ICC T20 World Cup match fixtures and schedules

T20 World Cup Second Edition begins in England on 5th June 2009. The world cup will open with a match between England and Netherlands at Lords. Defending champion India will take on Bangladesh in their opening encounter at Trent Bridge.

Group A : India, Bangladesh, Ireland

Group B : Pakistan, England, Netherland

Group C : Australia, Sri Lanka, West Indies

Group D : South Africa, New Zealand, Scotland

T20 World Cup Match Schedule

1. England v Netherlands 5 June 09 17:30 Lord’s

2. New Zealand v Scotland 6 June 09 10:00 The Oval

3. Australia v West Indies 6 June 09 13:30 The Oval

4. India v Bangladesh 6 June 09 17:30 Trent Bridge

5. South Africa v Scotland 7 June 09 13:30 The Oval

6. England v Pakistan 7 June 09 17:30 The Oval

7. Bangladesh v Ireland 8 June 09 13:30 Trent Bridge

8. Australia v Sri Lanka 8 June 09 17:30 Trent Bridge

9. Pakistan v Netherlands 9 June 09 13:30 Lord’s

10. New Zealand v South Africa 9 June 09 17:30 Lord’s

11. Sri Lanka v West Indies 10 June 09 13:30 Trent Bridge

12. India v Ireland 10 June 09 17:30 Trent Bridge

13. D1 v A2 11 June 09 13:30 Trent Bridge

14. B2 v D2 11 June 09 17:30 Trent Bridge

15. B1 v C2 12 June 09 13:30 Lord’s

16. A1 v C1 12 June 09 17:30 Lord’s

17. C1 v D2 13 June 09 13:30 The Oval

18. D1 v B1 13 June 09 17:30 The Oval

19. A2 v C2 14 June 09 13:30 Lord’s

20. A1 v B2 14 June 09 17:30 Lord’s

21. B1 v A2 15 June 09 13:30 The Oval

22. B2 v C1 15 June 09 17:30 The Oval

23. D1 v C2 16 June 09 13:30 Trent Bridge

24. D2 v A1 16 June 09 17:30 Trent Bridge

25. 1st Semi-Final 18 June 09 17:30 Trent Bridge

26. 2nd Semi-Final 19 June 09 17:30 The Oval

27. Final 21 June 09 15:00 Lord’s

© 2009 Ranjan Kumar

India thrashed Pakistan

Good news for the Indian cricket fan. The defending T20 world champion once again proved their supremacy in this format of the game by thrashing Pakistan by 9 wickets in a warm-up match to ICC T20 World Cup. Thus, they have once again proved that they are simply unbeatable in the shortest form of the game even in the absence of their stalwarts Veeru and Yuvi. Rohit Chopra once again proved that he is one of the best exponent of this format of game by scoring 80 runs and Gambhir with a fifty. India thus have defeated Pakistan in all the 3 T20 games they have ever met and thus will start the tournament on a high note to defend their title. Indian team had a good practice after having a great time in South Africa with all the Indian players excelling in IPL T20, so stakes are high for the Indian team to maintain their winning streak and score a double in ICC T20 World Cup.

Good luck to Indian team.

© 2009 Ranjan Kumar

Air France with 228 people on board still missing

Still no good news for the well-wishers of 228 people on board Air France and the hopes are fading fast. In fact officials are now getting ready to broadcast the tragic news of one of worst airlines mishaps in the last decade. As per the Air France officials, though no exact cause of the mishap has yet been verified, but a series of error messages had come from the plane before they lost contact and the plane went missing. The big turbulance in Atlantic might be the cause of the worst accident of the decade, though nothing confirmed can be said for sure. Another report is that the lightening might have struck the plane before it went missing. A big lookout is being carried by the Brazilian authorities and everyone is waiting with a baited breath about the official confirmation of the big news.

© 2009 Ranjan Kumar

How to get freelance job on Internet?

You type "work online" on Google, you will see a million results offering you jobs to work from home and earnings in thousands of dollars. You start thinking, oh God, is making money so easy...no absolutely not. Whatever ads you see on Google, I think 99% of them are just good for nothing. Well, I don't say that all these are scams but they typically work on the same idea. You pay a few dollars to them and they will give you some links to doing online survey or online data entry or join one of the millions referral programs on Internet, refer another people like you, then he will refer another, and thus making a chain and ultimately earning thousand of dollars. Sounds complicated and simple at the same time. Well, many of the Internet marketers have been making great moolah by using this marketing technique and this in fact is one of the most successfully tested Internet formula. If you have the patience and zeal to work on this concept, rest assured you can succeed if not in days or months than in years.

