kumar sangakkara, time to let the bat do the talking

before the world cup i said in another blog that all the members of sri lankan cricket team, especially mahela jayawardene who was going through what is called a "bad patch" at that time, must perform if we are to go all the way. and they did. champion teams shouldn't have "passengers". this is especially true when it comes to twenty20 cricket.

unfortunately, in spite of my great respect for kumar sangakkara, i have to say he is looking like a passenger at the moment.

here are his stats for current icc world twenty20 tournament
Kenya v Sri Lanka - 30(18)
New Zealand v Sri Lanka - 14(19)
Pakistan v Sri Lanka - 18(10)
Bangladesh v Sri Lanka - 20(29)

overall strike rate (sr) is 107.89%. all the other sri lankan batsmen have 125+ srs for this tournament. without the kenya match he would have a below 100 sr.

in t20 it is unacceptable for a batsman to have a below 100% strike rate whatever the conditions. in fact preferably they should have a 150+ rate. in the last game against Bangladesh sangakkara ate 9 balls (one and half overs, 7.5% of the innings) for nothing and most of that in the first 6 over power play. this also creates pressure on other batsmen, especially on his on field partner. after 3 dot balls and a single other batsman will feel the need for a boundary in the next ball, to get the team through. at the end of tenth over during which he got out, sri lanka were 61/3 (at 101 sr) but if we deduct his 9 dots the rate is 120. we scored 86 runs (at 140+ sr) for 2 wickets in the next 10 overs

so it is time he lives up to his (well deserved) reputation and perform. otherwise we won' go all the way even if we get through tomorrow.

hope we meet pakistan at the final (and south africans or indians at the semi final) if we go through.

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some observations on t20
sour grapes?
australians are are already coming out with lukewarm statements about twenty20 cricket. hope we do not follow them down that sour grape path if we get kicked out. yes test cricket is the best, but t20 is good, as is 50 over cricket. more the better imo.

momentum index?
presentation of stats has to be updated for t20. runs per over (rpo) and required rpo rates are meaningless here. (for example, if a team scores 20 runs in the tenth over, run rate goes up by 2, and required rate goes down by 2; an index with that kind of volatility cannot mean anything). same goes for crude projections they currently use.

what is required, in addition to balls and runs comparison, is a momentum (thus volatility) indicator. while run rate for last 5 (or less) overs may do, for a really valid one, we need calculus (duckworth-lewis already uses calculus). anybody wants to create one? fans do not need to understand how it is calculated as long as it works and informs.

blue vs silver
whose bright idea was it to change sri lankan colors? new uniform sucks imo, though australians fared worse. back to royal blue please. (btw imo new sl grey/silver and indian light blue are quite different though most ppl will not realize that until they see the two teams together).

ads and sirasa/shakthi/mtv
problems with maharaja broadcast of t20 matches to sri lanka continue. as theena reminded me, it is true that others had similar problems (especially with regard to screen crowding advertisements) but this is by far the worst. others usually miss only the first ball of the over and sometimes they did interrupt the ad midway if it was eating into the ball. however at sirasa, in addition to the first ball, they cut to the ad, before the last ball of the over is fielded (so we do not know see the runs, the fielding, and sometimes the wicket). we miss the last ball completely in case of a wide or a no ball, or if the idiot on duty at sirasa do not know how to count beyond 5. so far not one ad was interrupted.

as a result of all that, we are forced to watch cricketers talking about insurance in place of their performance on the field. sri lanka insurance (among other advertisers) should be mindful about how their ads are presented.

if we go to the final and this continues, we should publish a list of brands that deprived sri lankan cricket fans of their full enjoyment during that match. only problem with that plan at the moment is that i would probably use some other method to watch it ad free

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ps
talking of ads; most of them are for cement, insurance, and other financial services. did anyone say we are in an economic crisis? may be such ppl should observes the reality.

england, pl send australia home!

request to english tewenty20 team;
in the name of cricket, please please kick the "rusty" (! as if that is an excuse) australians, in their ridiculous figure hugging dresses, out of the tournament.

