India v/s England test series & 2000th test match !

Hello everyone,
I'm back with an article on cricket ! The game loved by billions and it is like a religion in India and the GOD is Sachin Tendulkar. India and England will be playing 4 test matches (5 day match, played with red color ball and dress code  for cricketers is white). The first test started from 21st July, 2011, which is the 100th test match between India and england and 2000th test match in the history of test matches in cricket, which tell you how old the test matches are !

What is test match in Cricket ? (in brief)
A match which goes till a team wins or for 5 days, 90 overs each day. Each team has to play two innings in these 5 days. It is traditionally played with red ball, instead of white color ball which is preferred in ODI and dress code for cricketers is white. Playing a Test match is a great honor for any player, as while playing it and to be successful you need patience, great concentration, dedication & determination to stay on pitch while you are batting. And for bowlers it is a test of there capability to take wickets. For a team to win the match it has to take 20 wickets of the opponent and should have aggregate runs scored in two innings more than its opponent. If a team couldn't capture 20 wickets of opponent then it can't win any test match !

A brief history of test Cricket:
1877: The year when test matches started
1920-21: First white-washed five test match series. Australia thrashed England in 5 test series by 5-0
1928: Australia's Sir Don Bradman (average run scored by him in test matches = 99.94) made his debut in Test cricket
1930: Sir Don Bradman scored 974 runs in 5 test match series, a world record
1938: Len Hutton from England scored 364 runs in one inning, a record at that time, against Australia
1948: Sir Don bradman retires from test cricket. He needed only 4 runs in the last test to have a average of 100 but he was out on golden duck, that is he scored zero !

1956: Jim Laker from England takes 10 wicket haul in an inning against Australia. The only other bowler to achieve this feat is Anil Kumble from India.
1958: Gary Sobers from West indies breaks Len Hutton's record for highest runs in an inning by scoring 365 against Pakistan.
1960: World saw first tied test match, that is both the teams were able to capture 20 wickets and there aggregate score was equal. Teams involved in this test were Australia and West Indies
1964: Fred trueman became first man on earth to capture 300 wickets.
1986: World witness 2nd and the last tied test match until now. The teams involved in the test match were India and Australia.
1990: New Zealand's Richard Hadlee becomes the first bowler on earth to take 400 Test wickets, that is he dismissed atleast 400 batsmen till then.
1992: South Africa returns to test arena
1994: West Indies batsmen Brian Lara, icon for cricket lovers in West Indies, Breaks the highest runs scored in an Inning by scoring 375 against England at Antigua
1997: The highest runs aggregated by a team in an inning were scored by Sri Lanka, that is they scored 954 for 6 against India, still a world record !
2001: West Indies Courtney Walsh reached the magical figure of 500 test wickets, that is he took 500 test wickets, the first man on earth to achieve that feat.
2002: Sachin Tendulkar scores 30th Century to surpasses Sir Don Bradman in test cricket.

2003: Australia's Matthew Hayden breaks Brian lara record for highest runs scored by an individual in a test match by scoring 380 against minnows, Zimbabwe.
2004: Brian Lara scores first quadruple century, that is he scored 400 (not out), to regain his world record for highest number of runs scored by an individual in an inning.
2006:  First team to loses a test match by forfeiting it. And the the team which has this honor is Pakistan.
2010: Sri Lanka's all time greatest off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan takes 800th test wicket, a world record, which is unlikely to be broken by any cricketers in near future.

2010: Sachin tendulkar (Master blaster or the god of Cricket or Little Master) from India scored 50th test Ton, that is 50th test century and became the first man in the world to achieve this feat ! And till now nobody has reached even 40 test centuries other than him !

Why is cricket lovers eagerly waiting India v/s England test series ?

1. Sachin Tendulkar can re-write history if he scores a century in this series, then he will be the only man on earth to score 100 international centuries, that he will complete 100 times scoring 100 or more than 100 runs in International cricket. At present he has 51 test hundreds, century, and 48 ODI hundreds, that is total of 99 international centuries !
   
   
2. The 100th test Between India and England was stared, and world witnessed 2000th test match !
3. And the other thing the cricket world is waiting for is to see that can India retain or show the world why it is No.1 in test ranking.

The test matches are at the brink of losing its shine/status because of more entertaining formats of cricket, that is T20 and ODI. And everyone hopes that the test series like this one will make sure that test cricket doesn't become extinct or a history !

