Most attractive, contagious –
smile !!
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சிறு குழந்தைகளில் ஒற்றை சிரிப்பு
உலகத்தையே அடிமையாக்கும். மெல்லிய இதழ்களில் நெளியும் புன்னகையே குழந்தையின்
உன்னத மொழி.
சிரித்துச்
சிரித்து என்னைச் சிறையிலிட்டாய் கன்னம்
சிவக்கச்
சிவக்க வந்து கதை படித்தாய்
நினைத்து
நினைத்து நெஞ்சில் அடைத்து விட்டாய் .. … …
படம் : தாய் சொல்லைத் தட்டாதே
- KV
மஹாதேவன் இசையில் கவிஞர் கண்ணதாசன் வரிகளில்.
பிறந்த குழந்தை தானாக சிரிக்கும் அதை கடவுள் விளையாட்டு காட்டுகிறார் என்று சொல்வார்கள்.
The Countdown starts ! - celebrate Deepavali with sparklers and crackers !!
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தெற்கு சீமையிலே
என்ன பத்தி கேளு !
தூளு கெளப்புறவன்
தூத்துக்குடி ஆளு
ராசா எட்டு
வச்சா படபடக்கும் ஊரு
லேசா கண்ணடிச்சா வெடி வெடிக்கும் பாரு !!
தீபாவளி
தல தீபாவளி
ஏ குருவி! குருவி குருவி
ஏ குருவி சிட்டுக்
குருவி
வந்து எங்கூட
பாடு ஏ குருவி
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ஐயா உள்ளத்துல
நல்ல அன்பிருக்கு
ஆனா வீட்டுக்குள்ள கொஞ்சம் வம்பிருக்கு
படம் : முதல்
மரியாதை –
இசைஞானி இளையராஜாவின்
இன்னிசையில் கேட்ட பாடல்
In some
ways, Indian fans were thinking that law of average would catch up and it did
appear at the start – till atleast close of Indian innings, yet Team India won
by 100 runs today at Lucknow !!
Some of us would never forget that ignominy of 202 run defeat at Lords on June 7, 1975. Do you know or remember the fame of a batsman who was born at Byculla in Bombay, Maharashra on June 30, 1941 !?!?
As I
watched the match, that ball from
Kuldeep jumped, turned and shot fast from the surface – a killer beauty –
delivered from over the wicket – Kuldeep Yadap pitched it wide outside off,
extracted a sharp turn as it coming in beat the batter Jos Butler to clean him
up ! - what a delivery !
Today Jos Butler won the toss and opted to field – for 50 overs, England bowling with venom and fielding with spirit and commitment, had the game in control restricting India to 229 .. King Kohli who had been the lynch pin was out for a duck and that perhaps tested the side which replaced Hardik Pandya with Suryakumar Yadav – one bowler short and a strengthened batting line up !
Having watched Kohli right from U19 days, he is a livewire and brings in lot of charm on to the game – be it taking catches running hard in the deep, throwing flat, running fast in between the wickets and scoring runs and tons – he is supreme – a great performer of all times. There was a time when he took a break and talked about mental toughness – there was a very short period when he had not touched the bat in a whole month. The way he has been performing – India should win the WC with Kohli scoring a century in the finals !!
Today the Scorecard reads : India 229 for 8 (Rohit 87, Suryakumar 49, Willey 3-45) beat England 129 (Livingstone 27, Shami 4-22, Bumrah 3-32) by 100 runs.
A target of 230 on Indian soil is imminently gettable but Indian bowlers did a marvelous job. How will the captain and the Coach Rahul Dravid explain keeping out Mohammad Shami for Shardul Thakur ! As it occurred, Shami, ripped the heart out of England to keep India undefeated. Shami claimed 2 for 4 from three overs inside the first powerplay in a breathtaking spell and Jasprit Bumrah 2 for 17 from five as England lurched to 40 for 4 after 10 overs. Shami came back to claim two more, Kuldeep, Jadeja and Bumrah ensured India romping to a 100-run victory with 15.1 overs to spare.
England needed something big from Jos Buttler, their besieged captain, who had managed just 95 runs from the first five games, including a highest score of 43 in the opening match against New Zealand. But Kuldeep Yadav ensured Buttler's lean run continued with a gem of a delivery that turned ferociously from outside off and crashed into the top of middle and off to send him on his way for just 10 and leave England reeling at 52 for 5.
