Life Etc Etc

In a nutshell A delightful whodunit set during the Christmas time with some compelling performances, brisk pacing and a happy ending. Plot   Sam Donovan ( Dennis O'Keefe ), an insurance investigator sets off for a small town to delve into the suicide of one, Roger Philips, who by all accounts was an extremely unpleasant man. One the way there he runs into Anita Weatherby ( Barbara Britton ), daughter of a wealthy banker in Philips' town, Stu Weatherby ( Art Baker ). The two hit off instantly and Sam makes plans to visit the Weatherby family once he's done wrapping up the Philips case.   Dennis O'Keefe and Barbara Britton <Credits: Cult Cinema Classics > Upon arrival Sam calls upon Sheriff Larry Best ( William Bendix ) to clarify the details of the case only to find all his inquiries being thwarted. Through the evasive replies, Sam learns that no weapon was recovered from the victim's place and the coroner who could have thrown some light into the circumstances...

We all heard the idiomatic phrase that one should end the year on a high . But what does ending on a high really mean?  Does it symbolize wrapping up the year with a brilliant accomplishment? Does it relate to closing the door on something which has been bothering you for a very long time? Does it involve managing your health and finances extremely well? Does it point to a family milestone? Or Does it involve finding that sweet space in your life where doing less is more? Well, the short answer is 'Yes' and 'No' to all of the above.  <Courtesy: Kateryna Hliznitsova> If you have answered 'Yes' to any of the questions above then congratulations on completing a worthy year. You have every reason to celebrate. If you have answered 'No' to all of the questions above then fret not . Welcome to the majority! We are all in the same boat. In this marathon called life, not every year bears the fruit we desire or deserve. But the real question to answer is wh...

I wanted to start off this blog by sharing a beautiful piece on Cricinfo about the redemption arc of Deepti Sharma . If it was South Africa who denied us a place in the semifinals four years ago we paid them back in kind by lifting the world cup trophy. This however was not a resounding performance by any means, there were concentration lapses, nerves and also moments where the pendulum genuinely swung the other way.  Here are some prime examples: Radha Yadav's gigantic no-ball which brought down the target by 13 runs (two consecutive sixes of the no-ball and the free hit) in just one ball Deepti dropping a straight forward chance at midwicket of Dercksen   Jemimah Rodrigues shelling a sitter of the dangerous looking Nadine de Klerk Shree Charani's final over jitters as she offered 10 runs (5w, 1w and 4) on a platter to de Klerk  But we still won chiefly due to the tandem of Deepti's guile and Shafali's guts. Deepti more than made up for her drop by knocking over...

India chased a world record total of 338 to sprint past Australia in the semifinals of the 2025 World Cup. Out of 157 chases, 92 resulted in victories for India.  So this should have been a cake walk for India, right?  Wrong!   Why? Let's take a look at India's successful chases over the last 15 years. Trend line representing India's top 10 successful chases before the semifinal win Until the victory in the semifinals, India's highest ever successful chase was 264 against Australia in 2021. This was also the first ever time that India had chased a total of over 250 against any opposition It remained the only victorious chase over 250 against Australia until the semifinal win  Out of 92 victories for India batting second, only 20 (~22%) involved chasing a score of 200 or more Including the semifinal win, India had chased a score over 250 only 4 times in its entire history Until the 2017 World Cup final, India had chased a score of over 230 only once Hence this win ...

  Until next time, Your quotemaster.

  Until next time, Your quotemaster.

A slew of countries exited the Champions Trophy over the last few days. But wasn't there a Champions Trophy that we hosted where everything turned topsy-turvy for us? A loooooooooong time ago but not that long ago there was one such tournament in 2006 where nothing went to script. I literally had to go to Cricinfo to refresh my memory about this tournament. I do however remember: The promotions which promised a festival of cricket but what we got was a damp squib The interest in the tournament waning once India was dumped out at the group stage That the final was an anti-climax and how Australia briefly let go off their manners while accepting the trophy. After decking us out the tournament they also shoved the then president of BCCI, Mr. Sharad Pawar, for good measure India who were firmly entrenched in the Greg Chappell era vacillated between able and awful.  Sachin was not at his best Dravid was unable to prop up the middle order Irfan Pathan's efficacy was being nullifie...

