R you Complicated or Complex or Else???????

                The title itself suggest what I m going to discuss. Actually I don't fall any of the above category but yesterday I was discussing with my friend whether she is complicated or complex. I told her that she is Complex and to prove myself, I m here with this blog. 

             A complicated persons are problematic, convoluted, torturous, difficult and inconsistent. Dealing with such a person requires special knowledge of all their difficult ways. Even with such knowledge, errors are likely and are almost certainly met with punitive action. Complicated people often have a serious random element as well-you can never be quite sure how they will react. Well, you can assign a high probability to behavior that leads to conflict and problems, but beyond that there is little that can be predicted. As such, it is wise to avoid such people.
          It might be wondered why people deal with complicated people at all. There are many reasons. First, some complicated people are very physically attractive and hence people will put up with their complications. It might be the case that they become complicated because they are attractive-the rest of us have to work on being able to get along with others. Of course, there are attractive people who are not complicated. Second, some people like the challenge of dealing with complicated things. Just as some people really like dealing with tax codes and others delight in tweaking theWindows Registry, there are people who like dealing with complicated people. These people are masochists. Third, a complicated person can often appear to be a complex person-at least initially.

What, then, is a complex person?
          A complex person is like an iPod. That is to say that they are consistent, straightforward and ‘user friendly’ while also being rather sophisticated. Unlike the complicated person, interacting with a complex person does not require special knowledge of their complicated ways-because their ways are not complicated. When mistakes are made, they tend to be very forgiving because they understand that people are imperfect. In short, they are mature, sensible human beings.
        It might be wondered why everyone is not a complex person. The obvious answer is that it is a difficult thing to be. Being complicated is easy-just find a nice assortment of personality flaws and keep developing them in ways that make you an incomprehensible minefield of unrestrained emotions and poor behavior. At the same time, refuse to accept that anyone else has problems and focus your attention entirely on the most important being in the universe (that would be you). Being complex is difficult-you have to develop depth of character, emotional balance, patience, and an assortment of mature social skills. And that is just the beginning.

Do I think I’m a complex person? Well, I’m just a guy from Maine who runs, has a husky and is something of a philosopher. I don't like to be complicated or complex people but I certainly love to deal with them. I would say myself as a sophisticated & cool with certain degree of unpredictably.

Sammy's quest to fulfill a Caribbean dream

As Darren Sammy's pre-final press conference ended, a few journalists and camerapersons standing at the back of the Premadasa media room actually clapped. If you were looking for evidence of just what West Indies, even a decade-and-a-half after their decline, mean to cricket and its fans, here it was. No one clapped after Mahela Jayawardene had finished speaking to the media; not even the local media men. While there is no doubt Jayawardene and his men will have a packed Premadasa cheering for them tomorrow, there is also no doubting who most neutral fans want to win.

West Indies are the game's original, and only, gladiators. In their prime, their bowlers put the fear of death in opposition batsmen's minds, their batsmen fearlessly slaughtered opposition bowlers, and their team ruled the cricket world with sheer force. Everywhere, fans loved the raw skill and passion which West Indies brought to cricket. The skill and passion have dimmed over the years, but fans still keep waiting for some performances, or a performance, that will remind them that once, this was a side which forced you to sit down and watch it do its stuff.

In these difficult times, West Indies have invested their faith in a man who has divided opinion in a way a modern captain scarcely has. Whether he should be there in the side or not is a debate which will probably continue as long as he is captain, but Sammy is the man who will go down in history as the one who led West Indies to their first World Cup final - albeit in the Twenty20 form - since 1983. Yes, it has taken just two outright wins, over Australia and England in the Super Eights, to make the final, but West Indies won't mind that.