Bizarrely, England have still not been eliminated from this competition and even after the guillotine falls they will have plenty of motivation for their three remaining fixtures. It emerged before the game that the qualification process for the next Champions Trophy had been changed – in 2021, without a whisper of public announcement – so that only the top seven teams in this tournament’s group stage (or eight, should the hosts, Pakistan, be among the seven) would be involved. Amazingly, nobody in the England camp had any idea.
Retreating back to June 7, 1975 – it was the first match of the inaugural Prudential World Cup – a 60 overs aside tournament. England amassed 334/4 and won by 202 runs.
Anshuman
Gaekwad, Karsan Ghavri & Mohinder Amarnath made their ODI debut while
John Alexander Jameson, the man born in
Byculla in 1941 opened with Dennis Amiss and faced the first ball of WC from
Madanlal. Dennis Amiss led the way with
137, well supported by a solid 68 from Keith Fletcher. Chris Old bludgeoned
with a 28 ball 50. It was a turgid
pathetic bitter inept batting by Indians with main culprit being Sunil Gavaskar.
Dejected Indian fans pathetically pleaded with him to die fighting,"
reported the Cricketer. He made an
unbeated 36 off 174 deliveries with a solitary boundary at a strike rate of
20.68!!! Perhaps it was his way of
hitting back at his captain S Venkatraghavan.
The team manager GS Ramchand came out with harsh statement but he Board
took no action.
An Indian
win always makes the fans rejoice and today it came from nowhere in a match
were many thought – the team had lost with their batting failure, except Rohit
Sharma and later Suryakumar Yadav
Drinking water !! On seeing this photo, if you recalled your school days – you are at least 40+
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Man of the match Ibrahim Zadran dedicates victory to those Afghans sent back by Pakistan !!!!
After 22 matches out of 45 – no Cricket pundit perhaps predicted this !! - defending champion England at the bottom!!
23.10.2023
Vividly remember that Kanpur Test, Nov 1976 – those days, I would
follow Cricket (in newspapers) that I would write the scores in a diary and
update them next day.. ..
India not playing Pakistan is not new – in 1978 – after 17 years occurred a tour to Pak. Newspapers reported that Bengal’s Barun Burman would be picked up. Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi was dropped from the squad, which included three uncapped players — Kapil Dev, Bharath Reddy and Yashpal Sharma. Even as it heralded the arrival of great pacebowler, it sounded the death-knell for the spin quartet comprising Bedi, B. S. Chandrasekhar, E. A. S. Prasanna and S. Venkataraghavan. Here is an iconic photo of the famed quartet.
In
that disastrous tour, Indian spinners
were decimated, Erapalli Prasanna bowled 25 overs for 94 runs without a wicket
in the 2nd test, was not even given a bowl in the 2nd and that turned out to be
his last Test. In the 3rd One dayer at
Sahiwal, Indian captain called
his batsmen off the field - they needed only 23 off 14 balls with eight wickets
in hand - as a protest against the bowling of Sarfraz Nawaz, who sent down four
bouncers on the trot, none of which were called a wide.
The Sardar with
attractive patkas, Bishan Bedi, with a beautiful action, flighted the ball
higher than any bowler in international cricket; if he could challenge
quick-footed batsmen thus, it was only because his command was so complete that
he would make the ball descend far quicker than it went up.
Sadly, India’s ace spinner Bishan Bedi is no more. Bedi, regarded as
one of the world's finest ever spin bowlers, captained India in 22 of his 67
Tests and took 266 wickets. One of the
game's greatest left-arm spinners, he played ten ODIs too. He was India's highest wicket-taker in Tests,
with 266 at an average of 28.71, at the time of his retirement. Bedi, the legspinner
Bhagwath Chandrasekhar, and offspinners Erapalli Prasanna and Srinivas
Venkataraghavan made up the celebrated spin quartet that dominated Indian
cricket in the 1970s. Bedi also enjoyed
a successful career in the County Championship with Northamptonshire, for whom
he took 434 first-class wickets at 20.89.
