While this is supposed to be a tech blog, I've sort of attempted to broaden the scope to all geeky pursuits including, with this post, cricket stats. I was always very good at the permutations and combinations part of mathematics in school because I always visualized problems using cricket tournament standings. So if I ever forgot the "formula" to calculate say "4C2", I would physically work out the number of matches in a 4 nation round robin tournament. Needless to say, like most Indians, being fond of math and having to support perpetually under performing teams, I'm at the forefront of "theoretical optimism".

Thus I'm quite flabbergasted that SRK has already begun apologising when KKR is very much in the reckoning for a semi-final spot especially with the MASSIVE advantage of playing the final game against a team that has already qualified. They will know the exact run-rate required if it comes down to that and they'll be up against a not-so-motivated Mumbai side who might just take it easy. Forget KKR, even the beleagured Kings XI Punjab are in with a theoretical chance of going through:

14 Apr RC beats RR

15 Apr DD must beat CSK

16 Apr KXIP must beat DC

17 Apr  RC beats MI ; KKR beats RR

18 Apr KXIP must beat CSK; DD must beat DC

19 Apr MI beats KKR 

The alternate scenario is that if RR beat RC today, then RC needs to lose to MI on 17th as well, to stay stuck on 12 points and KKR has the option of losing either of its two remaining matches to also stay stuck at 12. In both scenarios you'll have MI, DD and either of RR/RC going through to the semis and the remainder FIVE teams stuck on 12 points.

After that its Net Run Rate and KXIP could well have the highest NRR though both DC and KKR will have an advantage of having their final match after KXIP. That's why it would have been fairer to have the last four matches played simultaneously as is done in the football world cup so that there is no plotting. But if it's between being fair and cashing in on 4x the audience, we all know which way the IPL swings!

About a week ago, Mumbai Indians had all their noses in the air and, at least, one foot firmly in the semifinals: after comfortably winning almost every match, they even emerged as the favourites in virtually every book.

They needed just one more victory to finally take that giant leap into the last four; at that time, of course, it seemed as simple as taking the next step during a casual stroll in the morning.

That step, however, didn't turn out to be so simple: in fact, it drew them away from home and into the killing climes of Chennai. There, first, the humidity sapped Tendulkar; then, the heat of the competition got to his team. Eventually, they failed to chase down a fair-game 165.

The next step was even more complicated, taking them all the way from down South to the fringes of northern India. On the face of it, though, it seemed like a facile mission: zip into Mohali, zap the already-down Kings and go back into the reassuring folds of home.

But then, you scoff at a pride of hungry lions at your own peril: not too surprisingly, Mumbai managed only 154 and just didn't have the heart to defend it. Suddenly, it was two defeats in two games; you didn't have to see the anxious faces in their dugout to know that they had lost the momentum.

That is, however, not the main reason for their anxiety; Mumbai Indians are probably worried about something else: the curse of the Number 14. Surely, the ghosts of an earlier lifetime, of IPL 2008, are haunting them again.

In the inaugural edition too, they won six straight games after a disastrous start to be called the momentum-team; but they lost the next three to be unceremoniously left out of the race. Clearly, they had peaked a little too early; is that the case this time too? Can they get past 14 points at least now?

More importantly, do they have the wherewithal to go all the way? Are they still as red-hot as they appeared to be just a couple of matches ago?

The answer, on current form, is no. First and foremost, their batting doesn't have the firepower to keep winning day in and day out; yes, there is Tendulkar but he must be feeling like a one-man army all over again. The Dhawans, Tiwaris and Rayudus have rallied around him nicely but the team can't escape the inherent brittleness within.

They actually look vulnerable because their big-ticket player Pollard seems to be still counting the megabucks, rather than sixes or fours; if he doesn't fire soon, Mumbai will be seriously worried. After all, their other match-winner, Jayasuriya, too seemed to have his eye elsewhere: on the polls in Lanka, rather than on the ball during his brief stint earlier. His return will only complicate the equation.

Their bowling is the saving grace though: it is well-rounded and has loads of experience too. Between them, Malinga, Zaheer and Harbhajan can swing a few wickets; McLaren and Sathish have also provided adequate support. The problem, however, is that this is a batsman's game, not a bowler's.

