in covers. By the time the two opening bowlers had finished their spell Churchill were 14/0 off 10 overs.

The first change bowlers continued the good run and finally we had we got our first breakthrough when Sam Hall rattled the woodwok with a an inswinger to the right hander from left arm over the wicket. Churchill sent in a pinch hitter next who improved the runrate over the next few overs. By the time I came in to bowl, Churchill were about 44/1 in 20 overs.

My very first ball, pitching on the off stump and turning just enough, produced an edge that was dropped by the wicket keeper. Although there wasn't much purchase from the green & slow wicket, I was still able to turn the ball a fair bit. I was mixing up seam-up deliveries with flighted legspins. Four balls later, I induced another edge, this time of a ball pitching on middle and turning to a feet outside off stump, and the first slip diving to his left caught a tough one. The new batman coming in shuffled around the crease trying the follow the next few legspinners and I knew then that I will have another wicket soon. As expected, he tried to pull a flipper, surprised by the bounce he managed to edge a skier to midwicket. Beating the batsmen very often, I had another a few other near missed in the next couple of overs. A couple of full tosses and a bad over cost 8 runs with the pinch-hitter still trying to go after the bowling. The bowling at the other end was beginning to falter and give some runs away also.

My last over, I got the pinch hitter out. A flighted leg spin following a couple of quick straight ones and a googly made him play too soon and straight back into my waiting hands. Wo hoo!!! the third and most important wicket. The quickies came back and polished off the tail and 93 of 40 overs was never going to be a challenging target.

I finished with figured of 6-0-18-3 and scored 9 runs of 5 balls faced with two fours. All in all, not a bad day at all.

Lille-d

Lille wasn't particularly a choice destination. It was one borne out of necessity. We had to get a ticket to some place in France in order to get a visa and we chose Lille. We didn't know much about Lille or had had a chance to read up about it.

What we learnt about Lille was amazing. About a little over a 1000 years ago, Lille was probably an island and hence the name. It was not always French. It was Flemish and Spanish before it was French. Louis the IV fought for Lille around 1667AD and won it for the French. This is when Lille really started becoming the 4th largest metropolitan area in France. Traditional French character, values and architecture was introduced to Lille and most of the monuments we visited were created by the French after this time. The park in the picture is a good example of that: Used to be a downtrodden street and now has become a really nice park.

Once the French took this city over, this rapidly developed to be the Manchester of France, heavily industrialized with textile mills etc. These industries were put out of business by cheaper offshore products but resilient Lille reinvented itself. While re-modernizing itself with new town centre, fancy L shaped Euralille building [pic] and software and services industries, Lille rediscovered its culture and heritage and setup the old town as a perfect balance to the new hi-tech parts.

The Place du Général de Gaulle or the Grande Place [pic] is the centre of attaction. Right next to the The Palais Rihour [pic], a 16th century building that hosts the Tourist information centre, the Grand Place is at the cusp of the old city and the new shopping district. The new age shopping district houses all the big high street brands, specialized boutiques and cafe's and restaurants. Walking through to the city to the extremely well preserved old town, we came across a blend of modern and old. Most of the houses in the old town have been modified to be either very cool cafes or high end designer stores. It was quite an experience walking through the old town... and it is as far as old towns go.

All this was on north and north east of our hotel. Oh! by the way, we stayed at the Hotel L Hermitage Gantois. A 4* deluxe hotel which is a modified 16th century hospital. A fantastic historical building with a really cool setup.

Just on the south side of the hotel was the mini Arc de Triomphe. Smaller but not less significant for Lille than the Parisian counterpart is to Paris, this was once a gate of the old city. Adjacent to it is the Town Hall and its belfry.

A little further up were the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille, the second largest museum in France after the Louvre, and the Republique building.

A walk further south revealed residential and industrial part of town. A nice walk through what seemed like the forgotten part of town. All in all, a restful Sunday in a very modern park watching people walk by ended a nice, relaxing weekend in a Lille that pleasantly surprised us.