He made his debut against West Indies in 1966 and played his
last Test against England at The Oval in 1979. Born in
Amritsar, Bedi began playing cricket at school. When he turned 20, he became
the 113th cricketer to represent India in Tests. Over a 12-year career his best
bowling performance came in 1969 when he picked up seven wickets for 98 runs
against Australia in Kolkata (then known as Calcutta), a Test match that India
lost.
At
a time when he debuted, Indian Cricket was not on a high ! – the batting was
too frail and there was no pace !! - by
mid 1960s started Indian spin revolution – the spin quartet led the way with a
few famous wins. The attack was so much
spin oriented that sometimes bowlers like Solkar, Gavaskar – would bowl a
couple of overs, the ball would be rolled from thirdman – then with a beaming
smile the Sardar would start his assassinations.
At a time, when batsmen only captained, Bishan Bedi became the
Captain – in 1976, he
declared India's second innings at 97-5 against Clive Lloyd's West Indies at
Kingston, Jamaica, in protest against intimidatory bowling and injuries to the
team. In that infamous Delhi test in
1977, he accused England left-arm fast bowler John Lever of using Vaseline to
swing the ball – and daringly forfeited a match in Pakistan.
Bishan
Bedi's panel had a simple agenda:
"to clean the game". Bedi, India's first cricket manager, with a
reputation of being a straight talker,
campaigned for freeing Delhi cricket from corruption. ~ and when the results were out……… the former
India captain lost the election for the presidency of the Delhi and District
Cricket Association (DDCA) by a huge margin to Sneh Prakash Bansal. Bedi got
only 285 votes, while Bansal got 3433, and none of the other international
cricketers in Bedi's camp could manage even 200 votes in their respective
categories.
Remembering that 2nd Test at Kanpur Nov 1976 – Bishan
Bedi hit 3 sixers and scored an unbeaten 50.
India had the luxury of waiting its no. 11 Chandrasekhar to get into
double figures and declare at 524/9 – all 11 scored double figures (there were
no centuries too!)
Remember
watching the next test at Chennai – on Nov 26, 1977 – Venkat made a classy 64
with a six of Peter Petherick who had taken a hat-trick in Pakistan. India won that test comfortably as Bishan had
figures of : 16.4-4-48-5
& 22-12-22-4.
His best Test bowling was 7/98 against Australia at Calcutta in 1969–70, and his best match figures 10/194 at Perth in 1977–78. His best first class bowling was 7/5 for Delhi vs Jammu and Kashmir at New Delhi 1974–75. In a Gillette cup match he won for Northampton against Hampshire scoring a boundary hit with 1 ball to spare !!
Remember - Robert Haynes- West Indies Cricketer, played at Chepauk ! (nothing to do with Desmond Haynes other than the fact that he too played in that match) !!
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In 1859, Madras Presidency acquired Chepauk palace in an auction – a few years later obtained Govt permission to build pavilion at the palace grounds to Madras Cricket Club. The pavilion was reconstructed in 1892 and was utilized till 1982 when it was demolished as part of the stadium renovation. Understand that a couple years ago, the lease period of the stadium was extended by the Tamil Nadu government for 21 years from 2015. Again in recent years, it has undergone major renovation and is new for today’s match to be played under flood lights.
The stadium once known for Pongal tests has hosted 27 ODI matches, of which 9 were matches not involving India.
The first ever ODI played here was Reliance World Cup on Oct 9, 1987. A match to remember for that opening stand between Sunil Gavaskar & Krish Srikkanth (83) and later the sixer hitting Navjot Sidhu. Then Kapil Dev's sportsmanship – one of Jones's two sixes, in his 39 from 35 balls, had been signalled as four; but between innings Kapil concurred with the Australians' insistence that the ball cleared the boundary. India's target was increased by 2 seemed insignificant when India raced past 200 for the loss of only two wickets. McDermott's first four overs went for 31 runs. Closer to finish - India, with four wickets in hand, needed just 15 from the last four overs; when the last over began, the requirement was 6, with the last man, Maninder Singh, taking strike. He managed two 2s, but was out with India short by a solitary run !!
Today the 22nd match of ICC WC 2023 is underway – between Pakistan and Afghanistan, both close to ‘must-win’ position. Defeat for Afghanistan would almost certainly knock them out, while a Pakistan loss leaves Babar Azam's side with no further room for error. Afghan has read the pitch a different way and is playing with 4 spinners.