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ps
hope unprofessional idiots at mtv/sirasa/shakthi can show at least few matches without losing several balls due to ads and screen blackouts. today during a 5 over period of english innings against zim, during which i kept count, they managed to lose at least 5 balls including one wicket and one chance. then again that should be expected, they are habitually unreliable (look at their so called "news"!). we better figure out how to get mobile cable tv.

great!

navy sinks 3 terrorist pussy ships. read more about it here.



peaceniks like sanjana hattotuwa would have to wear their now habitual morose faces for longer (hopefully till the end of their miserable lives).

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ps
btw i am not dead, just busy :-)

to hrw and brad adams; brown skin does not mean barbarian murderers

(this highly misleading cover photo of hrw report is amply indicative of the sloppy standards of its writers and content.)

if you want to convict sri lankans and their armed forces of murder, do a proper investigation and come up with evidence. human rights watch's latest report is, starting from the misleading photo in the cover, short on real evidence and long on unsubstantiated allegations. same allegations were repeated today to media by its director brad adams.

it seems that to mr adams and hrw any barbaric allegation against a brown skinned person is equivalent to a conviction. they seem to think that unlike with white skinned 'civilized' beings brown skinned people are guilty until proven innocent. on that premise they convict large number of sri lankans of horrendous crimes based on ...nothing.

for instance not a single credible evidence for armed forces involvement in abductions is in the report. anonymous allegations are the best they can do. in addition to that, mere newspaper reports referring to more anonymous allegations, opposition mudslinging, snippets from terrorist propaganda, and pity inducing photos; that is all. it seems that is enough to convict thousands in sri lankans armed force of atrocities. read it(pdf 2.13mb). it is an example of racist prejudices of self appointed "do gooders" like brad adams (a hypocritical human leftover from 'missionary' past)

brown skinned man with gun = murderer
it seems these racist cannot stand the sight of brown skinned people successfully fighting to protect their basic human rights against terrorists, as sri lankan armed forces are doing. on the other hand they did nothing to counter the violation of our human rights by terrorists when we did not fight

and no doubt local ngo peaceniks like paikiasothy saravanamuttu, jehan perera, jayadeva uyangoda, sunila abeysekera, sunanda deshapriya, and their ilk (and their underlings like sanjana hattotuwa the censor) who make their living (literally see the donors to their ngos) by licking white assholes will find the report sweet to their tongues. to them as long as their masters excrete the disgusting rewards, sri lankans' right to justice and proper procedure has never been important. that is why they have long parroted the ltte terrorist propaganda

sri lankans should stand up and fight against violation of their basic human rights by such foreign racists and their local ass lickers, in the same way as they are presently fighting against violation of their rights by ltte terrorists.

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ps
i believe that we should specifically expose and name anyone who is connected to such racist reports in the same way we expose journalists doing similar things (1,2,3,). this may explain one reason why we should do that. people responsible for this sloppy racist report; brad adams, charu lata hogg, fred abraham, james ross, ian gorvin, andrea cottom, fitzroy hepkins, andrea holley, grace choi.

"tamil tigers vow retaliation"- so what?

some of the western corespondents here are highlighting smiling pussy's aka tamilselvan's statement; "(we will) weaken the military capacity of the government of sri lanka, which will invariably end up hitting economic targets as well". this ap report in washington's post is typical, it starts; "separatist rebels vowed thursday to hit military and economic targets across the country in retaliation for the army's capture of eastern sri lanka, ..." (btw so called 'rebels' may have forgotten that they said only the day before that army did not capture east). meanwhile the racists at afp say "tamil tigers threaten guerrilla warfare after conventional defeat". others of similar ilk also did likewise. peaceniks are parroting ltte spokesman as usual.

it is a pity (and typical) that these so called journalists forgot to ask; what is new in that ? have the terrorist pussies done anything but "hit military and economic targets across the country " before? (militarily speaking of course, that they engage in all kinds of other atrocities goes without saying.)

fact is the people in the east feel much safer now. occasional terrorist attacks on military and civilian targets in east (which will happen and will be unavoidable even when ltte is reduced to a handful) is not perfect, but that is certainly better than living under terrorist oppression or imminent threat of terrorist invasion or artillery attack. anyone who belittles recent military victories in east should ask themselves why they considered colombo and its suburbs with their own occasional terrorist attacks safer than east and north.

as i have said before "victory in this war will not be determined by the attacks carried out by terrorists but rather how many or how few people will be forced live and act in terror day in and day out."

don't they want the people in the east to be free of ltte's direct oppression or threat of direct oppression?

and don't they want people in the north to be likewise? or do they want an unsustainable 'peace' in colombo at any cost (at the cost of human rights, justice, freedom and democracy. especially of the people in north and east provinces of sri lanka)?