Cricket me a pitch !

We won today. I had an okay day, but hey, we won !

We batted first and put up a 201 in 35 overs. I went in to open with Freddie and we didn't exactly get off to a flier but we didn't lose a wicket either. 10 overs in and we were 40/0. Decent start considering we were always 2o/2 or something like that in like 4 overs. Although the pitch was very dry, it was really slow, low and unpredectible. We soon stumbled to 52/2 with both the openers, me and Freddie back in the pavilion. I scored 20. Don't know what I was thinking and decided to play on the back foot to a short pitch delivery on our home pitch, a pitch where the ball is never where you expect it to be was caught plumb in front of the wickets. So plumb that even our own empire couldn't save me. Anyway, the middle order also collapsed until we were rescued by a 75 run 6th wicket partnership and some late order hitting got us to 201. This was a very good score on our home wicket where usually 150 is a winning total.

Our opening bowlers started off well and we had them 20/2 in 5 overs. But some good hitting by one of their openers got them back into the game and they were soon at 75/2 in 15 overs. This was until the spin duo came on. One left arm spinner (Singh) complimented by a right hand leg spin bowler from the other end (Me) and very soon the match changed shape. Singh ended up with figures of 7-1-14-4 and I from the other end got 6-3-4-2. We got the quickies to come back in and close the match off and they were all out for about 120. :-)

My batting average is in a bit of a mess this season. So far 5 matches with scores of 25, 14, 4, 0 and 20. Last season I averaged a little over 30. Well, I will be out of London next weekend and so no match, but am hoping to improve the scores in the coming matches.

At least my bowling has been going better. I kept wickets in 2 of the 5 matches but in the other three that I have bowled in, I have ended up with about 10-5-16-3. Not too bad for a leggie in a 35 over run riot.

Wales Day 3

Unlike the first two days, this day started off relatively early. We were ready, all breakfasted and out of the hostel by 9am. We had a 1-hour drive to the station and had to take the 11am train up the hill. The train was expected to go only 3/4th of the way up the hill and we had to walk the other 1/4th, about 45 minutes.

We got there with enough time to spare and decided to get something to munch on. By the time we finished the food and got to the train, the coach was very full and we struggled to find any place to sit. After packing us all in like sardines, the train started on the slow ascent up the mountain. A really really slow ascent. The train journey was a bit of a letdown. Although it was sunny at the base, it was cloudy, cold and raining at the top. After a fairly boring 45 minute journey, we got off at the station. Instead of making our way up to the summit in the rain and cold, we decided to head down the trail to the base of the mountain.

The path was slippery and rocky and quite steep in places but was an amazing trek down. With amazing views all the way down, I kept on clicking pictures.

The weather improved with the decreasing altitude and it got more sunny and warm. Smita trotted (literally like a horse) her way down the steep incline. She seems to think this reduces the stress on her knees and reduces her health insurance premium. All I know is that we had a good laugh at her expense. A couple of hours after we had started on our trek down, we found ourselves back at the station cafe feeding our even increasing appetites.

Waving our goodbyes to Wales, we started off on our 5 hour return drive to Hitchin. All I can say about the drive is that, 5 hours in the backseat of a car sucks big time especially when all you want to do is get back home, shower, get a good cup of chai and go to sleep!

I would classify Wales as a poor man's Switzerland. My summary is that it is a good place to go for hiking and camping etc. in pretty surroundings, provided you have a better way to incorporate weather predictions into the holiday planning model.

Wales Day 2: and you thought yesterday was lazy

Most of our trips have been 3 day trips and Day 2 is usually the most exciting day of these trips.

Not this time. Day 2 was started off as one of the laziest days, even more so when you think that this was to be a full-on hiking day. We were supposed to hike up mount Snowdon. Guess what we ended up doing.... if you know us, you have guessed right. We woke up late, lazed around and finally made our way into town and had the biggest & best breakfast possible :-) Well, in all honesty, weather was a big spoilsport today. It was a horrible day with non-stop rain till late afternoon.