The other and in fact more tried and tested concept is to do freelancing jobs on Internet. Here, the benefit is you can do freelancing jobs according to your skill sets. It's not like you don't know the ABCD of marketing, and you have just entered the ruthless world of Internet marketing by paying a few dollars but now you don't know what to do, so it is always better not to do something you don't know anything. Here, you can opt for doing freelancing jobs on Internet. The biggest provider of online freelancing jobs is Elance.com. They offer both basic or free service as well as paid service. If you opt for free service, you will have the limited option that is you can send only 3 proposals to the prospective employers and so you have to be careful bidding for jobs. You should bid for only those jobs that you feel really confident about and once you have submitted your proposal, just cross your fingers and hope for the best. The other provider is Gofreelance.com, which of course is a paid affair. You will have to pay about 40 dollars per month to avail of their services. So, if you are a beginner, I think first give Elance a try and see how it goes and then once you have made some penny, you can use those pennies to get another job and so on.

So, best of luck to all the freelancers.

© 2009 Ranjan Kumar

Credit card - a sweet poison

Let me take you back into 1999. I had started working just a few months back and had made a saving of Rs. 9000 to buy me a portable color TV. Yes, color TV that time was really a costly thing to buy and I had to shell out Rs. 8450 to get an Onida 14 inch color TV. I had taken out the money from the bank and was carrying full cash with me. Then I saw another customer buying TV through his credit card. Believe me that was the first time I was seeing a real credit card transaction taking place in front of me. The shopkeeper took the impression of the credit card with the help of some manual impression-taking thing and then called the bank and got the approval and done... so simple!!! Though all these now sound archaic but at that time I was really fascinated by this small plastic card and just wanted to have one in my wallet at any cost. Little did I know that small piece of plastic will make my life a helluva journey for the all the time to come.

Well, I did get my own credit card just a few months after, an ICICI Bank Gold Credit Card with a credit limit of Rs. 35,000 to begin with and thus started taking the sweet poison from that very day. Like all the youngster, in just 3 months, my credit card bill was running into five figures, though my salary was still in the four-figure range and then the minimum payment thing started and then the rest is a story I think most of us know, as we all do the same mistake over and over again until you reach a stage where even the minimum payment becomes such a big thing to pay that you start getting calls from the collection agent and those recovery goons.

Well, a word of caution for all the youngters just getting into their new job. Please don't take this poison at all if possible and if already taken, try to get rid of this sweet poison as soon as possible or soon you will be trapped into a Chakravyuh like Abhimanyu where you can only enter but just can't get out...

© 2009 Ranjan Kumar

My favorite work excuses

Here is a compiled list of my favorite work excuses. A must read for everyone needing a work excuse:

1. I went to a party on Sunday and met a girl, we've been in bed ever since. I'm getting tired now and will be at work in an hour or so .

2. Sorry Boss I can't come into work today...my spirit guide says work is for losers!

3. My dog is having puppies and I need to help her.

4. Sorry I did not show up yesterday, I locked myself in the bathroom.

5. I won't be able to come to work next week . We are trying for a baby and the doc says next week is the best chance.

6. Last night a friend I haven't seen in a long time came over and gave me a bear hug and broke one of my ribs, so I won't be in today.

7. Sorry I'm late, I had to pawn my alarm clock.

8. Don't call, don't write, don't let anyone know what's going on - take an extra week, or two. Then when you are ready to go back to work, just call up your boss and say.... " Don't pay the ransom - I escaped! "

9. I'm sorry I was late, I forgot to look at my watch!!!

10. I didn't want to be late for work again today so I called in sick instead!

My Top 5 Ways to Write a Blog

Well, you have started a blog and put some posts initially but now just running out of ideas to write a new post. To be a successful blogger, one must always keep writing new posts, otherwise you will soon find your Alexa traffic ranking taking a downward turn.

As a blogger, the most difficult task is to find out a new topic to write about. Well, here are my top 5 ways to get idea about a new topic for your blog:

1. Your most important provider of new topic is your own blog comments. You must check the comments posted on the blogs and see the questions posed by your readers and there are more than enough chance that a new idea will just click in your mind going through these comments.

2. Go back searching your most read blog post, give it a new twist or add a new angle and your loyal readers might be happy once again seeing their favorite blog post with a new twist. One can take the example of Ekta Kapoor's soap where every 3 months a new story unfolds in the same old cast and storyline and the viewer once again start watching the serial with a new interest.

3. Go through the social networking sites like Digg or Twitter and check out the new topics people blogging about and you might get the topic for your post for the day.

4. Ask reader to put comments and offer some give-away to the X reader. Chances are high that those reader will give you a new topic to write about.

