The Race called Manager(s)

Managers are a unique species or race on their own, all our time in the industry we want to slog, work, space out dreaming to become managers one day. The training we attend as freshers are assembly lines programming us to dream about becoming managers some day. There are few defective pieces out of those assembly who want to be technical architects, technology consultants etc but they are just anomalies in an otherwise perfect production unit. There are instances where people complete their "PMP" immediately out college just to improve their chances when their time comes in 10 years. To all those wannabe Managers, there is more than just bossing around and writing exams, there are traits that are required to be developed, otherwise it will be like Balamurali Krishna trying to rap with bling Bling around his neck and Cradle of Filth trying Pancharatna Kriti!

I could think about ten traits and attitudes

1. A Task is said to be complete if the work item is updated to 100% in the MPP. It doesnt matter what the developer says, the code gets checked in automatically when you update 100% in your MPP. It is called 'Manager MAGIC', you will ONLY attain this skill on promotion
2. Ask the Developer for his work status in the loo. They will feel threatened and they will definitely complete the task before they leave for the day. The tone and surprise factor are really important here
3. Appreciate everything, ensure to include the top management even if the Client just smiled and said "thank you" for pointing the start button on his windows desktop. The terms like "keep up the good work", "keep the flag flying high" are really important phrases to be present in those emails
4. Remember, there are no bad designs or bad management, there can only be faulty coding, irresponsible developers and freshers
5. As always meetings are for idle rambling with no specific point to be made.
6. An issue warrants attention only when it is escalated by the client. In all other situations the project is always in green and adhers to CMMI level 5, ALWAYS!
7. Proactive Managers are like the BIg foot or Yeti. They are only read about, they dont exist
8. "Too many managers spoil the project" is an racist attitude towards the Managers. People should be sued for saying this.
9. Managers are not born, neither are they self made, they are just promoted!
10. Attention span is directly propotional to the employee number of the person in conversation

Book review - The Girl with Dragon Tattoo

Spent the entire weekend reading the 'The Girl with Dragon Tattoo', it was one of those crime novel themed on investigative journalism and violence against woman. I did hear about the novel few months back and wanted to read it after i heard it is being adapted into a film by David Fincher. Also it was rumored that Brad Pitt, George Clooney and Johnny Depp wanted to play the central role.

The novel was really long and in my honest opinion had all the ingredients for a perfect "masala" movie. The central knot around which this novel revolves had a solution which totally lacked any logic or sense, to believe that a key evidence to resolve the entire mystery was not noticed by anyone in 60 years, but our hero resolves it with one stroke was hard to believe, that to, it was not even a Sherlock Holmes kind deduction which made it even more painful to believe. Most characters were not developed completely and left midway during the course of narration. Unnecessary sequences which actually did not contribute anything to the story line were a major sore point. I think the author was obsessed with Apple powerbook(s) and iBook(s) that he has quoted the technical specifications with screen resolution which in my opinion was totally unnecessary and he has made hacking look like 'BASIC' Program execution. On the whole it was not a bad novel, but a novel you shouldnt be spending an entire weekend on, ignoring everyone and then face the consequences for it!

What the .... ?

There is a news item in 'The Hindu' about Chennai people braving the rain to support Hazare's cause and at the end I get to read this

VIJAY TO MEET HAZARE

Tamil actor Vijay will leave for Delhi on Thursday morning to meet Anna Hazare at the Ramlila grounds to wish him success in his campaign. He will also participate in the fast.

My first reaction - "why is this news under a wrong title?". After few seconds it struck me, the real question is "Why is this a news item?". This is not even a information to be published in a paper like 'The Hindu', forget Hindu, any paper, be it vernacular or English, for that matter. Expressing solidarity can be done through number of ways, you dont need to fast in Delhi to show support, you can very well fast in Valluvar Kottam. The actual news that should have been published is "There is an insignificant news about Vijay which we have decided not to publish!"

P:S: This is out and out my personal take. The reaction would have been the same for anyone from the tamil film industry. Since it was Dr.Vijay, i couldnt control myself from blogging it.

