Some thoughts on the 2nd last Monday of Dec and year 2019, which I would like to share with you.
1 Cricket The year 2019’s cricket season has ended for India cricket team, and that too on winning note, when India beat West Indies last night, in the deciding match of ODI series. India once again successfully chased 300 + score. In fact they chased 315 runs scored by West Indies, with 9 balls to spare.
It seems that Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma are the best batsmen duo in today’s cricketing world. Both are capable of scoring in all formats of game (Test, ODI & T20), and in all the formats they have good average and scoring rates. In fact Virat Kohli is the only batsman in the modern cricket who is having 50+ average in all the formats of game. Only other batsmen duo who are playing very well in all formats are David Warner and Steve Smith of Australia, but both of them are one notch below than Rohit & Virat. Steve Smith’s performances in the T20 matches are not comparable with Virat or Rohit. Both Virat and Rohit had wonderful 2019, while Virat scored 2455 runs (in all formats combined), and at the same time Rohit scored 2442 runs. No other player has reached even 2000 runs during this year.
Other highlights of the year 2019 were- that Mohd Shami became the highest wicket taker in ODIs during this year. He finished the year with 42 wickets in 21 ODIs; then Indian openers scored 1639 runs in ODIs in 1st wicket partnership, with 8 century stands which is also a record, next best was Australia (1519 runs, 6 century stands).
Other thought which comes to my mind is that like batsmen duo of Virat Kohli/Rohit Sharma, there have been 2 other batsmen duo in last 50 years who were force to recon with in their era. First duo was Sunil Gavaskar and Gundappa Vishwanath, who were very formidable combination in test matches. As in their times focus was more on test matches, and ODIs have just entered the cricketing field, after they have made their debut in cricketing arena. Both the batsmen were treat to watch. Gavaskar went to become the first batsman to ever cross 10,000 runs mark in test cricket and broke the record of Don Bradman’s record of 29 centuries, he ended his career with 35 centuries. Vishwanath scored more than 6000 runs in test cricket with 14 centuries. There is one interesting thing associated with Vishwanath that whenever he scored century India never lost the match, most of the time his century was in winning cause. The other duo was Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid ( in Test & ODIs, they played very few T20 matches) While Sachin has been termed as best batsman ever (after Bradman) to grace modern cricket, he is the only batsman who has scored 100 Centuries (51 in Tests, and 49 in ODIs). Rahul was considered ‘The Wall’, which means once he was set in, bowlers find it was very difficult to get him out.
2 For last 10 days or so there have been enough protests ( both against and for) for the Citizen Amendment Act (CAA). Here are some of my observations
- It has been total spread of lies by some wrong elements, and even opposition parties that this Act is going to discriminate against Muslim citizens. The fact is that nothing is going to happen to Muslim citizens of India. But any person, other than Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist , Jain, Catholic & Parsee, who is staying in India illegally , can be deported back to the country from where he came.
- It has been observed at most of the rallies which were sponsored by opposition parties and where young people and students were present in huge numbers. But when they were asked for what they are protesting. No body could answer, they even did not know about CAA and NRC. Most of them could not answer when asked about CAA and NRC, and this included even college students from Metros and other big cities.
- Why there is protest in the name of NRC, when nothing has been finalised by govt. The earlier NRC was initiated by Congress’s agreement with Assamese protestors in 1985 by Rajiv Gandhi, and this was part of their agreement. Even in UPAs time it was discussed in Parliament why NRC is still not started by the govt in Assam. Assamese people took the matter to SC, which directed the govt to complete the process of NRC in Assam. For rest of the country, nothing has been finalised . In my opinion the opposition is worried that as and when any proposal about NRC is tabled in Parliament, the Govt will get it passed like Triple Talaq Bill, Article 370 and CAA.
- There is one video which is on U tube, which shows in one rally which is by some Muslim organisation, and where you can see only Muslims in the rally, and this happened in Bengal. There one leader is openly supporting Rohingya Muslims by saying that they are our brothers, who have illegally entered India via Bangladesh. The leaders say that all the Muslims in Bengal will see to that how the Rohingyas are thrown out from Bengal. Because this is Bengal and not other state of India, and this will not happen in Bengal. It only means that the current TMC govt of West Bengal of pro Muslims, and that’s why he had the guts to speak this language.
I do not know when this is going to end, and in my opinion this will keep on continuing for some time till the time opposition parties and partisan media find some other item to lead the protest against Modi govt.
What you say my friends.
Waiting for your views/feed backs/comments.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
23rd Dec 2019.