The first ODI not involving India was Reliance Cup match of 1987 between Australia and Zimbabwe – remember seeing that match and the brilliant fielding of Kevin Curran – Alan Border and Dave Houghton were the rival captains. Border, dropped by Jarvis off a straightforward return catch when he had scored 1, put on 113 with Geoff Marsh.
The 4th match of MRF World Series in Oct 1989 featured Australia and West Indies at Chepauk. Australia won by massive 99 runs after scoring only 241/6 against an attak of Curtly Ambrose, Winston Benjamin, Courtney Walsh, Malcolm Marshall, Viv Richards and leggie Haynes who had figures of 6-0-36-2.
Wonder what
will happen to these 2 bubbles ! – they may seem attractive but - A2B
- A bubble burst !! - for
sure, you have seen soap bubbles floating on air – they may fly for a short
while but sooner when their real face is known, it bursts, dissolves and
vanishes !
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Bubblr burst – means a bloated period coming to a sudden end. A liquid with a high surface tension pulls more strongly on the surrounding liquid than one with a low surface tension, the presence of a gradient in surface tension will naturally cause the liquid to flow away from regions of low surface tension. The surface tension gradient can be caused by concentration gradient or by a temperature gradient.
A bubble is a globule of a gas substance in a liquid. Due to the Marangoni effect, bubbles may remain intact when they reach the surface of the immersive substance. This phenomenon was first identified in the so-called "tears of wine" by physicist James Thomson (Lord Kelvin's brother) in 1855. The general effect is named after Italian physicist Carlo Marangoni.
When an air bubble arrives at the free interface, the bubble's lamella drains and ruptures. The bubble collapses, and gas vapor is released. The ruptured lamella retreats, and a rim at the edge of the retreating lamella forms.
An economic bubble (also called a speculative bubble or a financial bubble) is a period when current asset prices greatly exceed their intrinsic valuation, being the valuation that the underlying long-term fundamentals justify.
Team
India is really on a roll !! have you
seen batsman frowning when bowler bowls a wide !!
Bangladesh is capable of big upsets - they call themselves ‘Bangla Tigers’ - Royal Bengal Tigers are found in Sundarban, situated in the bengal delta.”Bagher bachcha “ (son of a tiger) is a common phrase in Bengal. Upto the nineteenth century almost all the southern part of Bengal (Twenty four parganas, Calcutta,Hoogly) had abundance of Tiger population.
To some whom would dismiss this as an ordinary win and Bangladesh as less than ordinary side, India - Bangladesh has been a rivalry that has been brewing over the past few years as the two-time World Champions have found the Bangla Tigers to be a tough nut to crack in recent times.
The recent record for India against Bangladesh, after the 2019 World Cup, hasn't been good. In the four matches played in the 50-over format after the World Cup in England, Bangladesh have beaten India three times, with the latest coming in the Asia Cup 2023. Mehidy and Mustafizur Rahman pulled off a one-wicket win, it was their closest win against a higher-ranked side. Three days after Mehidy engineered that first miracle in Dhaka, Bangladesh clinched a tough five-run win to seal the ODI series. It ensured India remained without an ODI series win in Bangladesh for nine years, having last won in 2014. Then came the Asia Cup win in September, by six runs, another instance of Bangladesh holding their nerve.
Today they were swept out by a dominant Indian side. Bangla won the toss – India persisted with Shardul Thakur leaving out Ashwin and Shami and .. Shreyas Iyer played again.
The loss hurts more for Bangla as the next time, when they likely would play ODI WC in 2027, the team composition would have undergone drastic change with golden generation fading away. Star, Capt Shakib Al Hasan has already announced that he will not play one-day cricket after the 2025 Champions Trophy and T20Is after next year`s World Cup in the USA and the Caribbean. Mushfiqur Rahim is 36 and does not keep wickets regularly anymore. He would be in his 40s when the next World Cup arrives. Mahmudullah, whose century against England in the 2015 World Cup powered one of the biggest wins in Bangladesh cricket history is 37+ now ..
Today they started well almost
reaching 100 without loss in 15 overs [Tanzid Hasan got out in 14.5 with score
at 93 !] – wickets kept falling regularly.