Stop! This is Madness

I think everybody in the IT service domain would have gone through this harrowing experience. This specific use case happens when you are in a social situation forced to make a conversation with a human (especially inquisitive male) twice your age. After all your initial formal pleasantries and when you are just about to log out of the conversation, the inevitable happens

Inquisitive male: So tell me Mr.xxxx, where do you work
You: Well, I am with working < an Indian IT MNC> for an aerospace client, Boeing.
Inquisitive male: Thats great, so do you know how much they sell the 787 for?
You: What? How would I, No, I work in the comp ....
Inquisitive male: Thats ok, what is the problem with their 787, they talk about some production and labor problems?
You: Well, .... eh ... you see there are various divisions ....
Inquisitive male: Hmmm ....

At this very moment, he just stops looking at you and walks away without even acknowledging your presence. You can hear him telling this to your dad or mom

Inquisitive male: I think the young people now are lazy and they dont know anything outside their computer. In our time, we used to know everything that happened around us and blah blah blah ....useless generation!

This is not just one instance, the very tidbits about the Western companies provided in the form of news over "The Hindu" and "The Indian express" is killing every IT guy. If you are with a retail client like WalMart, a staple question is, "How can they sell things cheap?". I pity all those folks who are with financial institutions, don't attend any social gathering now, forget the 'what is credit rating ?' question the focus will be more on 'why was US downgraded?'! So much for studying Computer Science.

Another instance i hate the most is,

Prerequiste: You don't need to engage in a conversation with a person twice your age, anyone who is not in IT can/will ask you this

Person Not in IT: Hello Mr.XXXX, where do you work? (the 'Mr' is a very important part of addressing someone, Damn you British!)
You: I work in < an Indian IT MNC>
Person Not in IT: WOW, that's a big company, do you know Mr.Prabhakar? He is also with your company.
You: Oh is it so, not really, i dont know him.
Person Not in IT: No man, you should be knowing him, he is been there for more than 20 years.
You: Well, my company is big, there are vari ......
Person Not in IT: You got to be kidding me, how can someone be in this company and not know Mr.Prbhakar
You: ah! eh! hmmmmm .... ??????????

After few irritating instances, i developed my own arsenal to counter this argument, I would randomly choose a name and ask him

I: So you work in < some company >. Do you know Mr.Sethuraman?
Person Not in IT: Sethuraman who?
I: What do you mean Sethuraman who? How could you now know Sethuraman? He was in "The Hindu" Sunday supplement the other day. Looks like everyone in your company knows him and he is the next big happening person in your company
Person Not in IT: I don't know who you are talking about.
I: WOW, that's a surprise, I thought since you knew everyone you might also know someone from your own company ...

Well you don't need to end your line here, the other person would have walked away long before you complete your sentence. Rest assured, the next time you meet this person again, from my experience your conversation with this guy will never go past 'How are you?' :-) You will be tagged as rude and a non-social prick, but atleast you save the pain of explaining!

The Statistician in me - 3

This should be the most analyzed stat in the history of Indian cricket, the stat on Sachin's second innings performance. Well couldn't stop myself from digging this one out after Sachin remains unbeaten overnight against the English.

	Sachin	Span	Mat	Runs	HS	Bat Av	100
	Career	1989-2011	181	14909	248*	56.26	51
	3rd Innings	1989-2011	168	2839	176	48.11	10
	4th Innings	1989-2011	117	1439	136	38.89	3
	Both 3rd and 4th	1989-2011	168	4278	176	44.56	13

Well the number on the 4th innings is really a cause of concern, for a batsman to have stayed in the international arena for more than 2 decades and still not reach an average of 40 is a bit of a disappointment. We are talking about a batsman with NO possible deficiency in technique and the best batsmen of our generation, on the other hand the average on the 3rd innings looks a lot better relatively. But when you take the entire second innings as factor, i would say it looks decent. I think both these numbers are best understood when compared against the other top batsmen at the same era.

	Lara	Span	Mat	Runs	HS	Bat Av	100
	Career	1990-2006	131	11953	400*	52.88	34
	3rd Innings	1990-2006	125	2264	145	40.42	7
	4th Innings	1990-2006	95	1440	153*	35.12	2
	Both 3rd and 4th	1990-2006	125	3704	153*	38.18	9
	Ponting	Span	Mat	Runs	HS	Bat Av	100
	Career	1995-2010	152	12363	257	53.51	39
	3rd Innings	1995-2010	150	2278	116	38.61	2
	4th Innings	1995-2010	115	1362	156	54.48	4
	Both 3rd and 4th	1995-2010	150	3640	156	43.33	6
	Dravid	Span	Mat	Runs	HS	Bat Av	100
	Career	1996-2011	157	12775	270	53	35
	3rd Innings	1996-2011	149	2532	180	42.91	5
	4th Innings	1996-2011	110	1476	103*	42.17	1
	Both 3rd and 4th	1996-2011	149	4008	180	42.63	6

WOW! what was that? I least expected Dravid and Lara to fall behind Sachin. I think Sachin has performed a lot better than most of his contemporary batsmen of his era. The data looks a shade better when compared with his fellow performers. I think the numbers provide a better evidence of the player he is, also, maintaining an average of over 45 over 100 tests is in itself a great record.

