हाल ऐ दिल - ३

यूँ ही तुम हमसे गिला ना करते,

यूँ ही हम तुमसे रुसवा ना होते !

निशानियाँ यह भी तो थी प्यार, इश्क और मोहब्बत की,

यह हम समजते, यह तुम समजते,

तो इस कदर ये दिल तन्हा ना होते !!

Cricket - An analogy in relationships specially marriages

I have always been a great cricket fan. I believe situations from cricket can be easily applied to your personal life. The most recent example of this is the book - 'The Winning Way' by Harsha Bhogle and Amita Bhogle.

Many times when I used to be in a dilemma or was looking for motivation, I used to think about a similar situation in a cricketing field and visualize what would I do there. And this has helped me many times in clearing my mind and showing me a way. Since last few years, I forgot about this exercise. But yesterday, when I had read the first few pages of 'The Winning Way', my mind sprang back to form. As it is said in cricket, class is permanent, form is temporary. :) Today I was able to find an analogy between cricketing world and personal relationships especially marriage.

In a marriage, you can think of a couple as a team. Their sole intention should be to take their team to greater heights. For this to happen, the prerequisites are the same as in any sport - team harmony, chemistry, respect for each other's ideas, supporting each other in good and bad times. Differences can crop in between members of a team, but in a team, each member need to trust the the other player's thoughts. When coming to a decision, one should always think of what is better for a team and marriage. Like no player is bigger than a team, spouse's individual aspirations are not bigger than marriage. One should be ready to make adjustments to do what is better for a team or marriage.

Here, you can think of parents, relatives, friends as support staff in cricket. In some marriages, they initially play the role of selectors. :) These people will help us, support us in running the team, but ultimately it is the couple who has to act. So they have to use their best judgement and use the help from the support staff. As a successful team requires a good support staff, in a marriage also, one also needs their parents, friends, relatives and other close ones.

The children would be the new members of the team. The couple will have to guide the new team members so they can form a successful team of their own in future and they can be the support staff for them.

Having said so, the life never ceases to amaze me. You can learn so much by looking around you, in this case cricket.

Some may say that this post was more related to team building than cricket, but since I got this analogy when thinking about cricket, hence the title.

Please post your comments and let me know what do you think about this article.

Umpire and UDRS in Cricket

The World Cup 2011 is entering the last week of the league matches and each match is now crucial as not only it will decide who proceeds to the next stage, but also it decides the match-ups for the quarter-finals. In these circumstances, a single bad decision (howler as we cricket fanatics know) given by the umpire can change fate of the game.

The most recent example of such a howler was given by Asoka De Silva, when the Ireland team was chasing against West Indies and were in a real chance to cause an upset. Even when we have the UDRS system in place, it still proved to be a howler. However, this post of mine is not to gauge the pros and cons of UDRS system, but it is to give a thought on why do umpires make such mistakes.

The first and foremost reason I believe is that Umpiring in Cricket is unlike any other sport. In other sports like Soccer, Football, Hockey, the Referee keeps is almost as active as any other players. They have to keep moving, which keeps their body warm and they are constantly at their best decision making ability. However, in Cricket, Umpires are the stationary players. They do not have to move, but always keep their eyes and ears open to make the correct judgement. I do not think that if in Boxing, a boxer if tries to stand and deliver, he will be able to beat the other boxer. After a certain period of time, a person is bound to lose focus if he has to just stay still and focus and make decisions. And in Cricket, consider the duration of the game and the weather conditions. It may be very hot or it may get really cold and windy.

I myself have umpired some games in our Cricket league in Chicago and have made such howlers. The common thing that I have noticed is that in the first innings, I have enjoyed umpiring and made better decisions, but then when it is the 2nd innings, when I have started losing focus and made some bad decisions. There were some days when my mind was occupied with other things, which hampered my umpiring skills. Again my Cricket buddies in Chicago, please do not try to remind me of these things this year while umpiring, else these great skills will come back even with more power and then force me to make more howlers. :-)

Anyways, going back to International games, also one thing I believe what matters is the age of the umpires. Majority of Umpires are in their late 40s and I am sure most of you will agree that the body at this age is susceptible more to such conditions as I mentioned above and it will be slower at times. This can be considerably addressed by getting younger Professional umpires.

Well, I too feel grieved when such decisions happen, but at the end of the day, the Umpires too are human and make mistakes as any fielder dropping an easy catch or a batsman getting out to a simple ball. And for now, let us try to enjoy the great Cricket World Cup and hope the best team be the Champion (India ....) :-) And yes, let me know your comments on this post!!

Looking for the Will Power to hit the gym daily

I found this article online -> http://health.msn.com/fitness/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100247823 and it makes so much sense ... Yes, at the end of the day it becomes so much hard to push myself to hit the gym ... Thought somebody else may find it useful ...

हाल ऐ दिल - २

मिलोगे तुम तो ऐसी खुशी पाएंगे, सोचा ना था !
रुठोगे तुम तो ऐसा तन्हा होगा दिल, सोचा ना था !!
प्यार के यह पहले पहले कदम हैं, खफा ना होना !
अन्जाने भी कभी हमसे, जुदा ना होना !!

Haal - E - Dil

तुम आए ज़िन्दगी में, सारे ख्वाब सच हुए
पहले ख़ुद से मिलती थी नज़र आईने में, अब तुझे देखते हैं

The feeling after Winning

In my team's cricket season this summer, we registered our first win yesterday after losing 4 matches on a trot. My individual contribution in the match was hardly anything ... but the feeling of the win that swept me after we got the final wicket was more than anything else in the world.

During our losing sequence, I was being contended by knowing that we were fighting hard but were not getting the results. But yesterdays win has awaken me and buzzed in my ear that nothing sounds better than a win ... I still do not agree with the 'win at any cost' attitude, but am sure that this win will give me a extra push in achieving my goals for my team in Cricket as well as achieving my goals in my personal and professional life ...

As I have always said, Cricket itself as a sport has been a great influence in the way I think of my life ... Hats off to Cricket - An amazing sport !!!