Hardik Pandya was injured and that saw King Kohli complete the over.
Chasing 257 – Indians were 229/3 after 38 overs – with Rahul fluent at 33 and Kohli striking superbly, win was assured but not many thought of Kohli racing to finish in style. Later stages the win was not in Q – whether Kohli could complete his century was !!
King Kohli has 48 ODI centuries now !! – gottenwith that big hit over the mid-wicket. Before you dwell on some statistics - Bangla has a formidable support staff strength.
Not Tigers, but Lions ! Sinha is a Sanskrit term and surname which originates in the Indian subcontinent. The surname is commonly used by the Kayasthas, and is common in India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. It comes from a Sanskrit word meaning "lion" or "brave person". In Lanka, there is ‘Singhe’ - first part of the word, 'Sinha' stands for lion while 'la' or 'le' stands for blood, giving the meaning 'Lion's blood'. Remember few Singhes have played for Lanka - Madurasinghe Arachchige Wijayasiri Ranjith Madurasinghe; Pramodya Wickramasinghe, and Hathurasinghe!
Former India left-arm spinner Sridharan Sriram is Bangla’s technical consultant; team director Mahmud, head coach Chandika Hathurusinghe (the man at the start), assistant coach Nic Pothas, fast-bowling coach Allan Donald, spin-bowling coach Rangana Herath, fielding coach Shane McDermott, and assistant fielding coach Faisal Hossain. Chandika was an opening batsman and a medium pacer who played 26 tests and 35 ODIs.
1983 World Cup was watershed event for India - Kapil Dev’s epic 175* was the first century ever by an Indian in ODI .. .. we had to wait for more as Ravi Shastri made the 2nd ton playing against Australia at Indore in Oct 1984, Dilip Vengsarkar made 105 against England at Pune in Dec 1984; Shastri made another at Cuttack and then Krish Srikkanth made a flamboyant 102 off 104 balls against Australia at Jaipur in Sept 1986; a month later Raman Lamba made one at Rajkot.
Now India tops the ODI centurions list – the sweety Sachin Tendulkar has 49; King Virat Kohli has 48 and Rohit has 31. Sachin’s 49 tons came in 463 ODIs while Kohli has made 48 in just 285 ! - Rohit’s 31 is from 255.
In 285 matches – Kohli has bowled few times and has 4 wickets too !! - his victims are : Alastair Cook, Craig Kieswetter, Quinton de Kock & Brendon McCullum.
Insurers,
Insurance Agents, Insurance Brokers, Insuring public and other road users – must be
aware of a recent circular issued by IRDA on recently on 18.10.2023 (available
on their website) – here are some insights !! on Motor Insurance for understanding
that circular.
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As we travel on roads, we jostle in traffic - we see hundreds of motor vehicles of various hues – and sadly there are accidents too .. .. .. Motor vehicle accidents are one of the major causes of death and injuries in India. Motor Vehicles Act 1988 covenants various aspects of automobiles on road. .. ..
The Act, inter-alia, makes vehicle insurance mandatory. Sec 146. (1) No person shall use, except as a passenger, or cause or allow any other person to use, a motor vehicle in a public place, unless there is in force, in relation to the use of the vehicle by that person or that other person, as the case may be, a policy of insurance complying with the requirements of this Chapter.. .. .. and there is Motor vehicle insurance.
In olden days, life of Motor Insurer was spent more on reading and interpreting the provisions of “AIMT” - wonder what ? – All India Motor Tariff, the ultimate smrithi handed by Tariff Advisory Committee laying down rules, regulations, rates, terms and conditions in accordance with the provisions of part IIB of Insurance Act 1938. The AIMT was revised from time to time – remember the big black book, it undergoing revisions in 1989 and present one coming into vogue since 30th June 2002. (likely that you had not joined Insurance industry by these dates !)
The succinct line is : the provisions of the AIMT is binding on all concerned and any breach of Tariff is a breach of the provisions of the Insurance Act 1938.
The Tariff was elaborately codified with Sections of : 1) General Regulations (GR); 2 Private Car 3) Motorised two-wheelers 3) Commercial vehicles – sub divided as Goods carrying, Trailers, Passenger carrying, Misc and Spl type, Motor Trade – road transit, road risks and internal risks; IMT endorsements, proposal forms; Standard wordings, Statistical codes
Sec 7 of AIMT deals with Endorsements. The present circular of IRDA directly impacts this section, in specific IMT 29 that is about coverage for employees travelling in a private car.
