Get Netted

I was always good at sports. I was better than anybody in my school in discuss throw, shot-put, volleyball, races and cricket. That’s why you will see my house full of trophies of various events. If I count them all they would be around 46 of them, most of them for first position.
I am particularly good at cricket. As a normal all-rounder I can bowl, bat, field and even keep wickets with near perfection. I was the captain of my school team and won three interschool championships for them. The only match I lost was against the Navodaya Vidyalaya. We were supposed to chase 104 runs in 15 overs, not a big target by our standards, but everything went wrong that day. I decided not to open and give chance to my younger batsman but it was no longer than 3rd over and we were struggling at 10 for loss of 4 wickets. I went in there and faced a few deliveries to settle in. On the last bowl of the over I placed the bowl in between two fielders. It would have been an easy single and a difficult two. I decided to take a single but my partner had different views. I don’t know what was he thinking but he ran the second run with bowl in the hand of the fielder. I obliged and paid the price and was run out. Our team was all out at score of 24 runs and we lost by 79 runs.
After that we grouped back as a team and had our plans going. We defeated the same team in the finals to win the championship. That was a special feeling.

I know most of you envy watching Rossi and Stoner race at speeds of over 250 kmph. Race is full of thrill and excitement and is a pure adrenalin rush for both the racer and the fan that is attending the race at the track side as a spectator. These races are take place at purpose built tracks which allows racers to achieve speeds as high as 320 kmph on tracks like Monza.

But have you ever thought about a bike race at the speed of 10 kmph. No its not a race in which the person who comes last wins. It is bike racing on loose sand and loose gravel. I and my friends do it on alternate weekends. The place where this race takes place is about 65 km from our town. We are a group of 8 people and we drive our bikes to the place. None of the bikes have been modified so that no one gets any kind of advantage. We race 2 laps of 200 m each on the track and the winner takes home 200$ as the prize money. This money is purely contributed by us.

We do this for excitement and believe me it is in no way less than excitement gained by racing at higher speeds. The excitement levels are highest at the start and finish line. We have to accelerate very carefully so that we get linear motion out of our tires and not only rotational motion. Most of us dig big holes before moving an inch. In the middle part of race, it gets really hard to control the bike as it begins to move at its own will, rarely in the direction the rider wants it to go. It is great fun to drive a bike like this. It requires some skill and bit of luck to win a race on loose soil. I have won 2 races till now and I hope this weekend I can add another victory to this tally.

Cricket these days is getting shorter and shorter just like modern dresses. We started with 6 day test matches, moved on to 5 day test matches, then on to 50over cricket and now we stand at 20-20 matches.  Going by this if we were asked to guess the type of cricket that would be played 15 years from now we would say probably the match would end at toss itself. The captain who wins the toss will be declared the winner of the match and the cricket would be called as toss-toss or zero-zero cricket. This would also ensure that cricket makes it to Olympics and other major events. Also it would ensure that every team has equal opportunity to win.
But that’s probably way ahead in future. In present we are observing huge changes in the acceptance of results. We have already seen people hitting team mates with cricket bat and we are seeing people slapping there national team pals. Whatever is happening is purely ridiculous, unprofessional and needs to be sorted out pretty quickly. Not only this the hype that media builds around tournaments like IPL has to taken under some constraints.
Yes there is always some friction between players I matches and only increases with the pressure of performance. The pressure is greater still when you have been hit out of national team’s captaincy and you get a chance to prove yourself as one. Above all one has to understand that if a dead cricket field can have boundaries why peoples that are indulged in the game can’t have boundaries for their personal behavior.

Spanish’s Formula 1 Grand Prix is just three days away. It has to be the most anticipated race of the season coz it could very well be three way battle for pole on Sunday with Ferrari roaring, BMW catching up and McLaren, though struggling, but already there. Recent testing hasn’t helped any which way for fans to even take a guess that who is going to win but it has to be the best time for Ferrari with Massa back in form and Raikonen already driving like a champ.Hamilton has only disappointed in the last two races after a victory in Australian GP, Kovalinen is getting to pace as well. But it’s probably not their fault. McLaren has struggled in the last two races. They haven’t been up to the level which they managed last year but that is expected as they no longer have the Ferrari’s information to get their cars running as fast as Ferrari.

Talking of BMW they have certainly met the expectations. Robert Kubica has been a revelation. He, with his aggressive driving not only managed pole at Bahrain but also won many a hearts. Nick is going great guns as well and is second in the driver’s championship while BMW is first in the constructor’s championship.

Spanish GP has always been very interesting, last year Massa won here. Let us see whether his stars are lucky this time around as well.

IPL begins today. Every news channel is telecasting the news of IPL. At this point of time hardly 8 hours away from the first ball I can safely say that this is going to be one big hit, 45 days of pure entertainment. I can’t wait to see some great players playing against their own team mates.
Well 3 hours is all it takes out of your busy schedule to tune into a match and when local feelings are attached to it becomes that much easier to associate with the team. Any ways millions have already been invested and its time that those who have invested start getting their benefits. However it doesn’t really hold true for all of them, some have just done it for pride and honor .take the example of Mukesh Ambani, he is the world’s 5th richest man. He doesn’t need to diversify into buying cricket clubs but since he is a mumbaikar he did it for pride.
Some of the owners did it purely for money like Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan, he has spent more than 4 times what he earns as an actor per year and off lately he hasn’t been doing a lot of movies as well. But one thing that can be safely said after ten years when he would be at the end of his career as a young hero is that he would have more money out of IPL than anybody else because he is an excellent marketing expert.
I hope with all this money raining the standard of cricket raises high as well.