After the filling brunch, we got to the station to take the mountain rail up to Snowdon and even bought the tickets but then exchanged them for tickets for tomorrow, since tomorrow is expected to be sunny and bright. So with tickets and a plan for tomorrow but no plan for today, we all kind of stood there scratching our heads as to what to do and we started walking back to the car.

Before getting into the car, I saw this interesting sight of the parking attendant talking to a Ferrari driver. In order to just talk to the guy, he had to take a knee and salute the Ferrari. Thought this was interesting.

Right beside the carpark was a stream, a crystal clear stream which Anusha wanted to pollute by plonking her feet in it. Oh! did I mention that it was cold and we all were pretty sure that the water would be freezing. But then again Anusha's 'feet in streams' fascination knows no sense. For the next few minutes, we all watched her hop and scream in the cold water. Well, you had to be there to truly enjoy it.

After our little scream-stream episode, we spotted a small trail off the back of the parking lot. We decided to take that and landed up at the old ruins of what was once a small fort with amazing views. I'll let the pictures do the talking. Take special notice of the details like the faces by the hanging jacket from the window of the ruin and the mountain rail in the background of the second picture.

With Smita navigating and Raghav driving, the infamous four headed off once again in search of exotic locations and prettier locations. A beautiful 2-hour drive took us through many a curvy roads, each with a better picturesque view. It was one of those stop - look around - soak the scenery - off again journeys. We finally ended up in island county of Anglesey, an island with some awesome views of the Welsh coast of the Irish sea.

We stopped by a local pub on the way back to grab some food. As usual we overstuffed ourselves and crawled our way back to our hotel room. Somehow, all of us got re energized by looking at the pictures from the day and a cup of tea and finally decided to embark on that elusive hike. It was a really nice hike up the hills & away from the village. We were supposed to be on this circular path that would get us back to the village from another side. However, we strayed off our path because the one we were supposed to take was being guarded by some really mean looking bulls that were watching our every move. We trekked for a little over an hour along whatever path we could find and finally with Raghav claiming 'aama yaar, idu straighta bullukke poharade!' (this path is heading straight towards the bulls again!), we turned around and came back to our village.

Finally going to be sleeping light after the hike. Have a fairly full day ahead of us with the train ride up the mountain, another hike and the drive back to Hitchin. Stay tuned ....

Wales Day 1: The lazy Welsh

As we walked into their place, Raghav warned us that Smita is planning to make us all get out at 7am the next day. We all knew at that point itself that we weren't leaving before noon the next day. This was supposed to be an adrenaline high, pushing the physical boundaries type holiday. Coming off of a hectic project, I knew that wasn't going to be the case.

True to form, we all woke up late and lazed the morning away chatting and playing the piano. Finally we got ready and got out just after noon. We had decided that we were going to drive to Snowdonia. A couple of pit stops on the way to fill up our pits and 4 hours got us nicely to within striking distance of Snowdon. Smita had booked us in a hostel in some village no one had ever heard of - Penmachno.

Penmachno is a village in an isolated upland valley, about 4 miles south of Betws-y-Coed (which we still don't know how to pronounce) in Conwy, North Wales. Beautiful surroundings, small windy roads, old church, nice people, cozy cottages and green hills and valleys.

We had booked a bunk-bed room with shared bathroom facilities. While we all settled down, Smita the brilliant planner realized that she had forgotten her hiking boots for this hiking trip. Of course we all made fun of her !

Given that we had a couple of hours of sunlight left, we thought it would be nice to just explore the area a little bit. All jumped back into the car and drove off to Conwy falls. Once we got to Conwy falls, we walked around for about half an hour trying to get to the bottom of the falls, the top of the falls etc. without much success. The authorities had barricaded the falls because it was raining and slippery. After all the waltzing around, I came to the conclusion that Conwy falls is just a false falls.