Plot Outline : When a tech entrepreneur ( Srinivas Avasarala ) gets kidnapped, the officer-in-charge of the security detail ( Meenakshi Chaudhary ) vows to rescue him with the help of her ex-boyfriend, Y.D. Raju (Venkatesh) an ace ex-cop. Y.D. Raju accepts the responsibility and sets off on the mission in tow with his ex-girlfriend, jealous wife ( Aishwarya Rajesh ), father-in-law and son. Venkatesh, Aishwarya Rajesh and Meenakshi Chaudhary in Sankranthiki Vasthunnam <Credits: Dil Raju > I finally had the chance to view this film over a month after it's release. It's a passable fare with a few decent laughs intended primarily for the movie starved Sankranti audience.  However, you do get the feeling that the director was not able to extract the most out of a promising roller coaster ride consisting of people with differing agendas. So here are three things which didn't work for me in Sankranthiki Vasthunnam: Too many gags falling flat: Just like Bhagavant Kesari , th...

  Until Next Time, Your Quote Master.

Plot Outline Chief of Police, Matt Whitlock's ( Denzel Washington ) personal life is in doldrums. His marriage is on the rocks and he's secretly courting another man's wife, Ann ( Sanaa Lathan ). When Ann is diagnosed with terminal cancer, Matt decides to fund her treatment with money that was recovered from a drug bust. But before Ann can proceed forth with her treatment, she and her husband Chris ( Dean Cain ) are killed in a mysterious house fire. The case is assigned to Matt's estranged wife, homicide detective Alex ( Eva Mendes ) and to make matters worse (for Matt), the DEA comes calling for the drug money. If this isn't enough, Matt is the sole beneficiary on Ann's insurance policy which further implicates him in this crime. Will Matt escape from the fix he is in and identify who's behind everything? Or will Alex and the DEA catch up to the clandestine secrets he's hiding?  Denzel Washington navigating rough waters in Out of Time <Credits: Movi...

I expressed a lot of satisfaction in one of my previous blogs that draws in test matches were drastically coming down. We just had one more draw at the Gabba in Brisbane as part of the Border-Gavaskar series. So, this seemed like the right time to look back at the various draw related stats between India and Australia.  Out of the 110 tests played between both countries 30 tests ended up draws. I wanted to find out whether the number of draws between the two countries were increasing or decreasing over the years .  India vs Australia draw stats The first draw between both countries was a rain affected match in 1947 . A majority of the draws during the initial decades only occurred in India. 30% (8) of tests played between the two sides during the 60s and 70s ended in draws . All of these draws occurred in India while all the tests played in Australia during this period produced a result always in Australia's favor  The  1979-1980 series which happened in Indi...

In my previous blog we arrived at a ratio  (Total no. of medals won at the Asian Games) / (Total no. of medals won at Olympics)   which correlated the performance of the Asian games with the Olympics that occurred in the same four year cycle.  We found out that India's ratio of 17.83  was at the bottom of the list  (remember a lower ratio points to a greater ability to reproduce one's Asian Games performance on the Olympic stage)  when we considered the top ranking nations at Asian Games.  But one question remained unanswered, was this the greatest disparity between Asian Games and Olympics as far as India was concerned? I dove straight into the medal tallies from the previous century to dig up the answer to my question.  The graph brought about several interesting observations: Until 2008 Olympics, India's performance at the 1952 Helsinki games (with 2 medals) was its best ever so was the medal tally at the first ever Asian Games in 1951. Such a...

From the pinnacle of Asian Games, Olympics was a steep fall for India. That set me thinking as to how many more countries found the going tough on the world stage after excelling at the Asian games. For my initial analysis, I took the top 15 countries at Asian Games and mapped out their corresponding ranking at Olympics. As expected, India's Olympic ranking of 71 was third worst behind Malaysia and Qatar. But rankings are not always a great measure to assess how well a country did at a multisport event where a country with a single gold medal outranks another with multiple medals on the account of that country not winning a gold medal. So, in order to have an equitable comparison, I mapped out the number of medals each country won at the Olympics and Asian Games side by side.   This time India narrowly avoided the lower third of the graph which contained countries such as Hong Kong, Indonesia and Bahrain that were placed higher over India in the Olympic rankings. Like rankin...