But lets focus on Sachin's second innings and see where the runs have come from

The chart does seem to provide vital information as to Sachin's second innings performance on different conditions. Just considering the top teams, his performance at home, England and SriLanka are excellent, while his record in Australia, S.Africa and Pakistan are abysmal at best. There is a sharp contrast and this cannot be tied to the surfaces as in both ends of his performance spectrum we have very good pace and spin conditions. But one clear trend is, his performance during the second innings against the best of attacks is poor. But to conclude from just the average will be wrong, I think that analysis warrants a separate post on its own. Anyhow if tomorrow is to be considered, his record in England is great and I hope he will save the test for us.

Just Amazing

Every day I take it for granted that I will find a new comic strip for Dilbert and I come to realize that in the last year alone there has not been a single day where Dilbert strip has taken a day off. On a lighter note, I am just curious on how Scott Adams works, does he provide comic strips worth two-three months at one point of time then start working on the next set of strips? Does he ever take vacation or a day off? What is more intriguing is the fact that each comic strip has got a theme which gets conveyed in a single strip with four - five boxes, how can someone churn out comic strips at this rate without getting exhausted (mentally ofcourse!). I understand this is creativity at its best and that's the reason he is earning millions but still for some one to come up with brand new situations and scenarios on a regular basis is something extraordinary. Well, there are always re-occuring themes like the meeting routine or project schedule analysis or the manager's ignorance on technology, but still they are not so evident as they satirical comic variety in them varies to the extent that you ignore those theme repeats. To incubate an idea and represent the same within a strip is really an act of a genius as it needs to convey the intention and humor to the reader within that short attention span. Hats off to all those comic strip creator geniuses.

Note: I think one of our "trivia" guys like Koi can definitely tell us 4 specific instances/dates in the last 30 years of Dilbert's publication as to when the strip actually took a break.

Apollo 18

The film trailer Apollo 18 caught my eye yesterday. Looks like an amazing premise to work on and teasers were great. One another film to have the mockumentary style of filming, hopefully it is not a dud with a cheesy plot and 'US is great' ending

An Alternate Take

With the ongoing Anna Hazare Prison drama, I just decided to step back a bit and try to see the same issue from the government/Congress party's point of view. Let me play the Devil's Advocate here for a moment and see why is The Congress Party hell bent in not letting Hazare continue his protest, forget acting on it.

1. An obvious reason is the toll on the image of this government. There is already a general opinion that this government is not doing enough for the "aam aadmi" as they claim. Also there were so many corruptions and scandals, I think they have run out of excuses and executives. They made a mistake once of not tabling a strong Lokpal Bill, now they dont have a choice other than defending it. Elections are still a long way to go, but still if they relent now, it might prove deterrent in the coming days. In simple terms they dont have a choice other than to thwart this protest and create a 'Strong Govt' image
2. Setting a bad precedent. This definitely is a plausible reason, considering the fact that if the government steps down from its position today, the public will see perceive this as a defeat to the Govt. The message conveyed will be "the govt can be forced to act on something if a protest at this scale happens". In India we dont need a reason to gather people and protest, vile politicians can use this avenue as an mode to show their clout or force government to work against the people's interest. This is a genuinely unsavory route which cannot be entirely ruled out and public will be the ultimate losers. So a genuine reason for the government to stop the protesters at the bigger interest of public well being or it can called protection against unfair protests.
3. To show who is the 'Boss'? There is no reason why the government shouldn't act like a big brother here. It is in its second term and has all the possible resources it can have to muzzle this protest. Rather than a why here I think it would have been a Why Not?