Sammy has been nearly invisible with bat and ball through the tournament while Chris Gayle has soaked in most of the attention. He has had to face difficult questions over Gayle's absence from the squad and his subsequent return. It was heartwarming to see Sammy jump around in the dugout with delight after every Gayle six in the semi-final. The captain has no pretensions to being a world-class player but has always maintained he's there to bring the squad together, to involve everyone, and make it easy for his players to perform without inhibition. Even when he was asked about what the final meant for him as a leader, as someone who had worked for a united squad, he only spoke about the Caribbean people.

"For me, it is going to be a memorable occasion," Sammy said. "I am more focussed on the team and the Caribbean people. I have just been playing cricket for a few years but the fans have been supporting for a number of years. To me it is all about them. They are who come and watch us play, wake early in the morning and stay up late at night."

What if West Indies went a step further, what if they beat Sri Lanka tomorrow? "It would be massive," Sammy said. "It's been over a decade and the fans are craving for bigger success. That is the goal we left the Caribbean with. We have been saying it in the dressing room, it is one team, one people, one mission. We are just one step away from the World Twenty20. When we do well people in the Caribbean are very happy, work stops for a few hours back home. It would mean everything to us as players, as coaching staff. It would give us a big boost."

Sammy said the last man who won a World Cup for West Indies, Clive Lloyd, had a message for the side ahead of the final. "I got an email from Mr. Lloyd saying we are very proud in the Caribbean of what the team is doing, people are very happy and just go out and win it. 'Success comes before work only in the dictionary. Continue to work hard so that you can reap success tomorrow,' he said. It means a lot to everybody. That in itself will be the biggest motivation for us."

Lloyd and the people of the Caribbean won't be the only ones rooting for West Indies tomorrow. There is a world title to be won, and probably the entire cricketing world, barring the Sri Lankans, will be behind Sammy and his men.

Mini crisis presents major opportunity for India

Since last year's World Cup win, India have lost 4-0 in away Test series twice, have been knocked out in the first round of two one-day tournaments, and have failed to go past the first serious round of the World Twenty20. One of their Test openers has not scored a century in nearly two years, the other will have gone three without one if he doesn't reach three figures against England. Their best bowler's endurance is now under doubt, he has not taken a Test five-for in two years nor an ODI four-for in four, and he is a liability in the field in limited-overs cricket. Their captain's defensive mindset, especially when out of his comfort zone, is well documented. It doesn't help that their coach is a man credited with introducing deep cover in the first half-hour of a Test match. If the board, the captain, the coach and the selectors are not worried, they had better find new jobs.

It is just as well that India have failed at T20 too, a format way more popular in the country than Tests telecast early in the day. The captain, though, will tell you India were "satisfactory" in Sri Lanka, where they won four matches out of five, where they were slotted in a group of teams that all won their preliminary leagues, where it rained in their match against Australia, and where they lost the toss when they needed to improve their net run rate. This is reminiscent of the tour of Australia, where they made perfectly fair pitches sound like green tops on which the ball seamed around like a drunk. In a fair world, they might tell you, India should still be No. 1 in Tests, and World Twenty20 champions to boot.

If you look closely, though, you will find it was all loaded in India's favour in Sri Lanka. They played on pitches that suited them: dry, and assisting spinners. They didn't have to adjust to new venues, unlike Sri Lanka, who played each of their three rounds at a new venue. Most importantly India played the last match of the Super Eights, unlike Pakistan, who played blind, not knowing exactly what they needed to do. India, on the other hand, knew they needed to restrict South Africa to 121, and still refused to gamble at all. 

They didn't fail when it rained enough to take the players off for five minutes. (By the way, they had won the toss that night, they knew rain was forecast, and still picked three spinners and chose to bat first.) The failure had actually begun when the selectors picked the squad. The captain was given a side with little energy, little fitness, no pace options, and the outrageous return of Piyush Chawla. MS Dhoni gets some deserved flak for certain moves, but who could he turn to?

This is not to absolve Dhoni, though. Especially when he claims four wins out of five as some sort of moral victory, as the "best they could do" but for one bad loss. For, the fourth of those wins was meaningless. When you know all along that you have to beat South Africa by 31 runs to stay alive but you nearly give up trying to do so after four overs, the eventual one-run win should hardly count as a win.