If cricket pundits are the ones to be believed than the future of cricket lies in 20-20(T-20) cricket. Test match is way too long to be introduced in a new nation like USA or China and 50 over match also takes entire day to be played. For nations which are already playing cricket internationally 50 over game is the one to stay. regardless of it being deemed as the future people have been more often than not quoted saying T-20 is only a way of making money .boards have been making a tons of money and so have been the players and the true form of cricket is test cricket only. we all have been hearing about IPL for so long ,an Indian cricketer M.S. Dhoni has earned about $1.5 million for just 14 days of cricket . in these 14 days he would be playing about 120 minutes per match or to take it into perspective if he is supposed to play 24 hours a day he would earn this $1.5 million in a day only .not many people in the world make that much of money.
But still one has to take into account that test matches have been played for over a century now and this procedure was formulated way back. The format needs to be changed. Probably changed to limited overs say 100 overs per team. This time will be enough for the bowling team to get opposition out and similarly would be enough for the batting team to score 400 runs. Not only this will bring excitement to matches but also guarantee a result and these two factors might be able to pull some crowds in ground at least in the closing days of test match. as far as 50 over game is considered it needs to be shortened as well, say 40 overs and a time limit of 3 hours per innings.
at least cricket organizers should give some thought to this scenario otherwise it won’t be far when T-20 will take over the cricket and like INDIA all nations would start operating cricket leagues and it would get hard for boards to find players to play in international fixtures

Yes so in my last post I was discussing about the blacklist. Yes there are 15 racers in there who do street racing. And our hero, obviously me here, has to beat them one by one to reach the top and get his ride back. So that is how it is. But first to challenge his opponents he has to fulfill three requirements. First is race wins, each blacklist racer requires challenger to have some race wins, it was 3 for blacklister no 15 and 4 for blacklister no 14. There are race options to choose from, you can do a sprint race, a checkpoint race or a normal 2-3 lap race.Second requirement to race a blacklister is challenges, yes you have to complete some challenges, it can be anything from avoiding police for a stipulated duration to finishing a race in given time. Third requirement to face a blacklister is bounty, the most interesting part of the race, here you fight against the cops, you have to save yourself from being busted by cops and at the same time you have to keep them interested in you to not leave you very early and you end have a poor pocket, say 100 bounty points. It is important to stretch the duration of bounty because some blacklisters require more than 100 thousand bounty points to race with. Well I started my racing today and I have defeated 2 blacklisters, so 13 to go before I get my ride back

Today I got my hands on NFS most waned, yes a bit late one would say but then again I was looking for something that I wouldn’t have to pay for. My friend bought it last week and so I had my chance to play and I didn’t’ wait a moment to confirm after he offered me the game.

Well talking about the game, it is a dam good game, the entire story is build around a guy who is new into the city and I driving a BMW, the best in town and the people that do illegal races have an eye on it so they challenge this guy to race against them and he happily agrees but bad guys as usual don’t keep it fair and puncture his engine oil valve so his looses the race midway as his car is damaged and stops.

He is captured by the police and his recent girlfriend Mia gets him out of there and tells him about how to get his ride back. She tells him that the racers have arranged themselves in order of driving capabilities, obviously decided after the races, called as black list and there are 15 of them in that list …….
To be continued

In this world of tight schedules and tons of work it is necessary to keep mind fresh and running for another demanding day of professional and academic life. This re-emphasizes the need of entertainment, entertainment after which you can have a sound sleep. But again hectic schedules make it almost impossible to go for normal modes of entertainment like gaming and others. So what does one do? This used to be the question earlier but now we have a solution for this. And the solution is online entertainment. Yes now you can go online and entertain yourself with great stuffs like funny pictures , jokes etc. There are lots of sites offering this entertainment, but one site which is worth mentioning here is tueplay.com

Tueplay not only provides the latest news in the entertainment world but also allows user to surf through hilarious video clips which would make you laugh like anything. To keep you entertained for hours site also hosts high quality flash games from more than ten different categories like action, adventure, logic, puzzle etc. The site has a user friendly interface and extremely easy to navigate. My 5 year old son is such a great fan of this site that he can’t even do a single day without Tueplay. So come out of your hectic life and refresh yourself with Tueplay as I do.

 People think why games after an age! I always ask why not games…….yes, I am talking about games. After all everybody wants to play, have fun and get relaxed. So why this age bar!! My father after coming back from work used to watch TV, all that boring stuff. I told him about Free Online Games at online-games-zone.com. He then told me that when he was young he was very good player of certain games, but now due to work he don’t get enough time to play and not even his age allows. I asked him there is no need to play outside, just visit this site and whichever game you like, just play and have fun. Now he plays many games here on online-games-zone.com.

His favorite games belong Strategic Games category. I am happy to see my father relieved from stress. Its not that only strategic games are part of this site, many other games like action, casino, classic, fun, puzzle, skill, sport and Shooting Games are also a part of this free service of games. Being free, they can be accessed by anyone. Isn’t that nice.