That is where the others score: right from Chennai to Hyderabad to Bangalore to Delhi, everybody has a battery of big-hitters and proven match-winners. Even Kolkata aren't short on this count now. Tendulkar will somehow have to find a way past this problem.

Luckily, he still has one match at home. He has to wrap it up there, if not earlier against Rajasthan today itself; if he leaves it till the end, to the last two away-games, he may well be at the receiving end of curse Number 14 again. He wouldn't want to risk that.

Every bowler’s worst nightmare finally came true: on a humid Saturday evening, and on a perfect sleeping beauty, one batsman after another went on the rampage to literally set the Chidambaram Stadium on fire.

In the end, it was nothing but a massacre; only a miracle saved the match from going down as a rabid joke.

M Vijay, who showed signs of manic aggression in the earlier match, went berserk in a crucial match for the Super Kings; he started in a fitfully quiet manner, greeting Shane Warne’s trump card Yusuf Pathan with utmost dignity.

But when Warne pulled out another card, Sumit Narwal this time, he cut loose: 6, 4 and another 4 got the heartbeats racing inside the packed stadium. They, however, didn’t give an indication of the mayhem to follow; runs flowed from his blade like booze on a wild night of partying.

The original tormentor, Mathew Hayden, could only watch as his micro version attacked with the freedom and finesse of a soaring bird; he didn’t have time for a single bowler, neither for Shaun Tait, nor Shane Watson or Warne, as he towered over the blazing horizon.

By the time dusk descended on Chennai, the Super Kings had amassed 246 for five, the highest tally in the Indian Premier League; Albie Morkel simply added more colour to the fireworks with his blistering 62 off 34 deliveries.

If the hosts thought that the party was over, they were in for a rude shock: the Royals, like true warriors, simply don’t believe in giving up without a fight. Led by the lanky duo of Michael Lumb and Naman Ojha, they went after the target like hungry wolves.

At the fall of the first wicket, Warne unleashed his trump card again; but a smart boundary later, Yusuf smashed what seemed like a clear sixer. Bollinger, however, was clearly dreaming of exactly such a situation on his long journey from down under.

First he leapt well over his six-foot frame to intercept the shot; but then, as he lost his footing, he did a David Hussey: he tossed the ball into the air, jumped over the line, hopped right back to complete a sensational catch.

The Royals lost the gambit, and along with it, the match too; incidentally, it also marked the arrival of the final string of Aussies into the fray. Bollinger, apart from the catch, returned with the stunning figures of two for 15 in his four overs which proved to be the standout of the match.

He wasn’t alone though: his teammate Shane Watson slammed 60 of a mere 25 to keep his side in the hunt till the very end. At one stage, in the 14th over, they were actually shoulder-to-shoulder with the Super Kings. His cool and clinical hitting was almost the perfect riposte to Vijay’s 127.

As luck would have it, Watson was bowled by Bollinger himself; as the two crossed each other, they exchanged smiles: the only difference was that one was cheery while the other was wry. Ojha remained unconquered on 94, off just 55 deliveries; but it was clearly beyond his slim shoulders.

When it first entered the realm of possibility, Twenty20 seemed to be too short a format to qualify as a contest: it doesn’t give anyone a second chance, they said, the most basic premise of any game; one mistake and you might as well kiss your grandma goodbye, they added.

That, however, is just one of the myths that has exploded along with purse strings in the IPL. The current edition has slowly but very surely shown that you not only get a second chance, but also a third and fourth one. The key is patience, just like in its most pristine form: Test cricket.

On Sunday night, Rajasthan Royals appeared to be galloping away after winning the toss; as Ojha raised 100 in just 10 overs, combining with Lumb and Fazal, a 200-plus total seemed more than probable. But then, Yusuf Pathan fell for 8, and pretty soon the inevitable slide began: in the end, they managed just 177.

As M Vijay went on the attack, along with Hayden and Raina, the target looked even less intimidating; but then, Yusuf conjured a stunning run out to break Chennai’s momentum. Soon after, Dhoni too crashed into Badrinath for a crucial run-out. The match turned emphatically towards the Royals… until, of course, Albie Morkel decided to throw his bat and caution to the wind.

