Here are my views

Sachin had the better average of the series of all Indian batsmen. So dropping him is out of the question.

He should be exempt from dropping.

As someone from cricinfo comments said

“I feel that the decision to pick players should be purely based on form. I agree that laxman and dravid haven’t performed that well this series, but has everyone forgotten dravids heroics in England? Yes, I believe that lax should be dropped, but not dravid. I wont even mention sachin being dropped, thats not possible. He has looked the best this series, and has averaged higher than most batsmen this series. The day Sachin retires from cricket, that’s the day i’m done watching Indian cricket.”

The day Sachin is done, that is when i am done with Indian cricket but not cricket in general.

I think many are paid more than they are worth, when you look at other cricketing nations some times it gets to their head.

Sachin should retire but not for this series, but for a more sentimental reason. I want him to stay at 99 centuries. Like Bradman batting average 99.94, Sachin should leave it at 99 as a tribute to Bradman.

But now everyone might say he did it because he couldn’t score, so not sure about that now.

As Gangully was recommending during the match let India youth go and play English county for a season. My suggestion is 11 young players should be selected and sent to play in english county and pick the best who perform there. It would also be helpful to send Kohili and other players.

Give them a break from home series and send them overseas.

Don’t just remove players do something practical that will last.

Xbox 360 is still a costly console to own for many Indians.

They are offering a free xbox with Nokia Lumia purchase why haven’t they did something like this in India. This will give them a big marketshare in India.

There was a lot of talk about xbox live allowing to rent games in India. Which as far as i know was never implemented. It wouldn’t work because most game are over 4 Gb to download and not many people have high speed broadband connections with unlimited data for this to work in India.

I got the xbox before wifi was standard feature, so i didn’t connect it to internet. Just did recently via network cable, demos are big 1-2 Gb download.

Offer a game renting service similar to gamefly in India. This will get people into looking at gaming as a budget friendly service. This could a big revenue for Microsoft gaming in India.

There is a big market for netflix like service in India. With broadband adaptation so slow a service like netflix or gamefly could really take off in India.

Hope someone at Microsoft’s xbox india team is listening to this. Its not like you will loose much, the 360 is on its last legs anyway.

If it works you could bring the new console on day 1 and have a big market share in India.

People all ready are paying 500 per month for DTH. So if you can provide game rental service at those prices you could really make some money. Gamefly $7.95 (350) and netflix $7.99 (400) charge similar prices in US.

It got me thinking, I can’t afford to buy 3 console every few years like everyone else. Even if i buy 3 consoles buying all the games on them to play, you need some serious money.

It cost 20000 Rs to get each console and 1000-3000 Rs per game. That make this hobby cost more than 1 lakh rupees. Not counting additional services like the xbox live etc.

How nice would it be if we had one console, the software on the console will be designed by Microsoft. But the hardware the console will be made by Sony and Nintendo will only do games for this console. No console of their own.

We as consumers get the best from each of the companies.

Microsoft’s software platform building capabilities and developer tools

Sony’s Hardware expertise and high quality hardware

Nintendo’s fun games to play.

All at a reasonable price because you will not be paying for 3 consoles, instead just 1 console and all the games.

Will this ever happen no it will not, we can always dream right.

“Christmas is big in Australia and it’s understandable for Australian players taking off after the first Test. But what were our players doing? Why were not they doing practice? Have they gone there for sightseeing or play cricket?” asked a furious Gavaskar.

Good to see someone finally make a fuss about this.

In 2003 when i went to see a one day match in Bangalore, it was Australia v/s India.

I was in the stadium 2 hours early.

As soon as the teams arrived Australian team came on to the ground systematically started warming up and some fielding as a unit.

Then batsmen and bowlers divided into groups and started practicing their disciplines.

On the other hand Indian team came on the ground just few minites before the match and  their practice was not as structured or as intense as Australians.

No wonder Australians routed India in that match

Would just more practice help their cause, i don’t think so more attitude change is necessary to improve the situation.

Even in the recently concluded test match, when Zaheer was batting in the second innings, Win for Australia was almost guaranteed.

But even then Ben Hilfenhaus dived to save a four which wouldn’t have mattered that much, mind you he just finished his 3 over spell.

I can remember many Indian players who didn’t dive or even put in an effort to stop the ball in Australian first innings. Laxman and Ashwin to name a few that didn’t put any kind of real effort in fielding when Australia where scoring every other ball.

Some big decision have to be made by the BCCI to improve the situation, i don’t think they are capable of those.

All the recent super stars of sports are having bad exits to their careers.

Last night during the real madrid match saw Zidane.

Zidane his bad exit from the football during the world cup because of head butting.

Now

Tiger Woods with his sex scandals.

He had everything going for him, why did do this.

I guess its easy to judge others, but if you were in his position wouldn’t you do these things too.

This only proves that, they are also humans.

They bought Cristiano Ronaldo from Manchester United . Kaka from Milan and Benzema from Lyon. They say they made their last signing with Xabi Alonso.

They will be selling some players to get some money back.

All the three Dutch players are expted to be gone. I hope Huntelaar doesn’t go to other clubs.

This is how the team look now.

This makes for a exciting team for the coming season which will begin on Aug 30 with a match against Deportivo.

Read more about real madrid transfers.

I wish i could drive like that.