Shantesh

4.9K posts

Shantesh

Shantesh

@shanteshca

All I have ever wanted is an honest week's pay for an honest day's work!

South of Pacific, North of Hell Yeah.. Katılım Ağustos 2009
240 Takip Edilen217 Takipçiler
Shantesh
Shantesh@shanteshca·
... not that I am complaining...
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Shantesh
Shantesh@shanteshca·
Isn't this the series referenced by @iamjohnylever in his "Commentary" comedy act? @nimishdubey m.youtube.com/watch?v=X7WINR…
Nimish Dubey@nimishdubey

For those of us in India who followed cricket in the 1980s, the defeat against England at home in 1984-85 was particularly traumatising. This was because it was, well, it was simply not SUPPOSED to happen. How could it? England had lost three series in a row, the last being a 5-0 "Blackwash" against West Indies, and had been pushed even by Sri Lanka in a one-off Test. Its best player, Ian Botham, was skipping the tour, and among the rest of its line up, only Gower and Lamb were considered dangerous. The bowling was paper thin, with the likes of Cowans, Foster, Allot, Agnew, Ellison and Chris Cowdrey. Phil Edmonds and Pat Pocock were good spinners, but were supposed to be well past their best. Bob Willis had retired and Graham Gooch, Peter Willey, John Lever, John Emburey and Wayne Larkins were serving bans for touring South Africa. India on the other hand had arguably the best batsman in the world, Sunil Gavaskar, and one of the best bowlers and all rounders in Kapil Dev. Mohinder Amarnath was back in form, Dilip Vengsakar was looking good and so was Sandeep Patil. Add to that one of the best young all rounders in the world (Ravi Shastri) and the best wicket keeper in the world (Syed Kirmani), home conditions and England's legendary inability to handle spin, and it seemed India would coast to an easy win. I mean, India had beaten a much stronger, full strength England team 1-0 three years ago. And for a while, it seemed to go to script. England struggled against the spin of Laxman Sivaramakrishnan (and the umpiring, they claimed) and lost the first Test. David Gower would later wrote that they came across a bowler they had never seen before and an umpire they never wanted to see again. England seemed set for another hammering. So much so that some spectators were seen carrying banners saying "Brownwash" as the first Test was coming to an end. And then it all went horribly wrong. A single session of careless batting, highlighted by loose shots by Kapil Dev and Sandeep Patil, cost India the second Test. And things got worse when both Patil and Kapil Dev were dropped for disciplinary reasons. The deicison generated a lot of controversy and we saw the crowd at Kolkota booing and abusing their own captain so badly that Gavaskar swore he would never play in the city again (he actually refused to play against Pakistan in 1986-87 for that reason, although he changed his mind for the World Cup). Mohinder Amarnath and Shastri continued to bat well for India, although Shastri's insistence on batting at a snail's pace led to the first chants of "Shastri, hai, hai" at Kolkota. This was the match in which Phil Edmonds pretended to be so bored that he stood and read a newspaper while fielding. Azharuddin emerged as a new batting star. But as a team, there was absolutely nothing going for India. Sivramakrishnan took six wickets in each of the first three innings of the series, but got only five more in the next six innings as England seemed to have woked him out. Most shockingly, this was perhaps the first (and only) seiries in which both Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev failed. Kapil got 10 wickets in four Tests at 43.60 while Gavaskar got 140 runs in five Tests at 17.50. What's worse, for most of the series, the two seemed barely on talking terms, although some sort of patch up did occur before the series ended. India hardly ever had a good batting or bowling start in the series, and the English batsmen made merry. Oddly enough, the two English batsmen we had feared the most, Lamb and Gower, had mediocre series. Gatting, Robinson, Fowler, however, scored by the sackful. Their bowlers too struggled most of the time, but had the advantage of playing with big scores behind them - a key factor in their winning at Chennai. It was not a narrow win - India never had a chance after losing the first Test and seemed miles behing an English team that seemed to be enjoying itself under David Gower. Interestingly, many of the English players who did so well, would be out of the team barely a few years later. For India too, many careers came to an end - Anshuman Gaekwad, Ashok Malhotra and Sandeep Patil never played for India again, and Yashpal Sharma was never even considered after a poor ODI series. In the end, India lost a series it was supposed to have won easily against arguably the weakest English ever to tour the country. Many of us still cannot figure out how on earth it happened. It shouldn't have. It couldn't have. It did. #Cricket #80scricket #Gavaskar #KapilDev #Gower #IndianCricket #EnglandCricket #Nostalgia (@Raja_Sw, @SanjayK27310177, @alawyerwrites, @WG_RumblePants, @VatsMusings, @anandkumarn)

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Shantesh
Shantesh@shanteshca·
MacBook Neo has set the cat amongst the pigeons....
Zac Bowden@zacbowden

BREAKING: Microsoft just announced several major changes to Windows 11 in an effort to win back user trust and evolve the platform into something people will actually want to use over macOS and Linux! It's a huge announcement that addresses Windows 11's biggest problems today, tackling core fundamental issues such as unreliable system performance, UX consistency, AI bloat and general enshittification. Microsoft has confirmed that this year, it WILL be reducing where ads and Copilot appear throughout the system, including in Start, Widgets, Notepad, Photos, and more! File Explorer and Windows Search will be upgraded with improved performance and capabilities that make finding apps and files much faster and easier. The OS will become lighter with less RAM and system utilization at idle, making it smoother to run on low end hardware with limited memory. These improvements will also benefit high-end PCs too. Windows Update will be improved with more granular controls and the ability to postpone updates for longer, along with reducing how often the OS needs to restart to install an update. Microsoft has also confirmed that it's bringing back fan favourite features such as the ability to move the Taskbar! It's also working to update more areas of the system shell with modern WinUI designs, which should make Windows 11 feel more coherent and complete. There's much more in the announcement, and it honestly all sounds too good to be true. Microsoft really is listening to feedback, and is eager to make Windows the BEST desktop OS on the market. More details including when these changes will arrive in the link! windowscentral.com/microsoft/wind…

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