He smashed 3 sixes off Warne, and raced to 28 off just 12 deliveries, to cut the match wide open. But then, Shaun Tait bowled a quiet, smart over to bring it back into their grasp; Siddharth Trivedi just had to keep his wits together to keep the smiles on his mates’ faces. He did, rather easily.

Quite a few matches, thankfully, have followed this pendulum phenomenon. The most stunning example of a second chance, though, came in the game’s most miniscule form: catching. On Monday night, it seemed like a simple case of touch-and-go when Paul Collingwood hit one down David Husssey’s throat. Hussey, however, made a hash of it: the ball landed in his palms but bounced out of them to find some meaning beyond the ropes.

He went after it, instinctively, to try and lessen the damage; he hung in the air, and in one fluid movement, tossed the ball back into the game with his right hand. As it came down, however, he realized that he still had a chance: very smartly, both visually and intellectually, he hopped over the rope again and dived forward with his left hand outstretched to take one of the most spectacular catches.

This is, of course, just another glimpse of where cricket is headed. As other leagues too get ready to rear their heads around the world, one can be sure that the quality of fielding, if not bowling and batting, will only improve. Second chances, then, will become part of T20 to put to rest all doubts.

After this duo, however, the batting leaderboard is a mixture of young, not-so-young and the old. Fascinatingly, the bowling list is also topped by a wily old hand, and a spinner at that: Muthiah Muralitharan; chasing him is his mate Chaminda Vaas, who is desperately trying to get back into the Sri Lankan scheme of things.

IPL 3 has begun and a scrutiny of the finer points of this new avatar of the game will start. Imran Khan in his column has already told us how excited he is to see what new things turn up.

Cricket is a game that keeps evolving and that's why it is greater than any other sport and the fastest growing.

Just to take a review of the things that people have fine-tuned thanks to T20. The straight six, the reverse sweep which is more a hit. The slow sweep over short fine leg, the lofted cover drive, the drive over midoff and midwicket, late cut/steer, chip over slips, pull/hooks, flick over square leg.

For the bowlers, the yorker, slower ball, quicker delivery for spinners, bouncer, arrow straight bowling, doosra, flipper, off-cutter, flighted swing.

What we haven't seen perfected is a sweep or a scoop  over slip. Nicky Saldanha, the former Maharashtra Ranji bowler, would step out scoop from leg stump over his right shoulder over the keeper's head and over first slip. This irritated the keeper of our side, none other than former India keeper Nana Joshi, then in his  fifties. But that was the idea of Nicky.

Iqbal Khan played a similar shot in a one-day event at the CCI. He was a Mumbai Ranji player, who is now settled in the UK.

So what new did we see in the first two days of the IPL? One saw the slow bouncer of Angelo Matthews of KKR. In the match against Deccan Chargers he welcomed Hershelle Gibbs with a slow bouncer. Gibbs' greatness was that he saw it all the way and did not premeditate and let it go. When the regular bouncer came Gibbs pulled it away. Lesser batsmen would have remained in a confused state.

Mathews and Mahroof of Sri Lanka are bowlers who innovate and that makes them great competitors. Manoj Prabhakar was that type. India doesn't have one like him though Sreesanth is trying.

On Day 2, Yusuf Pathan and Ambati Rayudu taught us a thing or two about big hitting. Yusuf's bat speed needs emulating but I was particularly keen about Rayudu. Ever since the days of Ramesh Nagdev and Navjot Singh Sidhu one hasn't seen a big hitter with a low backlift. One had noticed that when he hit those runs in England in the Junior World Cup. He had been marked down for greatness but sadly, faded away. Thankfully he has been resurrected and the credit should go to Robin Singh the coach of MI. Indian cricket just cannot afford to lose jewels like Rayudu. Post-match, he said that the key to his play was staying still till the last. That's the essence.  In contrast, his partner Saurabh Tiwary was moving before the ball was bowled Mathew Hayden-style, playing walking shots. Good luck to him as long as he doesn't let his virtuosity run away with him.