To provide you a
gist of its contents :
·
Clause 7 of Sec 2 of Tariff (reference is
to Private car) provides for coverage of employees travelling in a Car owned by
their Employer – being involved in an accident and the liability to the victims
ie., employees in that road accident or usage of that vehicle in public place.
·
Presently, Tariff provides for such
coverage (for employees travelling or
driving) at an additional premium of Rs.50 per employee
·
Such additional premium is to be calculated
and charged on the max licensed seating capacity of the vehicle.
·
The present circular is a fall out of Judgment
of Madras High Court in CMA No. 2166 of
2019 & CMP No. 8871 of 2019 (United India Insurance Co. Ltd., Vs
Ilakkiyamathi & others)
·
The Hon’ble Court observed that in cases of employees travelling
in the private vehicles of the employers, met with an accident and got injured
or faced untimely death, it becomes a nightmare for the claimants to recover
compensation from the employer. This leads to claimants to suffer endlessly
having lost their sole breadwinner or having suffered injuries.
·
While the coverage is already
available and Insurers liable (only when) such cover is taken and premium paid,
the Hon’ble Court directed the Authority, in exercise of the powers conferred
by Section 14(2) of Insurance Act 1938, that :
all General Insurers carrying on Motor Insurance should provide the cover
to the employees travelling in employer’s vehicle (including paid driver if
applicable) under IMT-29 of the Indian Motor Tariff, compulsorily as an inbuilt coverage while
issuing private car policy for such vehicles.
·
Following this such coverage
becomes available as in-built cover without any specific action on the act of
proposer and is now available free-of any premium in all policies be it
Package/Bundled, standalone TP ..
· This circular directs that ‘no additional premium’ in respect of this cover be charged until further directions.
That makes the circular and coverage abundantly clear – yet some additional info. Sec 2 of AIMT deals with Private Car. The scope under this is Private Car Type Vehicles used for social, domestic and pleasure purposes and also for professional purposes (excluding the carriage of goods other than samples) of the insured or used by the insured's employees for such purposes but excluding use for hire or reward, racing, pace making, reliability trial, speed testing and use for any purpose in connection with the Motor Trade.
Sec 7. : EXTRA BENEFITS
Premium for each of the following extra benefit opted for by the insureds is to be shown separately in the premium computation table:
(i) Legal liability to paid drivers /and/or cleaner employed in connection with the operation and/or maintenance of motor vehicle under the Workmen’s Compensation Act, Fatal Accidents Act and at Common Law
(ii) Legal Liability to employees of the insured traveling in and / or driving the employer's vehicle.
Liability to employees of the insured traveling in or driving the employer's vehicle, either excluding or including the paid driver may be covered on payment of Additional Premium @ Rs. 50 /- per employee, the premium being chargeable on the total number of such employees carried (including the paid driver, if applicable) but not exceeding the maximum licensed seating capacity of the vehicle. The Additional Premium of Rs.50/- per employee is net irrespective of any period of insurance not exceeding 12 months.
Endorsement IMT-28 (for paid driver and/or cleaner) or IMT-29 (employees other than paid driver and/or cleaner) as applicable is to be used.
Concluding with the Tariff wording for the endorsement IMT 29 also. LEGAL LIABILITY TO EMPLOYEES OF THE INSURED OTHER THAN PAID DRIVER AND/OR CONDUCTOR AND/OR CLEANER WHO MAY BE TRAVELLING OR DRIVING IN THE EMPLOYER’S CAR. {Private Cars only/ Motorised two wheelers (not for hire or reward)}
In consideration of the payment of an additional premium @ Rs.__/- per employee insured notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in the policy it is hereby understood and agreed that the insurer will indemnify the insured against the insured’s liability at Common Law and Statutory Liability under the Fatal Accidents Act, 1855 for compensation (including legal costs of any claimant) for death of or bodily injury to any employee (other than paid drivers) of the within named insured being carried in or upon or entering in or getting on to or alighting from or driving the vehicle insured.
