Tillway Talk

 It's time to move forward from the WTC defeat. In my pre-match analysis of the teams, I had said that New Zealand had a slight edge, because: 1. Their openers were better equipped to bat out England  2. Their pace attack was comparatively better. To add to this, New Zealand had a two-test warm-up series in England. This helped them get acclimatized and discover their best combination for the final.  The only area where India had the clear advantage was in the spin department. Ashwin and Jadeja were far better than Ajaz Patel, the Mumbai-born left arm spinner who plays for Yorkshire. But the rain, the weather and the pitch ensured that they had minimal impact. Ashwin did take 4 wickets in the match, but Jadeja went wicketless. New Zealand did not even bother to include Patel in the playing XI. One more thing  which went against India is Bumrah's lack of luck or form.  He had not been that effective after his back surgery.  In the final, he didn't take a sin...

  It is not often that a cricket match is remembered more for a decision taken by the umpire rather than the performances of the players on the field. Bombay has witnessed at least three such test matches, where the umpire is remembered even today: 1. In 1948-49, the West Indies was the first team to tour independent India. The first three tests ended in draws, but West Indies won the fourth at Madras by an innings. The last Test was played at the Brabourne Stadium in Feb 1949. India needed to win this test to draw the series. They were set a target of 361 to win. On the final morning, Rusi Modi and Vijay Hazare batted out of their skins.   Modi fell for 86 and Hazare was 6th out at 285. At that point, India needed 76 runs.  However, a lion-hearted  Dattu Phadkar batted with the tail as India inched towards the target. West Indies  resorted to blatant time wasting tactics. In those days,  there was no restriction on the use of bouncers per over, and no...

Today is the 76th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe.  On  May 7, 1945, Germany unconditionally surrendered to the Allies in Reims, France, ending the Third Reich. This marked the end of thee bloodiest war the world had ever seen. Its perpetrator, Adolf Hitler, the German Fuehrer, allegedly committed suicide on 30th April 1945 in s Berlin  bunker. Hitler led a charmed life. He had miraculously escaped death on the Western Front during WW I at least twice. During the second World War, there were at least six assassination attempts on him, but he survived all of them. It has been widely reported that Hitler did not die in 1945, but escaped to Argentina in a German submarine, where he lived out the test of his life. He supposedly passed away in 1962, three years before his nemesis Winston Churchill. Be that as it may, Hitler led Germany to a sphinx-like revival after a bitter defeat in the first World War. However, he plunged the nation into another great war, ...

There is great  euphoria in Bengal about the victory of the Trinamool Congress - the Grassroots Congress Party.  Winning Bengal would have been a big step for the BJP.  Under British rule, there used to be a saying -  what Bengal thinks today, India  will think tomorrow.  However, this does not alter the fact that there is no credible challenge to the Bhartiya Janata Party, the so-called Indian People's Party,  at the national level in India. The country has seen such victories time and again at the state level since 2014, when Modi came to power as Prime Minister. The  BJP has lost elections in the non-Hindi speaking states. But it continues its vice-like grip on the cow-belt - the Hindi heartland. Ii is also in power in Karnataka  - the only South Indian state where it has a footing - and in quite a few North-Eastern states. The BJP is currently in power in twelve states, and shares power in six  other states in coalition with regional...

Remembering Baloo Palwankar, one of India's finest cricketers, on his birth anniversary. He is considered to be one of the greatest cricketers in Indian cricket history. Baloo Palwankar, the left-arm orthodox spinner who could turn the bow both ways with immaculate accuracy, was probably the greatest Indian cricketer of the early 20th century. He was the first person of the Dalit community to make a significant mark in the world of sports and was also a political activist. Palwankar Baloo was born on 19th March 1876 in Dharwad, Bombay Presidency, British India. Born as the eldest of four brothers, Baloo had the good fortune of having a father who had enlisted in the British Indian Army as a sepoy in the 112th Infantry Regiment. Growing up, Baloo and his brothers played cricket with equipment left behind by officers stationed in Pune. For many, joining the army offered temporary relief from the oppressive caste hierarchies, and a shot at a decent livelihood. In 1892, the Poona Club ...

Remembering one of India's most distinguished chemists on his birth anniversary.  T R  Seshadri was an Indian chemist, academic, writer and the Head of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Delhi, known for his research on Indian medicinal plants. He was nominated for the Chemistry Nobel Prize in 1966. The Government of India awarded him the third highest civilian honour - the Padma Bhushan - in 1963, for his contributions to Science. Biography Seshadri was born on 3 February 1900 at Kulithalai, an ancient village with history dating back to the Cholas of the 9th century,  in the present-day Karur district of  Tamil Nadu.  His  father was a school teacher. After his high school studies,  he  joined Presidency College, Madras in 1917 for his BSc studies  which he  completed in 1920 with financial assistance from the Ramakrishna Mission. After graduation, he worked with the Mission for a year, but continued his studies at Presid...

Remembering one of India's most famous scientists on his birth anniversary: Satyendra Nath Bose (1 January 1894 – 4 February 1974) was an Indian mathematician  and physicist specialising in theoretical physics. He is best known for his work on quantum mechanics in the early 1920s, collaboration with Albert Einstein in developing the foundation for Bose–Einstein statistics and the theory of the Bose–Einstein condensate. A Fellow of the Royal Society, he was awarded India's second highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan in 1954 by the Government of India. He was also nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physics.  The class of particles that obey Bose–Einstein statistics, bosons, was named after Bose by Paul Dirac. A polymath, he had a wide range of interests in varied fields including physics, mathematics,  chemistry, biology, mineralogy, philosophy, literature, and music. He served on many research and development committees in sovereign India. Early Life: Bose was born in...