At a recent felicitation of Wadekar's Warriors by Universal Arts and Sports Foundation spearheaded by Pappu Sanzgiri, Sir Garfield Sobers told us that he preferred to play from his crease because he didn't want to increase the bowlers' options of getting him out by stepping out. "If I can shorten the length of the ball by going back within the crease why do I need to step out?''

Sobers' backfoot sixes are a rarity in today's game because the batsmen's first movement when the ball is delivered is to go forward  and then back. They lose precious time in doing that.

Two batsmen who I saw hitting  well off the back foot are Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi  and Nitin Shirodkar. Pataudi had pulled a muscle and in the Melbourne Test against Australia he hit Graham McKenzie and Alan Connolly off the back foot for sixes. As my predecessor the late KN Prabhu wrote, "He battled Australia with one eye and one leg.'' Nitin Shirodkar, the father of actresses Shilpa and Namrata, was a Mumbai Ranji quickie who played for Khar Gymkhana and Air India. His useful batting down the order would see him hit with ease off the back foot into the distances.

One would like to see such shots in T20. Adam Gilchrist is coming close with the straight hits but they are from his crease position not going back some six inches to shorten the length of the ball. As quite a few batsmen stand outside the crease for the quickies they could do so by going back and slamming straight.

Similarly, if the bowlers want to bowl the ball over the line of sight of the batsmen they could bowl the ball from, say, one foot behind the bowling crease. Remember, anything above the line of sight makes the batter fumble and dither. The eyes have to divert up and down.

That's an innovation that can be tried in T20. Imagine the shock of the batsman when he sees the ball coming from farther and earlier!

Another innovation one is looking for is a spinner  bowling  a bouncer. Bumper as a dot ball has been provided in the rules. Right now only the quicker bowlers are bowling bouncers.

In Mumbai's local cricket, I have seen spinners bowl beamers and get wickets. Also a stumping from a head-high beamer which was allowed before the new rules came.

It's just a matter of practice. Anil Kumble could make a start because his experience gives him the right control to bowl this spinner's bouncer.

It's just a matter of practice in the nets for the spinners to master the bouncer so that it is not called a wide. For instance a spinner could stand next to the bowling machine, see the spot from where the ball rises to bouncer height and try and bowl on that spot imparting the right strength.

Of course, the bounce of pitches would vary. But before the match commences spinners could explore on the side pitches as Imran Khan would do with his Pakistani quicks.

I think this much brainstorming is just right after two days of the IPL. We will talk about more exciting things next. Cheers.

In his previous life, Sourav Ganguly must surely have been a phoenix: every time you think it's all over, he too rises from the `ashes', only to shine brighter than the last time.

In the last season, thanks mainly to Buchananism, he was reduced to the size of an outsider: he could only watch in dismay, along with his myriad well-wishers, as his team hurtled from one defeat to another embarrassment. 

But well before IPL III got under way, typically, he found himself ploughed back into the spotlight; he stayed low in the run-up to the event, happy to see Shah Rukh Khan do all the scene-stealing. On Friday night, though, it was time for the dada-show again.

As his stars would have it, the start was ominous: Tiwari went off the first ball; then he himself fell, in an altogether familiar fishing episode. By the time the country united on the airwaves, all smiles had vanished from KKR faces: at 31 for four, they were back on knightmare street.

But the game turned quickly: Angelo Mathews and Owais Shah picked up the pieces and studded them with runs and fours. Like the good old times, you could follow the match by simply watching Sourav's face: first despair. Then hope. Then the hint of a twinkle. And finally quiet optimism.

The optimism, however, faded away quickly: Gilchrist does that regularly to opposition captains, of course. Sourav simply waited; at 99 for one, the moment arrived: Gilchrist departed. Sourav promptly pulled out his old mask; the arms flailed like a windmill, the voice rose above the din and the brows burrowed in determination. 

As the final nail was driven into the Chargers' coffin, Sourav happily crashed into Ishant's chest; somewhere, beyond the lights and celebrations, Shah Rukh must surely have danced to joy. The phoenix has clearly risen. Is it a coincidence that the Knight Riders have opted for purple-blue-yellow, just like the mythical bird?

MI, my what a win

If Sourav somehow manages to win lost games, Tendulkar has this uncanny knack of ending up losing even from absolute positions; on Saturday, he was back to his nail-biting best too as Yusuf Pathan went on a rampage.

