Bus travel, IPL etc

I don't enjoy bus travel and tend to go for it only as a last option. I took a ride after a gap of almost 3 years when I went to Chennai to drop Nisha at her grandparent's place. Even though we took the KPN Volvo service, which is supposed to be much better than the regular service (it is) and the roads were extremely smooth, I found it to be cramped and uncomfortable and just could not get a sound sleep. What made it doubly worse was that I returned back the same night and had two nights of bad sleep in a row. Nothing beats our Indian Railways for comfortable and affordable travel. Now, if only they could get rid of the smell...

If you're anywhere in India, you could not have missed the start of the IPL tournament. It's had the kind of opening that Lalit Modi and co could have only dreamt of. I won't deny that I had wanted the IPL experiment to fail badly, just to teach the idiots at BCCI a lesson. But, I have changed my view now. With a format that generates non-stop thrills and some of the best players in the world, it has all the makings of a blockbuster. We've had 5 matches and three of them have been thrillers and have produced unbelievable batting performances,
especially from McCullum and Hussey. Yesterday, one of my favourite players, Jayasuriya looked set to match them before he was cruelly run out. So far, it seems like the foreign players and the relatively unknown Indian players have done much better than the superstars, who really have to pull up their socks to show that their mind-boggling valuations are justified.

One thing that every expert under the sun seems to be talking about is the impact this is going to have on the traditional forms of the game. Contrary to what people think, I feel that one dayers are going to be more affected than the test matches. Let's face it, Test cricket is already dead commercially, no one actually watches it. But, it is a holy cow that will be protected by the establishment even if there are only five people watching it. However, one day cricket will not be as lucky. When you can pack the same amount of excitement in a 3 hour game, why waste an entire day on it? It's also going to be a lot easier on the players, as the wear and tear on their bodies is going to be a lot less
in 20 overs than in 50.

I'm betting on Kolkota and Chennai to be the top two teams, followed by Hyderabad, Delhi and Mohali. I have Bangalore, Mumbai and Jaipur as the bottom three, and despite Jaipur beating Mohali yesterday, I don't see reason to change that.