Making our way back to the Conwy cafe, we ordered pizza and salad for dinner. Or at least so we had thought. While the three of us ate our food, Raghav was sitting twiddling his thumbs because the waiter has never taken down his order. Of course we ordered again and Raghav got his pizza. I ordered a melt-in-your-mouth brownie with some local Bara Brith, a local Welsh ice cream, all this of course to keep Raghav company. I didn't particularly like the Bara Brith, tested coconuty but the brownie was awesome!

Once back in our hostel, some more researching and some Uno and we were all ready for bed.

Many superheroes, 3 movies - 1 winner.

Recent superhero movies have all been a letdown. Last couple of weeks, I have seen three superhero movies. Prince Caspian, Kung-fu panda and Hancock. Here's what I thought of them...

Finishing last was Hancock. I did expect more laughs from this movie. There were some scenes and dialogues that were funny but I guess my expectations from this movie were high. I did like the twist in the middle but then the second half of the movie spiralled off into this whole new movie, belonging to a completely different genre without much connection to the first half. The movie had way too much happening and made for, at best, an okay movie.

Prince Caspian and the Kings and Queens of old come in at second place. Decent animation, good visual effects, with child actors growing up into their roles and some good fight sequences made for an entertaining couple of hours. Peter Dinklage, as Trumpkin the dwarf, is amazing in the movie and I loved the accent. Also refreshing, was the comedy by the mouse king. these supporting actors, by far, have the best dialogues and the best dialogue delivery of the lot. Notable mention should be the centaur leader. He did seem like the one ideal to lead the Narnians instead of Aslan. Then again, I didn't write the book.

The winning superhero by a clear margin is the the fearless dragon warrior. Jack Black is in top form as the Kung-fu Panda and so is Dustin Hoffman as the master Shifu. Probably one of the best animated movies I have seen to date. (well, maybe Monsters Inc. was better) Amazing animation, breathtaking action sequences, very funny dialogues and a strong supporting cast set this movie up well. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the movie and will definitely buy the DVD when it comes out.

Hitchin's got talent !

Mango passion !
This is Raghav displaying his Mango peeling skills - he got the entire mango peeled in one go - It's really all connected !!!!!





Neem hakim khatraye jaan !
A really cool electronic piano in the hands of a novice can be a pain in the ears.





Kids on the bikes !
Smita and Raghav biking around London. A really nice sunny day spent in a perfect way.

Viennese surprise - Final day

As with every other trip, we wanted to take day three as a more relaxed one. We started off day three pretty much like day two with the nice breakfast. We packed up our luggage, checked out of our hotel and headed on towards the two things on the agenda today, Grinzing and Naschmarkt.

Grinzing was the first stop. This little village style suburb on the outskirts of Vienna still retains the charm of the old Austria. It was a 45 minute fun ride by the tram to get to Grinzing. The old style tram only added to the charm. This area still has the houses structured very much in the traditional Austrian style. Of course these houses have been turned into little shops, restaurants or cafes. Situated on sort of a top of a hill, this place was very beautiful to walk around in. A nice walk and a coffee later, we were on our way back to the city to our next stop, the Naschmarkt.

Naschmarkt loosely translates to Nibbles Market. Just south of central Vienna, this market is a long street lined with little speciality shops and cafes. The shops offer fresh fruit and vegetables from around the world, exotic spices, meat, fish and ecological foods and the cafes serve everything from traditional Viennese food to amazing desserts. Bargaining is the rule of the land here and the fittest survive. Saturdays are supposed to be really crowded and buzing with people. We went on a Monday :-).

Saying our goodbye to Vienna was pretty hard. On the whole this city has a lot to offer to anyone, no matter what their interests are. Everything from a great cultural and cullinary experience to easy access to the fantastic alps for the nature or outdoorsy types. Hopefully we will be back one day to see more of Austria.