Luckily for an equally anxious Nita Ambani, the elder Pathan ran out of luck: he fell exactly for 100. But by then, the game had not only come alive but had also decidedly galloped away from Mumbai Indians. Tendulkar, however, held his nerve and made sure that Zaheer and Malinga were there at the death.

Each bowled a near-perfect over to leave RR short by just four runs. Warne probably slipped by sending a young Uniyal ahead of himself; the left-handed bat lasted just one ball but it proved to be a precious delivery. Mascarenhas was stranded barely one big hit away from a famous chase.

Sachin Tendulkar's birthday being named World Cricket Day is a tremendous tribute by cricket's apex body, the International Cricket Council. The announcement came a day after arguably the world's finest cricketer, Garfield Sobers, paid handsome tributes to Sachin, saying that with all his achievements he won't give it away so easily.

Before this tribute to Sachin, Indians were basking in the glory of the world's finest hockey player, Dhyan Chand, being remembered by his birthday being named the National Sports Day of India. One can't remember other sporting greats being similarly commemorated. But Sachin's glory is that he is being honoured in his lifetime.

Only recently we had Winter Olympic gold medallist Hannah Kearney seeing a day named after her in Vermont, US.  Hannah Kearney opened the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games with a bang, winning the United States' first gold medal in the moguls' competition. That sparked a great run for the US, as they went on to win 36 more! Last week, Hannah returned to her hometown of Norwich to parade through the town. She also went through Hanover, where she was born. Vermont governor Jim Douglas declared that February 26 will for ever be known as Hannah Kearney Day!

Otherwise we have only had things, events, tournaments, etc named after sporting heroes. On surfing the internet you find that there are Bradman Biscuits named after the Aussie legend. Someone says he wants to see an Alfonso Soriano shampoo, named after a major League baseball outfielder. Another doesn't like a talk show being named after the brash tennis icon John McEnroe. He says basketball great Magic Johnson was given a talk show because he was a likable guy.

A highway in the US was named after Mark McGwire, famous baseball player who averaged a home run once every 10.61 at bats, the lowest at bats per home run ratio in baseball history. It was a portion of I-70 near downtown in his hometown St Louis. After his disgrace following a drugs scandal, the portion of I-70 was "renamed" I-70.

There were calls to have a Jim Ross Barbeque Sauce after this WWF wrestler peddled his barbeque sauce so much on the WWF airwaves. There was actually an entire WWF cookbook at one point. American NFL footballer Mike Ditka, one of the two people to win Super Bowls as a player, an assistant coach and a head coach, was remembered by the Mike Ditka Steaks when he went into the steak and restaurant business in Chicago. And no one minded that. When Howard Johnson Hotels came on the scene people thought they were named after the baseball star. Not so. Just a coincidence. Like his short-form, HoJo, like the late track queen  FloJo. But a George Foreman Grill was actually named after the heavyweight boxing champion of the world. It was mandatory for anyone who had their own apartment in the late 90s and early 2000s to own a Foreman grill. But when people realized that chicken breasts usually take more than two minutes to cook,  the Foreman grill headed to the back of the cabinet.

There's also a happy-sad medical touch to the naming game of sports folk. A Tommy John Surgery was named after a US baseball pitcher, Tommy John, who won 288 games in his career. The Los Angeles Dodgers player was the first professional athlete to successfully undergo the operation in 1974. Called the ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) reconstruction, it is a surgical procedure in which a ligament in the medial elbow is replaced with a tendon from elsewhere in the body (often from the forearm, hamstring, knee, or foot of the patient). The procedure is common among collegiate and professional athletes in several sports, most notably baseball.

On the poignant side, Lou Gehrig's Disease was the name given to a nerve disease. The Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is a form of motor neuron disease, a fatal, neurodegenerative one caused by the degeneration of motor neurons, the nerve cells in the central nervous system that control voluntary muscle movement. The condition is often called Lou Gehrig's disease in North America, after the New York Yankees baseball icon who was diagnosed with the disease in 1939 and died from it in 1941, at age thirty-seven. Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking is also suffering from it.

The sadness of all this has been mitigated by the Sachin Tendulkar name game which will meet with universal joy.