I could just come up with three reasons why the government is acting this way. Except for the second one, I think the first and third are just examples of arrogance and total lack of sensitivity to people issues. In my honest opinion the second reason would not have even crossed their minds. I think they are more baffled at why every other major political parties is rallying along with Hazare when ideally they should be with the government to prevent a strong anti corruption bill. I think the government is having wild swings between sensibility and insanity

A perfect recipe for ... Comedy

On Friday we had a team meeting to determine the course of action as we had to maintain 3 different flavors of code in our Clear Case version management system. So the meeting was actually to brainstorm the best and effective way to maintain these three different code bases with minimum hassle to the developers.

The meeting was attended by

1. The technical Architect
2. The all knowing Project Manager
3. A new Project manager who was assigned the task to schedule this meeting
4. The CC (Configuration Controller/Manager)
5. Software developers

A small flashback would tell us that, the CC and the new Manager were already pissed off with one another as they couldn reach a common ground on this same episode over the last few days and hence this meeting. Also, the new manager was keen to impress that he is new sole authority for every decision in this project. As is the case with every project, the CC doesn't know A,B,C of the project, forget the technical portion in it, the new manager is like what we call in tamil "kanakkupulla", all he does it takes down what has been done, what needs to be done and what will be done everyday morning and reflects back to the top management(Dont we love these guys?). The stage was set for a showdown and we developers couldn't have enjoyed a better fight of egos on a Friday afternoon. Here is a snapshot of how the conversation went,

New Manager: I would like to have different code bases for Data Migration, 11G DB migration and normal code dev

CC: You already have code version 1.1.4, 1.1.4.38 and 1.1.5

New Manager: I dont care about the versions. I want three code bases and definitely one for Data Migration

CC: What data migration, noone told anything about Data migration to me. I have 1.1.4, 1.1.4.38 and 1.1.5

Technical Architect: I specifically need a code base for 11G DB migration to change my Java code specifically

CC: You have a Java specific code version?

New Manager: What Java specific code version? I want one for DM also.

CC: What is DM? Do you want me to create a branch from the main trunk again?

New Manager: Trunk, Branch? I dont understand, can i have three code bases

Technical Architect: Yeah a trunk from the main branch for DM and a stream on the branch
for 11g migration

CC: ????

New Manager: ????

All i could think about was Vivek's dialogue in Ezhayin Sirippil "AAda yarukka da therium Jhonny veedu engannu? Solli tholaingalenda ...."

I couldn't control myself at this point and somehow managed to keep myself from laughing out loud(I thank the school/college days training for this). Finally the manager (who-knows-all) managed to intervene and explained the stand of each stakeholder to one another. Well the damage was already done and i couldn't have had a better Friday afternoon. Also, did I mention the CC was a Chinese, the new Manager an South African and the Technical Architect an East European? Now read the entire conversation again with their respective accents in your head! I would recommend such meetings every Monday and Friday to boost the developers morale he he he!

London Riots

The trending topic clearly is London Riots and the internet is filled with pictures and accounts on what is happening. Sitting miles away from the British capital and framing an opinion about this riot (which in itself is stupid, but why not?) like how BBC would want me to, I am still searching for a strong reason on why a riot on this scale happened? Atleast, I didn't understand the real intention behind these riots and there are various reasons that are being tied to this riot by the media. Frankly, searching for a pattern amongst those reasons, I find no pattern or a common theme. Reasons ranged from budget cuts on community initiatives, raising unemployment amongst the youths, 'stop and search' events targetted towards a specific community/area, police killing a youth under suspicious circumstances etc. My only question is will burning a community help it in anyway? Of course not, it will just make it worse. Yes, it is an significant action which will attract official attention but still, it is not logical to destroy the business and life of people in your own community under the pretext of helping them! Most of the looters and destroyers were opportunists who just wanted a reason to wreck havoc but what they didn't realize is that, at the end of day the real cause (amongst many) was lost. It is sad to see innocent people suffering because of few insane morons and most shocking fact of all was the age slab of these rioters, all young and hardly out of their teens. Another interesting piece was the role of social media in this mayhem and this has been stated as decentralized chaos in the recent times.

Well, as painful it was to read about these riots, it was really shocking to see the pictures on the looting and the audacity with which it was committed. In fact I was both shocked and amused when I tweeted this with a "WOW"; while Koi responded with a "What's WOW about this?", well "WOW" of course is not the right term in this context but still it was really interesting to see humans resorting to jungle law when there is no rule or a social order in place. We are no different than animals, it is only that we are in a cage called rules of the society!

The Statistician in me - 2

Playing cricket for 5 days at a stretch is a great effort on its own but in my opinion it is the bowlers who toil hard for success. Taking cue from my previous post, I dug into the number of balls bowled and here are the top ten bowlers who have actually bowled the most in test cricket over the years.

