Pakistan's triumph over SA

Pakistan's triumph over South Africa is significant. If you look at it from SA's perspective they are visibly shattered by this loss keeping in mind that they have been tipped as one of the favorites to lift the World Cup. Going forward this loss must have dented their confidence. In a World Cup tournament teams have to evolve and quickly rectify their mistakes only then can they proceed to final stages. It remains to be seen if SA is capable of doing that or not.
As far as Pakistan are concerned it must be a great morale booster for them as they have been under fire after loosing to arch rivals India and putting up a dismal performance against West Indies. They toured SA in November 2014 and although they lost all three Test matches the One day series was heartning for them as they put up a good fight against a strong South African side. This must have lingered in the minds of South African players as they prepared for this important encounter today. Muhammad Irfan did well on that tour and today again he posed a significant challenge. Pakistan bowling was further strengthened by the likes of Wahab Riaz , Rahat Ali and Sohail Khan. All of them bold brilliantly exploiting in full the conditions under lights at Eden Park,Auckland (Pakistanis have fond memories of this ground from 1992 Semi Final). Misbah rallied them quite nicely and did make timely bowling changes, captaincy looks so much easier when things are going your way doesn't it? Earlier Misbah played a typical cautious knock ensuring that Pakistan reach some sort of a respectable total.Misbah is often criticized for his defensive batting but today his style of batting coincided well with what was required by Pakistan as late batting order proved to be too fragile loosing 5 wickets for just 10 runs!
This brings us to an important point of the ability of teams to 'play according to conditions'. As this tournament has progressed one aspect has become apparent and that is the importance of adjusting to conditions. Teams who have one-dimensional approach to their game would not be able to go very far in this competition. We have seen this happen in match between India and West Indies. Had someone from WI in the top order showed a bit of calmness and sense of responsibility they could easily have posted a competitive total on board. But they could not curb their hard hitting instinct, they did not respect a bowling friendly WACA wicket and paid a heavy price for it getting bundled out well within 50 overs. India on other hand played more sensibly with Dhoni in particular showing good match sense. Adjusting to conditions also means picking the right combination of players for the match on that particular day. Team planners would need to take into account the venue, opposition and weather conditions as well. Failing to do so can cost them dearly and that is why home teams NZ and AUS are at an advantage. Trend is that we have seen some high scoring games played on Australian pitches while a couple of low scoring thrillers have happened in New Zealand. This gives some clue to game planners for the games coming ahead.
As we approach knock-out stages teams have to quickly tie up the loose ends and strike the right combination otherwise they'll get steam-rolled in no time.

On Hafeez's apology

I think he is trying to out-smart us by rendering this apology . Trying to be tactful in his approach. May be someone from the management groomed him to face the camera and dole out these diplomatic comments. However the reality is that as a cricketer he is sub par. Let alone made to captain the national side. He as a captain should also be held accountable for agreeing to include both kamran akmal and shoaib malik who were out for more than a year. They made no significant impact for Pakistan. To be honest hafeez can be included as an off spinner(that too according to conditions) but not a no.3 slot batsman. If he is honest then he should step down after the pathetic performance. But i am sure he will not . No heads will roll and the king making game would continue within PCB in foreseeable future.

On lending help

One may stop from helping others due to several reasons. One of them is the reservation that if  "I lend help to my fellows then , using it, they may come near to what I have achieved". Although we all have been advised to help others in needy times since childhood but sometimes mere advice is not enough to act upon. 

I think the fear which prevents one to lend a hand to others is baseless! I propose that when you help others it creates an Ecosystem which starts to work in your favor. The more people you help broader the ecosystem. As an example if you help somebody with 10 rupees then the money is no more worth Rs.10 ! It has actually transformed into something bigger. This is not limited to just monetary help. The type of help you lend to others can go into the ecosystem and manifest itself into much larger proportions. It never diminishes. It always grows. So if you had kept those ten rupees near to your heart (in your pocket) then it would have been just the same next day or may have depreciated! But if you put it into the "Open Bank Account" then it is bound to grow infinitely. 
One may not have immediate gains but its a surety that whatever good you put into your ecosystem it remains there safe and sound and one day you would get what you never expected from your efforts!

Banana Free kick

Here's the scientific explanation of this legendary kick.

http://tinyurl.com/26ss5kt

ToList() function not appearing in intellisense

This is more of a reminder to myself than a well written blog. On a few occassions it took me quite a while to figure out why ToList() function was not available to the argument returned back after a WCF service had completed. On one occassion it was literally mind boggling. The reason turned out to be was quite simple : I had missed including a using statement for assembly System.Linq. Now that it has occurred again i am blogging to primarily benefit myself and if somebody else benefits then I'd be more than happy.

Cheers

Chrome and Firefox: making mouse wheel working with Silverlight map control

The other day I stumbled upon a situation which I though was a limitation with Silverlight Bing Map Control. The mouse wheel wasn't working with zooming while using either of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox browsers. I posted it at MSDN forums and was promptly fed back by an expert. Here is the link for whole thread :
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vemapcontroldev/thread/1e61eb01-984b-42e4-a36f-4d2d8e05a1cd
The key setting to make in host page(hosting silverlight content) is : Windowless="false".
Have fun!!

Chotaaay!

It is about a telecom company advertisement in which a "chota" is made to run to get to the client end. Not many things wrong with it but the part which "pinches" me is the way little boy is made to run and looks completely spent while he reaches the client who tells him about some convenient mobile service, acquiring which , his "ustaad" won't have to send him over and over again. The picture of running-low-on-oxygen boy panting hard ,make me realise hardships of hundereds of thousands of danty hands working in our workshops and may be bearing hardships of far greater proportions everyday. The boy's face in said advertisement gives me more concern than any amusement. Your thoughts are welcome.