A GREAT SIGHT FOR EVERY INDIAN

How often have we heard statements like : 'Thats a fast delivery from Brett Lee and the batsmen had no clue about it', 'India collapse against the pace and bounce of Australian bowlers', and so on...
The Indians have always been on the receiving end of tall fast bowlers and have struggles to cope with them many a times. We as Indians, have always wished if we also had someone who can hurry and trouble batsmen with his pace and bounce. We have always been looking for a genuine fast bowler. Have we found one in ISHANT SHARMA??? Ishant's performance on the Australian tour has been nothing short of phenomenal. He has bowled fast very fast, got great bounce and has troubled everyone with his line and length. He has dismissed the world's best batsmen at the moment Ricky Ponting 3 times and at times made him look like a novice. He has also dismissed likes of Gilchrist,Hayden,Clarke, Symonds and Jaysuriya with his awkward pace and bounce. He has bowled with great attitude running in every ball no matter what the situation. He has become the spearhead of the Indian attack in only his first series. He has even crossed the 150km barrier(never done before by an Indian) making him the fastest ever Indian bowler.

What a great, refreshing sight it is for an Indian to see an Indian dishing out some serious pace and making batsmen hop and looking hurried and ruffled. The new ball spells by Ishant have been amazing to watch throughout the series. I firmly believe that he will continue the good work in this series and I can hardly imagine him having a real bad game with the way he is bowling. But is this the first time we have seen an Indian bowling at a lively pace. No. There have been quite a few Indian bowlers who started off at a lively pace but soon gave up the extra pace for line and length(quite notably Munaf Patel and Irfan pathan). This is one thing that we have to ensure doesnt happen with Ishant. He is just 19 and has the build of a fast bowler and according to Wasim Akram(a legendary bowler), Ishant can only get stronger and faster with age. And Ishant has already got faster game by game. Realising the fear of Ishant giving up pace, Harsha Bhogle made a great comment: 'After Ishant goes back from this tour and someone tells him that Ishant you should extend your carrer, just cut down on your pace and think about a long career, Then that man should be deported'. Ishant has to avoid such people and continue bowling fast. He can be a deadly weapon for India in all forms of the game. We all want Ishant to remain the same after this series too... We want Ishant winning matches for India in future, not just this series.

For God's sake, we dont want to lose Ishant. He is India's biggest find of the tour...

DHONI AND ISHANT: India's Best In The Series

As Dhoni scampered back for two to give India a crucial victory against Srilanka virtually assuring them of a place in the finals, it was fitting to see India's heroes of the series Dhoni and Ishant hugging each other to celebrate the victory. When Harbhajan Singh got out to a Malinga yorker in the second last over with 2 balls left in the over and 3 runs still to go, Ishant had to keep atleast one ball out because if he got out of the first ball, it wud have left Munaf against fiery Malinga and then only god could have saved India. These were exactly the instructions given by Dhoni to Ishant to keep out atleast one ball. But the stump microphone captured Ishant's reply which was: "Maar doonga fast bowler hai hum bhi dalte hain." Well this was an amazing reply and just showed how much confidence this kid has it in him. He did survive the 2 balls and Dhoni finished of the match in the next over.Dhoni finished with a superb 50* under pressure playing what can be called truly a captains knock.
Right through the series, Dhoni has been praised for his captaincy and keeping, but he has also been the highest run getter for India in the series. He has played cool, sensible cricket in almost every match. He hasnt had any failure till now and has played according to the situation everytime(almost everytime against his natural attacking instincts). He has taken the responsibility of a finisher in the side and his risk free cricket in crunch situations has been the highlight of the series. Even though Yuvraj was the highest scorer today(he was also backed by dhoni inspite of failures), it was Dhoni's knock which ensured India crossed the line safely. His 50 not out had no boundaries at all epitomizing the fact that he played risk free cricket and ran beautifully inspite of a slight strain. Dhoni has been a revelation in this series.
Likewise, India's bowing star has been Ishant Sharma who has come a long way in the past 2 months. His pace, accuracy,bounce and his consistency with line and lengh has troubled everybody. He has bowled splendidly well oozing confidence and has led the Indian attack brilliantly in only his first series. He hasnt bowled badly in even a single match.He has been the India's biggest find amongst the younsters and at 19 years of age, he may get even faster which is a great news for India.

THE IDEAL VOTING SYSTEM FOR TALENT HUNTS

A question for everybody to ponder upon: Why do we never see the best singers winning the talent hunt competitions??? Well many knowledgeable people may simply say that the voting system is flawed, its not correct to let the audience decide the fate of the contestants, let the judges decide the winner and so on. Well there is nothing wrong in any of these opinions… But why does every competition go for same system since the Indian idol started the trend. The answer is pretty simple. This system brings in lots of money to the channels and producers. As every person is given the freedom to vote as much as he wants and with so many people voting, one can easily imagine the sums generated by this system. Also this system automatically provides for more viewer response and viewing eventually leading to higher TRP’s. Hence the system works wonders for the organizers.

When the organizers are asked about the credibility of the system, they have an argument that after all, the winner has the support of the whole nation, so what is the problem? But are they correct? Does the winner have such all round support? No not at all. The winner is invariably decided by the zonal votes and not by nation votes. This is where the whole system goes wrong and falls flat. Let us see what actually happens in this type of voting.

