INDIAN PREMIER LEAGUE 7

STARC AND POLLARD DESERVE EXEMPLARY PUNISHMENT

It made for ugly viewing and it hurts our sensibilities. The boorish behaviour of Royal Challengers Bangalore paceman Mitchell Starc and Mumbai Indians allrounder Kieron Pollard during the Indian Premier League game in Mumbai on Tuesday was a poor advertisement for the game, more so when IPL stakeholders have sworn to focus on cricket.
Writing as I do before there is word about Match Referee Andy Pycroft's hearing with these players, I am hoping that the franchises will themselves pull up the two players for clashing as they did. Their exemplary punishments will go a long way towards making sure that there are no repeats of such horrible incidents that tarnish cricket's image.
That will also help us reclaim our wonderful game.
Just a couple of nights ago, we were letting our hearts swell in pride and joy in celebration of the amazing display of camaraderie put up by Sunrisers Hyderabad paceman Dale Steyn and ace RCB batsman AB de Villiers in Bangalore. The vanquished and the victor's spontaneous show of admiration for one another was awesome stuff.
Who gave Starc and Pollard the license to hijack that memory? We must reject "this-was-a-heat-of-the-moment-thing" or "he-was-only-reacting-to-grave-provocation" explanations. We must ensure no one emulates such boorish behaviour. Indeed, we can do without wonderful moments featuring Steyn and De Villiers being overpowered by dark memories.
From 1981, images of Pakistan skipper Javed Miandad raising his bat and threatening to smash Dennis Lillee's head rose from the sub-conscience. Of course, the match was broadcast live but since we were unfamiliar with cable and satellite TV and since our newspapers did not print colour photographs, it is only the black and white version that is embedded.
There is no such evidence of Manoj Prabhakar striking Delhi team-mate Maninder Singh with his bat during the Steel Trophy final in Delhi in 1988. And there must one photograph - in The Hindu's archives in Chennai - of Raman Lamba with a raised bat and Rashid Patel with a stump assuming gladiator postures during a Duleep Trophy game in Jamshedpur in 1991.
Starc and Pollard could have done without triggering dark memories and setting off cricket fans looking for YouTube videos of the Miandad-Lillee incident. At a time when TV and streaming has made the sport reach out to a wider audience than in the past, it is imperative that players remember their responsibilities towards cricket and act accordingly.
What is worrying is the kind of abusive send off that uncapped youngsters like RCB legspinner Yuzvendra Chahal and MI seamer Jasprit Bumrah gave Corey Anderson and De Villiers respectively. We were left with a bitter taste in the mouth and must not dismiss their behavior as immature, or even childish.
Sadly, these boys have picked up the wrong traits. And there are so many more watching these emerging cricketers and tucking away such verbal send offs in their own minds without realising how demeaning such actions are to the game itself. Surely, there must be some difference between cricket and street-fighting.

When will Starc, Pollard and their ilk learn that it is possible to play hard cricket without asking for or giving any quarter and without disrespecting either the opposition in general and the game itself in particular? When will Chahal and Bumrah realise that send offs must be reserved only for bus and train stations and the departure lounges of airports.
G.RAJARAMAN