Few Inferences

1. A clear distinction in strike rates and number of wickets between Warne and Kumble emerges. Somehow Warne has accumulated more wickets in less time. But this could be because his major scalps are against the English and South Africans, while Kumble played most of his matches against Sri lanka, Pakistan and Australia.
2. There is a huge gap after Warne in terms of numbers in balls, it is a big difference but again can be attributed to the fact most other bowlers are pace bowlers as the spinners do the bulk of bowling 
3. It was exciting to find pace and spin bowlers in equal numbers at the top ten and a comforting fact that genuine fast bowling is not a dying art! In another 5-6 years we can hopefully find the likes of Broad, Steyn adorn the list.

Another distinctive feature of interest is the strike rate which i was able to place it in a chart,


The graph is a revelation on its own and I was amazed at the strike rate of the bowlers.

McGrath's strike rate at lower 50s and next best is Murali at 55. So in my opinion, McGrath to have sustained such an awesome strike rate over a long period is really great. No one could match McGrath's wicket frequency. Though Murali's strike rate can be argued against most matches being played at home or spin favoring pitches but the strike rates of Harbhajan or Kumble who have also played under similar conditions is no threat. I think Murali does justice heading the pile in both wickets and strike rates.

All these bowlers are top class performers, it is just that few bowlers are a shade better than rest. The first table was just a curiosity look up and I think an inference "the more you bowl, the more the chance of you picking up a wicket" is justified from the data! From the strike rate data it is pretty clear, an intelligent bowler is more important in a match than a bowler who bowls like a machine. The impact is distinct and conclusive

​

Yipeee! Mondays (?)

I was pushed out of the weekend mode and forced into a Monday mode. I was totally not prepared for this and i am currently 'dazed and confused' on how I went though this entire day. Everything around me is so surreal and the only thing i can connect with today is the music i am hearing right now. I somehow feel this kinda of feel is better than a Friday feel where you are eager to finish the day and there is always an anticipation of weekend to account for, but this shock for having to work after two full days of laziness will actually take you over the entire day without you feeling a bit of weariness. I would always take a Monday like this for a Friday, somehow I didnt feel the day pass by and suddenly it is 5pm and I am already packing my bags.



WOW! It is like one of those "High"s you know you are on and enjoying every bit of it. I am sure that i will definitely kick myself for writing something totally random with no sense or meaning or direction but isn't that the entire point of getting "High"? A doctor diagnosis will say "A Serious case of the Mondays"

Thank you AMC

It is gangster movies the entire week in AMC and they have aptly named as MobWeek (If it was Sun TV it would have been advertised as "Rowdy Vaaaram"!). They could have rather called it Al Pacino week as the movies selected for playing are 'Godfather 1 & 2', 'Carlito's way', 'Scarface', 'Donnie Brasco'. May be they included 'Goodfellas' as no mob movie celebration is complete without Joe Pesci, Di Nero & Ray Liotta entertaining us.

Anyways, they screened Scarface yesterday and this particular restaurant scene in the movie somehow is the best. This scene brings out the actor in Al Pacino, this is the point where he starts to look vulnerable in the movie



One another scene in the movie I like is the bath tub sequence, the raw anger portrayed throughout the scene is what is makes it amazing(Somehow i couldnt find a video of that in Youtube to embed here, Weird!). It is "Pulp Fiction" this sunday and "Goodfellas" tomorrow, with no great movies hitting the theater I would say it should be an amazing weekend ahead with the evening booked in front of the idiot box.

Lokpal Bill

The current hue and cry over the Lokpal bill got me into thinking,

1. Have we given this bill to the right people for preparation?
2. Arent these the same people who are also going to approve it?
3. The final question, isnt this bill totally against the activities of the people who are approving it?

It is like asking the council of thieves to come up with a plan to ensure the security of a society, of course they will have a plan, but it wont be fool proof. Afterall at the end of the day it is this lack of security putting food on their table. The entire group of politicos (barring few) are hell bent in scuttling a good Lokpal bill, I dont blame them, you wont sign your own death sentence would you? What else could be the reason for BJP, which otherwise would have stalled the Parliament proceedings for days together, to be quiet in a sensitive issue like this. They didn't even issue press statements on their stand, the only opinion expressed was to either include the PM under the bill's purview.