5. Prepare a list like "Top 5 secrets of a successful love life" or the "Top 10 excuses for a sick leave," do some brainstorming, follow your office culture, prepare a list, and your new blog topic is ready. It is fun to read and easy to write.

If you have your own top 5 ideas, please put a comment, so that my next top 5 list will be published soon.

© 2009 Ranjan Kumar

Fake IPL player reveals himself on camera

Here is the video FIP RIP where he reveals himself after the last KKR match, though in shadow form only...

The transcript of the video goes as below:

This is me, Fake IPL player... or FIP as you sometimes call me... It's been 4 weeks, 43 posts... about 17,000 comments till now...Over 90% of the comments have actually been from one person...called anonymous...who the hell is this guy anonymous...actually anonymous is me and you...yes...both of us... Behind all the greasepaint, I'm just another faceless guy... grew up in Delhi where I learnt my art... and I have travelled and worked almost all over India... actually, I grew up on cricket. One of the earliest memories being that of a grinning Kapil Dev, running back to the pavilion after beating England in the 1983 world cup semifinals... I watched with horror when Miandad whacked Chetan Sharma for that last-ball six... and also overjoyed when Jadeja returned the favor 10 days...err...10 years later...Actually I was crackpot enough to skip my IIM interview in order to watch India play Australia at Feroze Shah Kotla... A match that by the way we lost...But somewhere along the faceless journey in life, I happened to get intimately exposed to cricket... From the kings of Bollywood to the pimps of cricket... and vice versa... from the cricketers with oversized egos to journos that are so happy being in such august company... they forget to dig deep enough... I've seen them all. Yes, I am an insider... I am the fly on the wall... the ghost in the darkness...and I am sitting here right now reading your question and wondering why are you asking me about match fixing now...when the match itself has changed...in our attempt at competing with movies...we have actually changed cricket matches to three-hour cricket movies... with a couple of strategic timeouts in between...Being intimately involved, I think I saw a lot more happening than what most people saw on TV...oh I saw so much...it will probably take me a book or two to spell it all in...but if I actually write a book...I will probably be history even if my book is not...still it's a story that has to be told and perhaps my anonymity now will be exchanged for some harsh limelight later or perhaps not. As to my fascination with the city of Kolkata...hmmm...I love the people there...kintu dekha jaye to...Kolkata kin satti ekta Bollywood masala movie...is team mein action hai...tragedy hai...comedy hai...romance hai...sex hai...item number bhi hai...is team mein hero hai...heroine hai...villain hai...aur villain ka bhai bhi hai...yahin hai bollywood ka asli maja dosto...entertainment ka asli baap yahi hai... Anyway this is the story of FIP... finally, it's all just shadow play... or as my name suggest, fake... See you when I see you... kabhi alvida na kehna."

Now, it is up to you to decide who this Fake IPL Player is...

© 2009 Ranjan Kumar

Madhubani paintings - an art form par excellence

Madhubani paintings or Mithila paintings are an art form that is very unique in its concept itself. The history of Mithila paintings goes back to the times of Ramayana when King Janak commissioned artists to decorate Janakpur to celebrate the marriage of Lord Ram with Princess Sita. Since then, the tradition has been kept alive by generations of Mithila women doing paintings on the wall of the hut by using herbal color and and a brush made of bamboo sticks (kucchi) and depicting the stories from birth to upnayan ceremony to marriage ceremony to death, every phase of life is beautifully described through the medium of picture and traditional maithili songs. Here I give you 2 samples of this beautiful art form that is now recognized globally and is in high demand across the world.

© 2009 Ranjan Kumar

Bangalore one step away from getting into semi-finals

Yesterday was a day of low-scoring matches in IPL. The first match between Team Jaipur and Team Kolkata was like a one-day from 20 years back where bowler ruled the roost and batsmen were struggling to score a single run. Ultimately, KKR did deliver the knock-out blow to Rajsthan Royals, defending champion, and thus ended their dream of getting into the semis once again. The second match was a nightmare for Team Punjab where they squandered one of the easier opportunities to get into the semis being unable to defend a modest total posted by Team Chennai, thus putting their team on the rajor's edge.

This has made Bangalore's chances of getting into the semis much brighter. If they win today's match against the Chargers they will automatically be placed into the semis. But if they lose, then the average net run rate theory will come into play and they will have to vie with Team Punjab for the fourth spot in the semis. Though things look better for Bangalore now, but they have to just keep this NRR thing in mind while playing for today's match so that even if they lose to the Chargers, they should be well ahead on the NRR to keep Punjab out of fray.

Best of luck to Team Bangalore...

© 2009 Ranjan Kumar