Oh! just to make sure: Austrian airlines have the best food and service I have experienced in Europe. In a time with Alitalia wouldn't serve water to save money and frown to save energy, both amazing food and great service is abundantly available on Austrian Airlines.

Viennese surprise - Day 2

A fairly filling buffet breakfast (but not quite as good as the one in Stockholm) kicked off day two. The hotel receptionist was very helpful in guiding us to the right spots to visit. It was not so much as "visit this place, its great" as it was "Don't go there, it's shit!". It helped and we were on our way to Schönbrunn Palace.

The Schönbrunn Palace was built as Vienna's answer to Versailles. Nice big palace with a large garden encompassing a few fountains, many different statues, a Gloriette on a hill, a maze and labyrinth and a zoo amongst other things. Of course in order to go through everything it would have taken much longer than a day. We almost missed most of it. We entered through the main gates, walked around the front of the palace for a bit and thought of heading on to other things in Vienna as it started drizzling a little bit. But something prompted us to walk around the back of the palace before heading out. This is where most of the action was.

The path around the palace is lined with about 32 large very Greek looking statues. As we came around the back, we were greeted by the big french garden facing the Neptune Well and the Gloriette on top of the hill. The fountain seems pretty small from the palace but as you go closer to it, its humongous size becomes more and more dominating. After a nice hike up the hill, we got to the Gloriette, which houses a very nice cafe and provides a magnificient view of the palace with the city in the background.


After making our way down from the hill, we walked in the maze and labirynth. An hour of fun and games later, we were ready to head out to the other sites of Vienna.

Next, we travelled next to the Opera, the Ruprechtskirche (about 1200 years old) and other sites and other local tourist hotspots. Finally it was back to our room and we ordered some Indian food delivery, ate in our room and retired for the evening.

Viennese surprise - Day 1

I was pretty sure I would find interesting things on offer from a country which has been home to people like Mozart, Strauss, Beethoven, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Hitler. On one hand you expect Wein to be culturally super rich and on the other you expect to find freaks of nature.

The trip over to Vienna was very standard. Flight from Heathrow and then public transport in Vienna. Once in Vienna, we were greeted with a very warm and sunny day. We made our way to the hotel which was located in one of the most affluent residential areas of Vienna, right opposite a nice big park. The hotel itself was very fancy but comfortable with small number of really big rooms and good service. We checked in, dumped our luggage and headed out. There was a big party going on in the park just outside so we hung around there for a bit, eating some food and enjoying the band playing.

One of the things that never ceases to amaze me is how good the public transport is in any european city we have gone to so far. Wein has a, extensive network of overground trains, underground trains, trams and buses. Travelling to and fro anywhere in the city was a breeze. Our hotel was outside the Wien Ring Boulevard. Ring Boulevard is 4 kilometres long and circles the entire city centre with Trams plying every 5 minutes in either direction. It is amazing that the need for a ring road was foreseen and construction started about 250 years ago.

Day 1 continued on as we travelled on the trams 1 & 2 looking at the numerous sites on offer. The ring road is lines with important sites such as the Parliment, the Hoffburg, the Karlskirche, the Staatsoper, the Museumsquartier (6th largest cultural complex in the world) etc. The Karlskirche was being setup for the Life Ball 2008 celeberations and there were lights, speakers etc. everywhere. Working our way along the ring, we got to the HoffBurg. Once of the many parks of Vienna, packed with people eating, drinking and chilling on a warm weekend afternoon. There was a nice statue of Mozart in the park and of course we decided to take a Patel shot.

From here, we moved into the city to StephansPlatz which is centered around the 1157AD built StephansDom. This area is also adorned with high end shops and cafe's and is a good place to hang out at. There was a little street show going on with a group of young punks showcasing their breakdancing abilities. A fun show that lasted for about 10 minutes.

We took the subway to the modern, hi-tech Vienna. A dramatic change from the historical center and spent a bit of time walking around the tall buildings putting the finishing touches on the day. Tired and weary but happy, we got back to our hotel room to the comfort of our bed.