COLUMN- THE OTHER RESULTS

THE OTHER RESULTS

Why the college cut-off system needs to be rethought. For many first-time voters, the most anticipated results in May will not be of the elections, they will be the results of an assortment of exams. For a vast majority of students thinking about higher education prospects, this induces a nervous dread. The supply of good institutions is woefully small, the competition fierce and the structures of pedagogy almost life denying. More of the privileged students will secede from the system by going abroad. Higher education reform is urgently required. But it is going to remain a formidable challenge. The regulatory tangle the courts and government have created, the political economy of vested interests in the system and obduracy in large parts of the academic establishment have slowed down constructive change. This sector is notoriously hard to change; 15 years of missed opportunities make it hard to drum up confidence that change is imminent. But there is perhaps one modest proposal that might mitigate some of the pathologies associated with the current system of admissions. The current system is based on scoring high on exams to determine college places. But as cut-offs increase, as more and more students bunch around particular marks, so does the neurosis of the system as a whole, since every marginal mark counts. The difference between 98 and 98.5 per cent can make a huge difference to your prospects. So there is a single-minded pursuit of the marginal mark, almost at the cost of a real education. This administrative principle has given rise to some myths. The first is the myth of meritocracy: the idea that the person who got 98.5 per cent deserves, in some deep sense, to get a place above the kid who got 98 per cent. The students who get in have a sense of entitlement. The second myth is that having only high scorers (leave aside the issue of reservation for a moment), makes for better colleges. Both of these are myths. Most educators have the sense that within some bandwidths of achievement, any random distribution of selected students would produce similar results. This is true of universities like Harvard; it could probably just randomly choose from a large pool of applicants above a certain threshold and still get similar results. Similarly, a Delhi University college that cuts off admission at 96 per cent would probably be no worse off if it just randomly chose students above a certain percentage, maybe 85 or 90 per cent. Universities perpetuate the myth that something objectively distinguishes a selected group of students from those that did not get in, but who were also above a certain threshold. This may be true at a scale approaching genius, but it is not true for a vast majority of students, even at the top end of the distribution. The difference between the 500 who get into a particular college and the next 5,000 is negligible. It is at most, as someone once put it, an aptitude for showing aptitude, perhaps not even that. Anyone who has served on admission committees knows that. If this is the case, why not go for a saner and fairer admission process which is a form of weighted lottery? Just as a crude example, a college where cut-offs might be 97 per cent could simply say: we will put anyone above 90 per cent into a lottery. The exact number is not important and would, of course, have to be arrived at with care. There will have to be consideration of what the thresholds are. We might also want to think of weighted systems: your probability becomes greater at different thresholds. These issues can be debated. But you get the general idea. What are the advantages of this system? First, it may cut down the neurosis induced by the quest for the marginal mark, a quest whose psychological and pedagogical consequences are debilitating. Being good enough is good enough, and that philosophy may allow for more creativity and diverse interests to flourish. Second, this is a more honest system. It says that we know how to make broad distinctions between students in different bands of achievement. But it is fooling both ourselves and the students to think that there are some objective criteria by which we have distinguished a 98 from a 98.5 per cent. Yet we have legitimised an entire system on this pretence. Third, it will completely bust this myth of meritocracy, in which we cloak happenstance. It is probably a healthier attitude for those who get in to recognise that there were hundreds, if not thousands, of kids who could easily have taken their place without a drop in quality. The sense of entitlement that a pure meritocracy induces is hugely deleterious. Fourth, you may actually end up with a more interesting mix of students. If designed well, there should be few pedagogical objections to the lotteries within bandwidths approach. The big resistance will come from those who have a stake in current institutional identities. Institutional reputations are bound to these circles of illusion: "X college is the best because its cut-off is 98 per cent, and the cut-off is 98 per cent because it is the best." Our investment in these illusory fine gradations does not come from pedagogic goals. It comes from the need to create and maintain social distinctions between colleges and among students. This scheme would not do away with such gradations entirely. Colleges will be able to sustain minimal cut-offs for the threshold, based on their quality. In fact, it might be healthier for truly distinguishing good colleges from less good ones. This is because the entire burden of quality signals will not be borne by the admission cut-offs only. To show they are genuinely good, colleges will have to do more than parade their cut-offs. This is not a one size fits all recommendation. There may be some courses where the finest distinctions matter to pedagogical outcomes. The Dutch apparently have such a system for admission to medical colleges. Different institutions should try different methods. We also need to have a larger debate on what we are testing for. We need a strategy for creating or improving vast numbers of good institutions. But as an approach to university admissions, this may not be unreasonable. Lotteries often militate against our sense of achievement and entitlement. But as the Greeks knew, lotteries can also be more honest and fair. This system has the advantage that if thresholds for eligibility are defined intelligently, this method does not compromise on excellence. But it does get rid of the neurosis that myths of pure meritocracy and illusory distinctions can produce.
Pratap Bhanu Mehta

IPL-7 MUMBAI FIRST WIN .