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note

did not blog recently. same old story; was busy and traveling, including to trinco. but will be relatively free soon .

more racist reporting by western media's sri lankan corespondents

one more example of racist reporting by westerns media can be seen below. the headline reads “Tamils kill seven civilians" (this time the culprits are 'afp correspondents'). this equating of tamils with terrorists is inexcusable. being journalists should not excuse anyone. they are free to be racists and slander sri lankans if they want, but we should expose their racism and unprofessional conduct.

this equating of tamils with terrorists is exactly what ltte terrorist pussies promote. their propaganda is always full of that. anyone who parrot that is doing terrorists' work for them.

we should continue to name and shame such terrorist parrots and racists whenever we can. i have already pointed out the examples of habitual racism by simon gardner the reuters correspondent here and bbc's sri lankan section. that they change the headline later does not take away the enormity of the crime or the damage caused by the slander (see the number of australian sunday newspapers this was published in).


in fact that they write this kind of headline in a hurry (though this was certainly not in a hurry) indicate how their minds perceive the tamils. as the sinhala saying goes, tongue doesn't lie even if mouth does.

hypocrisy of fmm and peaceniks
sri lanka's so called free media movement of sunanda deshapriya has always been quick to defend such racists and terrorist biased journalists. they call exposing of some journalist's terrorist parroting and racism, a threat to freedom of expression. in fact such exposure is part of freedom of expression. by trying to stop such exposure it is the fmm that is trying to curtail freedom of expression. in other words they find nothing wrong with tamils being equated to terrorists, but condemn anyone who point out (with evidence) that some journalists are repeating ltte propaganda.

sri lankan peaceniks, who also regularly parrot terrorist propaganda, believe this sort of racist stuff over usually more balanced local mainstream media, which says a lot about their level of intelligence, bias, and attitude. people like sanjana hattotuwa of groundviews swear by this kind of reporting; if it is foreign, it is god given truth to them. they will censor (and have censored) anyone who points this error in their writing or their sources. as i have said what else can you expect from people who think peace is worth any cost (including the cost of human rights, justice, freedom, and democracy). only immoral racists can hold such a postion. how many of those people who went into hysterical exaggerations about the 'eviction' incident will condemn this kind of blatant examples of real racism?

that is why we must continue to expose the hypocrisy of all those people in whatever small way we can.

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a test match and a spanish woman

finally a test match! yes it is only bangladesh, but so what?
after 2 weeks of almost non stop work i decided to take a (temporary) break and watch the match last afternoon. then went to sleep. just got up.
btw any comments about russel arnold's commentary?

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there is a lot i want to blog about, but cannot be bothered at the moment. so i will quote a passage that struck me before going to sleep yesterday. it’s from that strange book "on love" (de l'amour) by stendhal (his the red and the black, and the charterhouse of parma are two of my all time favorites) with its 'interesting' theories on love and assorted thoughts and anecdotes (real and invented)

The prettiest woman in Narbonne is a young Spanish girl, barely twenty, who lives in seclusion with her husband, an officer on half pay. Some time ago the latter was obliged to slap the face of a certain coxcomb; the following day the coxcomb saw the young Spanish woman arrive at the place appointed for the duel; he burst out with a new torrent of affectation: 'But really, this is scandalous! How could you have admitted to your wife ... I suppose Madame has come to prevent us fighting?' 'I have come to bury you,' replied the young Spanish woman.

part of fragment 98, "various fragments", book two
translation by gilbert and suzanne sale

of course the book is full of 'more' quotable quotes (for instance, the fragment 1 says “Everything can be acquired in solicitude, except character.") but above struck me.

anyway that is all for now.

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