The schedule for India v/s England test Series is as follows,

• 1st Test: From 21st July, 2011 to 25th July, 2011 at Lord's, London, England
• 2nd test: From 29th July, 2011 to 2nd August, 2011 at Trent Bridge, Nottingham, England
• 3rd Test: From 10th August, 2011 to 14th August, 2011 at Edgbaston, Birmingham, England
• 4th Test: From 18th August, 2011 to 22th August, 2011 at Kennington Oval, London, England

Hope you liked this article about cricket and the 2000th Test match !
We will be sharing information like this regularly to make you aware of various facts and ongoing events, so keep visiting this blog till then have fun and Good bye... :)

Ipad Comes to India !!

Much awaited gadgets Apple ipad, which was released long back in most of the countries, has reached India ! It has tied up with government-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) to launch the tablet in the country.
The reason for the delay has been told to be that Indians generally don't prefer Apple product as they are quite costly when compare to other products which gives them similar features, like samsung galaxy tablet, dell streak and notion ink.

Now the price range at which you can buy IPad in India are as follows,
Wi-Fi Version ranges from INR 26,000 to 33,000, that is around 582.71200 U.S. dollars to 739.596 U.S. dollars.
3G + Wi-Fi  Version Ipad ranges from INR 33,000 to 44,000, that is around 739.596 U.S. dollars to 986.12800 U.S. dollars.
I've given the price range because Ipad comes with various capacities, like 16GB, 32GB and 64GB.

Now, Can Apple Ipad  (a tablet PC) stand strong in India ?

• Apple got an set back when Samsung reduced its tablet pc cost from INR 36,499, that is 818.015588 U.S. dollars to INR 29,500, that is 661.15400 U.S. dollars. So, the chances of Apple IPad been popular and selling it in India looks dim, at present.
• Also,  there are rumors that ipad 2 will also be released in India soon !

The above two reasons are keeping Indians away from buying ipad, and I guess when ipad 2 is released it will be sold out as soon as it comes to the market !

So, are you planning to buy a new ipad today ?

P.S Apple Iphone 4 is also released in India recently.

India's kindle, A book ereader !!

India's Bangalore based company has developed a new ereader, and it is known to be first Indian ereader. It was named to be The Wink eReader, it will be a delight for all the book lovers !!
Now, you will ask me what is so special about it ? The answer is that it supports 15 languages and none of the present ereaders supports these many languages!!

Wink Ereader	Wink Logo

Below you can the features, physical properties of the ereader, the cost and something more about the developers of The Wink eReader, in brief.

Name: The Wink eReader
Developer: EC Media International, a Bangalore based Company.
Technology Used: e-ink for displaying content
Supported Text Formats: TXT, RTF, PDF, DOC, HTML, WOLF, CHM, FB2, DJVU and ePUB
Supported Multimedia Formats: MP3, WAV and AAC

Physical Properties and Cost:

• Dimensions: 18.52 cm(length) x 12.46 cm(width) x 1.09 cm(height)
• Weigh: Around 260 gram (including battery)
• Processor frequency: 400 MHz
• Screen resolution: 800x600
• Screen size: 6 inch
• Price: Rs 11,490, that is around US $ 254

Features:

• Supports 15 different languages !!
• First Indian ereader which will compete against Amazon kindle.
• You can preview the content and Text to Speech Support(TTS).
• Catalogue present in the gadgets, so easy accessible and content can be previewed easily.
• Also supports upports Music, games and multimedia mails.
• Strain-free readability even in bright sunlight, that is it has 16-shade grayscale screen that enhances text viewing as it avoids glare or backlight.
• Great battery life and power backup, around 10 hours of music on a single charge.
• Expandable extenal memory upto 16 GB, with internal memory 2GB.
• Wi-fi connectivity.
• Eco friendly, by Eco friendly I mean that all ereaders are eco-friendly as they save trees !!

Where does it lacks ?

1. No touch screen wink ereaderas of now in market (but they are developing touch screen model, as well).
2. Price is a bit too high (when compare to amazon kindle 3, which is around US$139).

Where can I get books from ?

www.thewinkstore.com

It has various titles and covers various field of life ans technology.

Wink ereader comes in two models, as of now, they are

1. Wink XTS (No 3G support, No touch screen)
2. Wink 3G (3G support, No touch screen)

And the are planning to release two more models, and they would be,

• Wink XLite (Lesser price, it will be around Rs. 7,990, though you can buy the limited edition in Rs.6,999 only)
• Wink 3G+ (Touch screen feature is embedded)

About the company future development:
EC Media is planning to develop WinkWire, that will have wide range of news. It will be similar to e-newspaper, which will allow users to customize the news article according to there comfort.
Also, EC Media has e-store which has over 100,000 book titles, magazines, journals and selected articles.

So, how many of you are planning to buy the India's first ereader, Wink ?
I think you should give it a try and experience the thrill of reading books in various languages !!

Hope the article was useful to everyone.. have fun :)

Is iPhaad, India's answer to the iPad, for real?