 As a sports fan, the one thing you would like to absolutely avoid is to see your heroes getting humbled. I went through the misery of Indian team's collapse in the 2023 World Cup final , then watched Rafa getting pulverized at Roland Garros and have now witnessed Daniel Dubois batter Anthony Joshua at Wembley. So here are three disappointing things about the Anthony Joshua knockout: What's most disheartening about this fight is the way it started . AJ never looked like he was in his elements. He was on the backfoot from the get go and once Dubois' punch landed at the end of the first round, he never found his legs in the next few rounds. This was totally unexpected from a thorough professional like Joshua who's known to meticulously prepare for all of his fights If the match began with adversity, things started looking up for AJ by the time the 5th round started. He hurt Dubois with a right and set him up for an uppercut by backing him into the ropes but like a lot ...

When I first started writing this blog more than a decade ago, the reception wasn't exactly great for me to continue sharing my thoughts, opinions or observations . I questioned myself a lot during those times and seriously doubted whether I would ever garner attention for the blog. While self doubt drove me into inaction, the awareness that I was letting myself down urged me to repeatedly mount a comeback and write something after a lull period. These alternate cycles of boom and bust taught me one important thing, that come no matter what the only person I had to impress with this blog was me. Maintaining a certain standard with my blog was the highest priority. As long as I lived up to that ideal everything else that came along with it was just an added incentive. The same, I believe applies to everything you initiate in life. The only person you have to impress with anything in life is just yourself .  Why? What about trying to impress loved ones, family members, friends ...

When Asian Games concluded in October 2023, with the Indian athletics contingent winning a whopping 29 medals , there was hope that in 10 months time we would be putting up our strongest performance ever in Olympics 2024. That, unfortunately remained an unfulfilled dream. Apart from Neeraj Chopra, Avinash Sable and the men's relay team to some extent there was no fight offered by any of our athletes which made them look like serious medal contenders. So, where did it all go wrong? Annu Rani at Paris Olympics <Courtesy: Olympics > I pointed this out in a tweet of mine but I believe a majority of our athletes peaked for the Asian Games with almost everything going downhill from there either due to lack of prep, focus or injuries.  Harmilan Bains, Ancy Sojan Edappilly, Tajinderpal Singh Toor and Kishore Jena all suffered injuries post Asian Games with Harmilan and Ancy missing out on Olympic qualification Jyothi Yarraji was posting a string of sub 13 second times prior to her in...

If winning an Olympic medal is the toughest thing that a sportsperson can achieve in their life then qualifying for the Olympics should be right up there for a country like India which until a decade ago didn't have a proper ecosystem to develop athletes at the grassroot level. It's already been a week since the Olympics has started but before we talk about the Olympians, let's take a look at the heroes who made a place in our heart even after missing out on qualification. Tejas Shirse : If there was an award for the most improved athlete of the year then it must go to Tejas who broke the 100m hurdles national record in his pursuit of Olympic glory. His yearning to excel took him to Europe where he produced a series of podium finishes as he collected ranking points which put him within touching distance of his dream. If only he started his season a bit earlier, we could have seen Tejas' penchant for excellence burn brighter on the Olympics stage but if not this one he...

I think the makers of this film ran out of ideas when they called this one as ' Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F ' That title really doesn't make the film any edgier or cooler in my opinion. I don't believe this is the final installment of the series so the extra emphasis on 'F' seems unwarranted too. What was lacking in the title is however made up by the thought that was put into character trajectories and ushering some news ones into the fold. They also make it a point to acknowledge all the three prequels while comically highlighting that the third one was a bit lackluster ( fans love it when filmmakers are self-aware ).   Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop 4 < Courtesy: KAZE TV > So where does one start with this one, we start right in Detroit where Axel Foley ( Eddie Murphy ) is alerted by his friend Rosewood ( Judge Reinhold ), now a private detective, that his estranged daughter Jane ( Taylour Paige ) could be in a lot of trouble with a certain cartel. Axe...

As an Indian cricket fan, I am happy that we were able to put behind the heartbreak of 2023 to achieve this world cup victory .  This post will however not be celebratory in nature, on the contrary it seeks to critically analyze some of the team management's decisions which could have cost us the big one once again. Rigidity with the team selection has been a recurring theme in many of the failed world cup campaigns of the recent past. I therefore have three questions about some of the decisions that went into the batting order and team selection.   Jasprit Bumrah in disbelief upon winning the World Cup 2024 <Courtesy: ICC > a) This tournament we persisted with the opening combination of Rohit and Virat (who was in woeful form until the final) despite having an attacking option in the form of Yashasvi Jaiswal. Did the team management have a crystal ball to predict that Virat would finally come good in the final? Even though Virat eventually repaid the team managem...