Provided that in the event of an accident whilst the vehicle insured is carrying more than .....* employees of the insured (including the driver) the insured shall repay to the insurer a rateable proportion of the total amount payable by the insurer by the reason of this endorsement in respect of accident in connection with such vehicle insured.
Subject otherwise to the terms, conditions limitations and exceptions of this Policy.
ODI World Cup 2023 is on and the fever is catching up. Cricket though played with the same bat and ball, is a different game now with support staff, analysis and more. Minnows have participated in WC before – in the inaugural WC – East Africa participated but this is the first time the premier tournament without participation of the once mighty West Indies !!
Some of you may not remember that Kapil Devils of 1983 was a lean team – Sunil Valson travelled with the team without playing a single match and PR Man Singh was the only official – the Team Manager. A right-handed batsman and off break bowler Man Singh played Ranji for Hyderabad and was the manager in 1983 and in 1987.
At Ahmedabad, India handed another defeat to Pakistanis in WC – mauled badly. The present Pak team has the following support staff : Rehan-ul-Haq (team manager), Mickey Arthur (Director – Pakistan men’s team), Grant Bradburn (head coach), Andrew Puttick (batting coach), Morne Morkel (bowling coach), Aftab Khan (fielding coach), Abdul Rehman (assistant coach), Dr Sohail Saleem (team doctor), Drikus Saaiman (strength and conditioning coach), Cliffe Deacon (physiotherapist), Ahsan Iftikhar Nagi (media and digital content manager), Usman Anwari (security manager), Maqbool Ahmad Babri (psychologist), Talha Ejaz (analyst) and Malang Ali (masseur).
The coach, named as Director – Mickey Arthur - John Michael Arthur hails from South Africa and had coached SA & Australian teams, also served as the head coach of the Derbyshire County Cricket Club and now the director of the Pakistan national cricket team since April 2023.
The job of the coach is to prepare the team but Paki team director Mickey Arthur made a bizarre and controversial comment on the ambience and the arrangement at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad after the team's brutal loss against India in World Cup 2023. This certainluy did not go down well with the cricket fraternity and was brutally trolled. Besides being mocked by fans, former India cricketers, Pakistan cricket legends have also lashed out at Arthur's remark. On Monday, ICC responded to the criticism made by Arthur.
Following their eighth World Cup loss against India, the joint-most by a side against a single opposition, Arthur complained about the partisan crowd and no Pakistani music being played at the venue which made him feel like a "BCCI event than ICC".
He stated that - no fans from Pakistan were granted visas to travel to India for the World Cup! - why should a Coach be worried about this and speaking on this. Granting visas is Nation’s prerogative and why should India in the garb of Cricket match allow all and sundry from the land of Pakistan. This being an International event, Paki team was allowed to be in India but we do not want people from the land that abets terrorism and has been a hostile neighbour.
Akram lashed out at Arthur's comment while analysing the game for Pakistan-based sports channel A Sports and asked for some solid answers instead of random stuff. He asked what were your plans against Kuldeep Yadav – no point in talking about the crowd and whether there were visas.
Mickey perhaps knows no history of Sporting relations. In the 1989-90 season, Krishnamachari Srikkanth-led Team India went on a tour of Pakistan for a 4-match Test and 3-match ODI series. The opening game of the tour was abandoned without a single delivery being bowled. Pakistan eventually won the second ODI in Karachi after which the focus shifted towards the third game. After the Pakistan top order failed to impress, fans went too far and started throwing stones at the Indian fielders in the third ODI. Things got so out of hand that the game had to stopped and later when it restarted in Lahore, Pakistan won the game and the hosts won the series 2-0.
Well, he may not know Indo-Pak but crowd behaviour has been boorish in South Africa and Australia too. Back in Mar 2018, many Australian players were subjected to verbal abuse from fans, including references to players' families, Australia coach Darren Lehman decried.
In every country, Sports fans are passionate, in some places there are unruly too. It appears that it could well be football supporters at the top of the list but rugby crowds are not far behind. A couple of years back crowd violence at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban cast the behaviour of South African sports fans directly in the spotlight. The destruction of broadcast cameras, stadium chairs, and injuries caused created the impression that football fans are notorious for poor behaviour.
Mickey might well concentrate on playing the game on the field rather than empty prattles !!
With regards – S Sampathkumar
18.10.2023