This is gross inefficiency and if the Civil Society is to be believed, it is just another bill with no teeth in it. But for team Anna, this wouldn't have even reached the general public like me and thanks to the 'addicted to sensation' media this is topping the headlines in every news medium. In my opinion, there is no work around for this, the politicians and bureaucrats have to realize that its high time they stop swindling and discipline themselves. The Bill is just a start, it will not make India a corrupt free nation overnight but it will at least sensitize the people that they do have a medium monitoring and they can stop paying bribes for their basic rights. Also the politicians/bureaucrats will think twice before before demanding (we have long gone past the term 'accepting') money for even the smallest service. This should also help the whistleblowers to come out and start the act of cleaning the system which reeks of money and nepotism.

If the Gandhian way of protesting is still relevant, hopefully starting Aug16 we should see a new dimension of fight towards a better India. India v2.0 is waiting to be deployed!

Back with a bang!

One of the most prestigious motorcycle brand 'Royal Enfield' is ramping up its production numbers to meet the customer demands by setting up a new plant in Chennai. They are moving from the age old cast iron, oil leaking engine to a more dependable fuel injected engine and one more significant change will be swapping the unconventional gear lever and brake lever to reflect those placements in all other bikes. Enfield will always be a niche bike to ride and own, whatever Bajaj or Hero Honda can offer you, they can never match the quality or speed of Enfield bikes. I consciously did not include Yamaha in that list as they HAD a loyal crowd for their RX100, RX135, RXZ and RD350 but they lost their way with their standard bread and butter models like Crux and Gladiator. I am still passionate about the Royal Enfield and Yamaha 2 stroke bikes, the very design and engine roar can never be matched by any other bike. I still remember the discussions Sriram and I used to have about the sound of Yamaha RX100 engine for hours without break! I dont know about Sri now, but i am still a Yamaha RX series fan boy.

Hope to see sanity prevail

It was a huge disappointment to see India lose this bad in two tests. In the lead up to the second test i was supremely confident that the Indian team would bounce back. But this loss was so severe on me, I didn't want to read any news items on this test in cricinfo for the last two days. I think it should be the second time I have consciously shunned cricinfo from my regular everyday read, the last time i did this was back in 2005 when Aussies lost the Ashes. The team has just added ammunition to the critics questioning their stay at No.1, earlier Boycott and now its Chappell's turn and many more to follow. The team on the 3rd evening summed up everything that has gone wrong in this series, there was lack of intent on the field, the bowlers were tired and gifted easy balls to the tail-enders and the fielders were just going through the motion. There was no enthusiasm or fight on the field and the Indian players just wanted to end the day and go back to the dressing room. To imagine we losing a test after playing good cricket on the first two days lacks any logical explanations.

All is not lost, India can show their fighting instincts and prove all the critics wrong only if they can win the next two matches but it is like a fairy tale and it doesn't happen often. I really want this team to prove their a fighting spirit and they do deserve the number 1 spot, it was not out of luck we are at the top, there was so much sweat and effort from each one of the players and they shouldn't let this slip easily. Even if we go down, we have to go down fighting and make the English work hard for their victories. One article that stood out and made sense was from Dada. When such a critical review comes from a captain like Ganguly, I think the team really need to put their head down and make this test series interesting.

A Catalyst

In the recent days, politics in Tamil Nadu wasn't interesting like it was in Andhra, WB or Karnataka. It was following the regular routine where the new government was accusing the previous government for every administrative failure which included things at both ends of the spectrum, be it the essential commodities like Electricity, rice, pulses or commodities which are considered luxury like Infrastructure(yes in India Infrastructure is a luxury). Well everything was happening according to the script, but there was something brewing within the DMK ranks which was ready to burst out. I think everyone was expecting this to happen at sometime down the year, but it was kinda of early when the dissent within the party bigwigs was ready to burst at its seams immediately after the elections. The DMK top brass was split fourways between MKs heirs and each proclaimed to be his political successor with no clear winner. There were reports of difference in opinion between Stalin and MK riding towards their meeting to analyze their election defeat and it was a long expected drama waiting to happen. This was not something out of the blue but still not entirely expected.