INDIAN PREMIER LEAGUE 7- MUMBAI OPENED THEIR ACCOUNT AND ROYALS STUNNED DELHI

Mumbai Indians opened their account defeating Punjab by five wickets on their home ground defending champs finally snapped their losing streak with their collective batting effort and their allrounder Kieron Pollard got winning runs from Punjab pace bowler Sandeep Sharma and he remained unconquered on 28 off 12 balls and put on 44 runs in only 14 balls unfinished sixth wicket with Aditya Tare (16 of 6 balls). Punjab opener Saha remained unbeaten 59 and Maxwell hit a brilliant 45 helped Punjab to reach 168 runs losing five wickets.
Rajasthan young batsman Karun Nair fashions in Clinical Chase with unbeaten 73 runs and helped Royals to win the match on Delhi Daredevils by seven wickets. Royals young opener Rahane was dismissed by Wayne Parnell in the their over of Rajasthan Chase of Delhi 152 but Nair didn't panic and on a slow Kotla wicket he assured Roayls win with his brilliant batting

SCORECARD

MUMBAI INDIANS 170 for 5 ( Rohit Sharma 39,Anderson 35,Gautam 33,Pollard 28*) beat KINGS XI PUNJAB 168 for 5 ( W.Saha 59*,Maxwell 45) by 5 wickets
RAJASTHAN ROYALS 156 for 3 (Nair 73*,Samson 34) beat DELHI DAREDEVILS 152 for 5 ( de Kock 42, Duminy 39, Tambe 2-25) by 7 wickets

IPL 2014- PUNJAB UNBEATABLE

INDIAN PREMIER LEAGUE7- KINGS XI Punjab Unbeatable

Once again Kings XI Punjab won by five wickets on Royal Challengers comfortably and seems they will become Champions in this IPL7. Chris Gayle finally made his first appearance in this IPL in an emphatic fashion and a dramatic action packed seven ball stay hitting 20 runs in the first over bowled by Glen Maxwell. But right arm Punjab seamer Sandeep Sharma given important break sending Chris Gayle , Virat Kolhli. For Royal Challengers , it all went downhill from there, managing a below-par 124 for 8 wickets in 20 overs. Kings were in danger of ailing to chase that middling total, before they hung on to win by five wickets and leave the desert nation (UAE) with their fifth straight win in as many games.

SCORECARD-

Royal Challengers Bangalore 124 for 8 ( Yuvraj 35,Sandeep 3-15) lost to Kings XI Punjab 127 for 5 ( Sehwag 32)

IPL 2014- MUMBAI STILL WINLESS LOST TO DELHI

INDIAN PREMIER LEAGUE 7- Mumbai Still Winless and Sunrisers went down by five wickets to Chennai

At Sharjah Mumbai Indians went down for their fourth defeat in a row after their batting misfired yet again. Mumbai batsman ones again failed to give a big target to Delhi and the biggest surprise in the Mumbai batting has been the absent form of the ultra-consistent Michael Hussey, and the plan to push Rohit Sharma to the top of the order in place of struggling Michael Hussey didn't work. Delhi Daredevils easily chased their target and Murali Vijay topscored with 40.

Other Match Chennai defeated Hyderabad by five wickets with three balls to spare at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium. Australian swing bowler Ben Hilfenhaus picked up top wickets of Warner and Shikhar Dhawan in his opening spell and finished his quota with 2-32. Chennai has no problems in chasing 146 runs for their fourth win in a row their openers Dwayne Smith and Brendon McCullum laid a solid foundation with their 85 run partnership in 10 overs. Smith hit 66 in 46 balls with four boundaries and 5 sixers and McCullum hit three fours and 2 sixers in his 40 runs.

Scorecard

Mumbai Indians 125 for 6 ( Pollard 33*,Unadkat 2-29) lost to Delhi Daredevils 126 for 4 ( Vijay 40,Malinga 2-17) by 6 wickets
Chennai Super Kings 146 for 5 ( Smith 66,McCullum 40) beat Sunrisers Hyderabad 145 for 5 (Finch 44,Mohit Sharma 2-27) by 5 wickets