Following the launch of Apple's iPad, touted by many as the magnified version of the iPhone, India Inc. quickly jabbed Apple in the face with prototype release of the desi iPad (hereby referred to as the iPhaad) and announced it would sell this little baby for just $35. Ouch.
The HRD ministry had hailed this new development and taunted the mighty MIT to match their feat, which surpassed MIT's closest attempt - The $100 gadget under the "One laptop per child" banner (which actually ended up costing $200, as scaling down is underway at MIT to make it available for $100). This begs for the answer to one question: Is it for real?? Is it good enough?
The answer to that, you are about to find out!

The $35 tablet PC made a public appearance last night on NDTV and showed off its figure. Oops, I meant specs. It is very much for real, although, it remains to be seen how much this virgin will actually cost. It's going to be released in three size variants : 5-inch, 7-inch and 9-inch and is all set to don a 2GB RAM, a SIM card slot, 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity, microUSB, microSD expandable storage, video out and a webcam! All this with the Android 2.1 OS!! Moreover, it's a tree hugger as it runs on a meager two-watt power supply, meaning it can adapt to life in rural India. A minor drawback is its resistive touch interface, which is not very responsive, but for $35 I'd be more than willing to make that compromise!

Well, now, the bad news: HRD minister, Kapil Sibal, has specifically stated that they don't intend to enter the iPhaad, whose actual cost of components is close to $50, into the retail market. The $35 asking price is highly subsidized for use by students all over India and expected to be available only in schools and colleges.
It rolls out into students' hands by November 2011 and once it infects the Indians, has plans to globetrot as well!
The up side to it is, It will throw the industry into a competition to lower their prices and split open the market for more such products, even if for $100 and some more features thrown in.

India v/s Sri Lanka

As Indian Tigers are playing against Sri Lankan, some of the records are set to tumble and some record may go further. Indian and Sri Lanka will be playing 3 test matches in the ongoing series, and the first test match will be last test match for the great spin bowler, Muttiah Muralitharan (who already has 792 wickets, and that is a record for highest number of wickets taken by any bowler in test cricket history).

Now, what are the records that can go further, that is might get extended and what are the record which can tumble in the series & some facts related to Indian v/s Sri Lanka test series.

From India's (No.1 Test team in ICC ranking) point of view:

• To start with, The WALL of India (Rahul Dravid) needs only 87 runs to complete 1500 runs against Sri Lanka in test matches. And he will be the 2nd Indian batsmen to achieve this feat.
• Rahul Dravid requires only 3 test fifties to complete 90 test fifties, and then he will be 4th batsmen in the history of test cricket.
• Sachin Tendulkar need another century (100 runs or more) against Sri Lanka and then he becomes the first player to score nine or more test 100's against two spicific oppositions.
• Now, it is between Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid as well in this series, they both hold the record for highest number of half centuries (more than 50 runs and less than 100) against Sri Lanka by Indian. They have scored 12 half centuries each till now against Sri Lanka.

From Sri Lanka's (No.4 Test team as per ICC ranking) point of view:

• Kumar Sangakkara needs only 84 runs to complete 7000 runs in test cricket.
• Muttiah Muralitharan needs only 3 wickets to take 100 or more wickets against India & then he becomes the first cricketer to get 100 or more wickets against India in test cricket. Also, he need 8 wickets to complete 800 test wickets.
• Aravinda de Silva (retired from international cricket) and Mahela Jayawardene holds the record for scoring highest number of centuries against India by a Sri Lankan, that is 6 centuries each. Now if Mahela Jayawardene scores another century in this series then he would surpass Aravinda de Silva and will hold numero one position, in this regard.

Now we compare and contrast players from both the countries:

• Mohammad Azharuddin (former Indian player) with 27 catches hold the record for highest number of catches in India-Sri Lanka test matches. For Sri Lanka, Hasan Tilakaratne holds the record with 16 catches, highes number of catches by any Sri Lankan player in Indis-Sri Lanka tests.
• SAR Silva (former Sri Lankan player) with 22 dismissals holds the record for highest number of dismissals by wicket keeper in India-Sri Lanka test matches. For India, Nayan Mongia holds the record with 18 dismissals.
• Indian have posted 43 three figure partnership, that is 100 or more runs by a pair, against Sri Lanka in test matches and Sri Lanka have posted only 33 100+ partnerships against India test matches.

Now the schedule for the test series is as follows,
1st Test is from 18th July to 22nd July, 2010
2nd Test is from 26th July to 30th July, 2010
3rd Test is from 03rd August to 07th August, 2010

And then they will play triangular ODI series. We will keep updating it, keep surfing have fun !!
We will come back with more facts and record in future as well.