The DMK party is always strong at its grass root levels and there was evident split even amongst its party cadres when it came to question of loyalty and the party was right on track to self destruction. This could have been one of the best things to happen in TN politics in a long time and everyone was pretty happy that come next election the TN electorate will have more to chose from the staple DMK, AIADMK choice. All of a sudden, two days back there was a huge clamour when Stalin was arrested for leading a demonstration against the government's action against DMK men in land grab case. This actually has indirectly helped the DMK, everyone in party have now found a cause to revitalize themselves and the party. This unprecedented event has suddenly helped the DMK as a party and they have found a common opinion to work for, in fact this insignificant event has gained so much significance within a day that the CM had to clarify that Stalin was not arrested but just detained for his own safety. The point here is, what could have been a path towards self annihilation is now averted by a simple non significant event, that to from an unexpected quarter. I somehow feel this could just delay the destruction but destruction is imminent but somehow the way of politics amaze me.

A statistician in me

The recent ongoing test match where Dravid played an excellent knock in the first innings got me into thinking 'who has played the maximum number of balls in the test cricket?' Well i was pretty clear on who it might turn out to be, but there were few surprises as well. This is the overall list, 


I always thank Cricinfo for the data they own and how they have helped us by letting users query on that data. Here is the top ten

Player	Mat	Inns	NO	Runs	HS	Ave	Balls Faced	SR	100
R Dravid	155	268	31	12570	270	53.03	29673	42.36	34
SR Tendulkar	179	293	32	14754	248*	56.52	27305	53.99*	51
AR Border	156	265	44	11174	205	50.56	27002	41.09*	27
JH Kallis	145	246	38	11947	201*	57.43	26418	45.22	40
SR Waugh	168	260	46	10927	200	51.06	22461	48.64	32
S Chanderpaul	133	227	36	9367	203*	49.04	22226	42.14	23
RT Ponting	152	259	28	12363	257	53.51	20827	59.36	39
MA Atherton	115	212	7	7728	185*	37.69	20709	37.31	16
G Boycott	108	193	23	8114	246*	47.72	20412	35.42*	22
BC Lara	131	232	6	11953	400*	52.88	19753	60.51	34
DPMD Jayawardene	119	196	13	9630	374	52.62	18370	52.42	28

On the first glance at the list, I realized Border & Boycott even though from the previous era, still managed to make it at number 3 & 9. Border may not be entirely from the previous era but still to see him at number 3, tells the sheer responsibility he carried to build a strong Aussie team. For Boycott, the catch here is, the number innings he has played against the number of innings the current crop of players have played. One more surprise entry was Lara, but he did make one of the biggest scores in test cricket and that is attributed by the fact that he has the best strike rate amongst the top ten. Amazing stat!


Lets take a step back and poke into the 70s-90s era and see who tops the list. The following list takes into consideration only till the year 1990 

Player	Mat	Inns	NO	Runs	HS	Ave	Balls Faced	SR	100
G Boycott (Eng)	108	193	23	8114	246*	47.72	20412	35.42*	22
AR Border (Aus)	111	192	33	8488	205	53.38	20270	41.48*	23
SM Gavaskar (India)	125	214	16	10122	236*	51.12	15327	44.42*	34
DI Gower (Eng)	106	183	13	7383	215	43.42	14714	50.17	15
GS Chappell (Aus)	87	151	19	7110	247*	53.86	13079	51.53*	24
Javed Miandad (Pak)	101	153	18	7701	280*	57.04	12564	46.50*	22
JH Edrich (Eng)	77	127	9	5138	310*	43.54	11542	37.14*	12
CG Greenidge (WI)	96	163	15	6826	223	46.12	11018	49.14*	17
DL Haynes (WI)	85	146	17	5340	184	41.39	10970	43.50*	12
DB Vengsarkar (India)	105	168	22	6498	166	44.5	10506	42.75*	17

To be fair, I don't see any contrast in strike rates but the number that is surprising is the runs scored. The number of tests played is a significant factor but on the first look, to me, it looks like runs scoring then was really tough. All the top batsmen here are technically excellent and are predominantly openers or No 3 against the current crop of players in the first list who are predominantly either No.3 and No.4 batsmen. It is not that Openers have lost sheen in the current era, I think the openers have moved beyond getting the shine out of the new ball to scoring runs with the hard ball.


There are various interesting facts that can be inferred from the numbers, but to me it is a question between 'Has the standard of bowling gone down'? or 'Has the batting improved a lot and the conditions prevailing now are more in favour of the batsmen than the bowlers'? 


Information Courtesy: Cricinfo
P.S: Whatever it is, in local parlance these guys had 'Suga Gaaji' :-)