It was surreal watching the defensive fields as South Africa inched towards that 122. There was a time when India were 24 runs from elimination with seven overs to bowl, and R Ashwin, India's best chance of taking wickets against a side that struggles against spin, still had three overs left. True to Dhoni's captaincy form over the last year and a half, India hoped, waited, sat back.

There were more signs of diffidence. When Dhoni finally made the bold move of dropping Virender Sehwag, he immediately cancelled it out by asking Irfan Pathan to open, seeking the reassurance of a No. 7 batsman in a 20-over game. Elsewhere, three of the four semi-finalists had three of their best batsmen in the top four. They didn't spend their energies worrying what if it all went wrong and what if they were five down well inside 20 overs. They wanted their best batsmen to go out there, bat well and make use of as many balls as possible. India had one of the best limited-overs batsmen in the world refusing to bat any higher than No. 7, while others scratched around wasting precious balls. To loosely translate a Punjabi saying, if you leave the house wailing, you will bring back news of the dead. 

Any team is built around three pillars: selectors, captain and coach. At the moment, two of India's are failing and the third we don't know anything about. Except that he is working for a board that opposes one of his ideas, the DRS. Except that he was a master of gamesmanship, and the team he now works with calls batsmen back because it fears criticism from the media. Except that he loved the use of pace but is made to work with trundlers in international cricket while the one proper fast bowler India have plays domestic cricket. How comfortable is Duncan Fletcher with this job? We don't know, and we never might.

These are important times. Over the coming two Test series, India are supposed to show England and Australia they too are rubbish away from home. More importantly, they are supposed to rebuild, with 2013 onwards in mind, when they will tour South Africa, England, New Zealand and Australia. There have been no signs that the Srikkanth-led panel of selectors and the captain were looking that far ahead. They are all hoping, waiting, sitting back. The openers continue to get a rope longer than perhaps any other set has had, Zaheer Khan's workload refuses to come down, and we don't know if Sachin Tendulkar is committed to going to South Africa in November 2013.

Dhoni was a remarkably good leader of a settled team, selflessly taking the back seat and making sure his superstar players got the best environment in which to do their thing. Now, though, that same coolness makes him look like he is going through the motions. He forever gives the impression he is not happy with the squad, with the pitches, with the format. Yet he also seems reluctant to take complete charge.

With the team in flux, India need a more assertive and proactive Dhoni, both on and off the field. A Dhoni prepared to make the tough calls, eager to shape his own team, more Imran Khan than Viv Richards. A captain who demands certain standards of the team, one who refuses to carry non-performers. A captain prepared to take on some pressure by asking for the team he wants, and not sulk later. If he can win a match in three days and still criticise the groundsman for not giving his side enough home advantage, surely he can be forceful in selection matters too? He even has a fresh set of selectors, a clean slate if you will, to work with.

However, if Dhoni is not willing to be that man, or not capable of it, or if he has lived his shelf life as captain, there are no alternatives India can turn to. Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir will be better off worrying about keeping their places in the side, and Tendulkar is close to retiring. Impressive as his maturing as a cricketer is, Virat Kohli might still be too young for the Test job.

We don't know if Dhoni loses sleep over things like the legacy he will leave as captain, but we know that if he can't arrest this free fall, it will offset the World Cup win and the rise to No. 1 in Tests. Dhoni has never given the impression he is trying too hard, except when he is batting perhaps, but the next two-three years are cut out for a captain willing to try too hard.

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Rejoice! Harbhajan Singh has finally taken some wickets again. And they mattered for a change, since India have been looking to put one past England for quite some time now. Rejoice more, for even Piyush Chawla was made to look a decent pick for ICC World Twenty20, such was the hapless display of Andy Flower's batsmen.