The competition starts with certain no of participants. The viewer listens to all of them, likes few, dislikes few but he almost certainly chooses his favorite. The favourite one is generally the one belonging to his city, area or state. This is because he can emotionally connect with that contestant and obviously wants him to represent his own city. Now, every episode, no matter how that contestant performs, the viewers vote would still go to to him. Many would find this observation harsh but this is the reality. Hence the contestant who can garner most support from his region stands a great chance to win the competition. The support may include contestant having influential contacts who will increase his vote counts or simply the enthusiasm among the people of certain regions.

Hence what started as a fight for the best singe in the country sadly becomes a fight among the zones. Naturally at the end of the competition, the zone and people of that zone win(in the form of their contestant) and singing loses. The best singer is left cursing his luck and the winner takes all the accolades.

Then what is an ideal or atleast a better system which would still connect well with the audience and at the same time produce the most deserving winner? If the winner has to be decided by the audience alone to keep them interested in the competition, then I have thought of a system which could give much better results. It goes like this: The viewers are asked to vote for the worst rather than the best contestant. Each viewer can only give one vote to the contestant he liked least during a certain episode. The contestant getting the maximum votes gets eliminated. Now as we have discussed that the favourite of any viewer is not likely to change everytime, but definitely the singer he likes least may and will change from episode to episode. This is because the viewer will not have any preconceived thoughts while choosing the worst unlike in current system. Therefore, the people belonging to a region would still have different choices as the least liked and their votes would differ. Also as there is only one vote per person, this eliminates the possibility of source voting wherein a group of people would keep voting for the worst or best resulting in false outcome. Finally this would all contribute to impartial voting and a deserving winner. Ofcourse this system would reduce the cash quotient for the organizers quite a lot but still they would earn enough to satisfy their needs. Atleast the primary objective of the show would be achieved: The best singer must win.

No system can be completely flawless but I believe that the this one is the closest we can get to a perfect voting system. What say everybody???

TALENT HUNTS OR MERE MONEY MAKERS AND TRP SEEKERS!!!!

Ever since indion idol was launched 3 years back, there has been a flood of talent hunt competitions on indian

television. Even though saregama n then saregamapa were the oldest running singing competitions running on

zee for many years, they were not like indion idol.they were just competitions in which the judges

had the last say on who won n who lost and they were not publicised n hyped as indion idol. But as indion idol n sony

came up with a masterpiece of making money by completely handing the fates of the contestants in the hands of audience

n asked the audience to chose their idol who will be called indion idol, it became a huge success. Sony made loads of

money from the voting and the winner got the so called support of india(though that was misleading according to me).

First of all, how can u ask people to judge n decide the winner when most people vote on emotion, not knowing much

about singing. Naturally the talent which came out of it was no special. There is a major flaw in the voting where u

vote for ur favourite. If there ever was a way of deciding the winner by voting , it cud have been that u had to vote

for the worst n not the best. That wud have given impartial voting n much better result. But that wud have meant less

votes n less money!!!!And thats where the real motive of these shows comes into question???

But unfortunately this is not much of a question....the answer is ridiculouly clear. Since indion idol's

succesful campaign in raking in lots of moolah by the senseless voting system, all others have followed suit.

there have been fame gurukul again on sony,indion idol 2 and dissapointingly even zee joined in the fun with saregama

mahayuddha of music directors. And hence the show which had been running quite popularly for a long time

also got lured into making money and competing with others. Though there was some great talent on display

in the mahayuddh(way better than indion idol n fame gurukul),but the eventual winner decided by the people was definitely

not the best. And then there are the controversies created in these shows due to fights(mostly false) between judges.

also the so called x-factor n performance seeked by judges in some of the shows. All this stuff to get their trp's

at the top of the charts eventually leading to more viewer response n more money.

All this money making is still ok as long as u atleast have good talent on display so that if they cant win due

to the hopeless voting system, but they can still be noticed n if they r deserving can get some work in industry.

For instance, in this season, there were three major talent hunts. There was Indion Idol 3 on sony, the saregamapa vishwayuddha on zee, and the

star voice of india on star plus. All three major channels on indian tv gave it their all to get

that elusive number 1 status. The zee n star plus even took the same time slots for their shows in a fight to

outclass or shud i say outstrategise each other and get the nod of the audience. But the most unfortunate thing which came out was that the quality of singing in the show which started it all i.e the indion idol dipped even further. Infact some of the singing was so ordinary that even I(ordinary singer) honestly felt like I had a chance to atleast clear a few rounds there. On the other hand, there were some wonderful talent on display in the other two shows.

But it does seem that slowly but surely, the desire to make more and more money through voting and unnecessary controversies

is beginning to overshadow the talent which this great country has to offer.

The bottomline is that the winners coming out of these shows are not going to compete with the major singers

in the industry unless they have exceptional talent. Even exceptional talent wud get only some work as of now and

have to establish themselves as their counterparts have done . Moreover the ordinary talent on display now in these

shows wud not even get close to bollywood(coz they dont deserve it) and wud be content in making money through

stage shows and all.

The channels will continue to keep making moolah and the winners too wud keep making adequate money by doing

stage shows. But what we wont be able to see is a genuine talent in the industry giving some tough competition to the

establishes ones....

Lets hope that something out of the blue happens and we see some fresh special talent making it big in the industry.