But that is where the celebration should end. For, MS Dhoni and Duncan Fletcher probably went into Sunday's game hoping for some answers. And they found none. Stop a man walking his dog on the streets of Colombo and his canine friend will tell you that India doesn't boast of a bowling attack that can win this tournament. After beating Afghanistan, twice Dhoni claimed that he would be playing five bowlers in the inconsequential England match. The fact that both Zaheer Khan and R Ashwin were rested made it seem nothing more than a practice match

Yes, the two of them weren't needed given the implosion of the English batting order. That is not the point. This was a god-sent opportunity for India to see if the five-bowler theory works out for real. By not playing their two strike bowlers, they failed to see how they might be able to balance out twenty overs among five options should the need arise. Forget that, even the part-timers didn't get a bowl, so we don't know for sure how this theory sits in Dhoni's plans, if at all.

The Indian skipper has made no bones of the fact that he might be open to playing five bowlers at some later stage in the tournament. That inevitably has to be the Super Eights, for going further would depend on beating two out of Australia, Pakistan and South Africa. In the last two World Twenty20s, in 2009 and 2010, India do not boast of a very good record in the Super Eight stages. What skewers their chances even more is the simple fact that these three teams play spin better than their last opponents
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Dhoni can only play a fifth bowler if he chooses to rest a batsman. While the batting looks good on paper, it is over-reliant on Virat Kohli at the moment. He has been hitting runs at a clip ala Sachin Tendulkar in the 90s. While that comparison is a big indicator of his form, it also reminds us of the small fact that, back then, India failed to win if Tendulkar didn't score. Going back two decades certainly isn't part of the plan here.
This is where India's batting order on Sunday proved to be a stickler. If they were seeing this as a practice opportunity for the bowlers on the bench, why wasn't the same standard applied to the batsmen?
Yuvraj Singh has still got the same touch, on return from his illness, yes. But the doubt now remains over his form. Has he spent enough time in the middle or like Rohit Sharma, is the team management satisfied with his work-out in the nets? So why wasn't Yuvraj sent out ahead at No. 3 and afforded a chance to spend nearly 15 overs at the crease? The big point of contention here are the team sheets. When the India line-up was distributed in the press box, it listed Kohli to partner Gautam Gambhir at the top of the order. So, how did Irfan Pathan win his promotion in the space of just 30 minutes, between toss and the first ball?

While on Rohit, it was good to see him get some runs when it mattered for once. However both he Dhoni need some time to get going before playing the big shots, which means that India will be crowded for space in the middle overs for someone to push things along. That essentially puts onus on Suresh Raina and up to a certain extent on Yuvraj to start hitting out from scratch. Wouldn't you want them to be in prime form for this job then? Neither of the two got a chance to bat on Sunday evening.
With this seven batsmen or five bowler conundrum, India have one more option going ahead, one which everyone is neglecting. That is to do with the openers Gambhir and Virender Sehwag, the latter rested against England. You can see why Gambhir played the match. He needs practice. In case of Sehwag, well, there's no use of practice really. Even so, his absence provided an escape route for the team management.
If, and that is a big if, going forward, the two Indian openers continue to be patchy, Dhoni can opt to drop one of them and go ahead with Irfan as the opener. Now here's the catch. Both of them haven't gotten runs for quite a while. Gambhir looked good against England but needs to carry on. Sehwag will always play the way he does, but there comes a time when you need to buckle down and score something big. If Chris Gayle can play watchfully at the start, so can Sehwag.

It leads to two chains of thoughts here. One, India play seven batsmen and Sehwag is given the license to go after the bowling, like always. Or two, India give in, drop one of their openers, otherwise retaining the same batting order and ask Irfan to open. If it comes to throwing your bat at anything and everything, he can do an equal job of scoring 10-15 runs, given the poor form at the top of the order.

It is not the best approach, but beggars cannot be choosers. Especially when there's no telling if even five bowlers will be good enough to save the day, such is the ferocity of Twenty20 cricket.