T20 - a game of luck or talent

This was saved in my drafts.

In the first half of 20th century, cricket meant playing a game with bat and ball for five long days. Teams used to have a strategy which they used to implement based on the proceedings and change it at times, if needed during those tensed five days. Though there were only a few results, it was supposed to be the best showcase of talent of the individuals as well as the team as a whole.

Then came the ODI era which compresses the time required to 20% and halved the number of innings. It surely increased the entertainment among the audience. As far as players were concerned, though talent was still key to most of the matches, there were a few innings which was commanded by the blind slog of the bowlers. As the time progressed and the rules were changed to suit the batsmen, the talent got covered up by the ability to hit the ball harder and more frequently. Then, powerplays made it necessary to have two slots of hard hittings in an innings. It became more interesting.

This advancement led to the yet again compression of the game. this time, it was compressed to 40% of the time, keeping the innings same and a brand new name Twenty20, rightly as they had 20 overs in each innings. This again braught more hard hittings and much more entertainment; not to mention the huge amount of money which converted it to business from a mere sports event.

As far as luck vs talent fight of T20 cricket is concerned, it varies from more talent to more luck as we advance from Tests to T20 games. Unlike in a Test match wherein a team needs to play persistently well throughout a span of five days, in ODIs its a matter of a day and in T20s just a few hours. As the testing time decreases the requirement of pure talent to cope up with demanding situation decreases and the requirement of blind hitting increases. Its true that even in a game of 20 overs a side, the more talented players will play better and should win. But here comes the deal- whatif its just an odd time for that talented player?

Health

Health, nowadays, is one of the important factors considered in most aspects of life. The normal trend,especially among girls, is that if a person is overweight, he's straightaway discarded. Over-eating is the major reason consiidered to be behind putting on unwanted weight. I don't suppport that view. Let us consider this for a while.

Today, I read a few articles by Raj Bapna. In one of his articles about health, he mentions, two times noble prize winner Dr. Linus Pauling's book "How to Live Longer and Feel Better" and its content about the daily intake of vitamins and minerals.

Vitamins	Minerals
Vitamin C 1-18 g Vitamin E 800 IU Vitamin A 20,000-44,167 IU Vitamin K none Vitamin D 800 IU Thiamine, B1 50-100 mg Riboflavin, B2 50-100 mg Niacinamide, B3 300-600 mg Pyridoxine, B6 50-100 mg Cobalamin, B12 0.1-0.2 mg Folacin 400-800 mg Pantothenic acid 100-200 mg	Calcium 100 mg Iron 18 mg Iodine 0.15 mg Copper 1 mg Magnesium 25 mg Manganese 3 mg Zinc 15 mg Molybdenum 0.015 mg Chromium 0.015 mg Selenium 0.015 mg

I don't know which all are the factors Dr. Pauling considered when he was preparing this list. I believe all these depends on the various environmental conditions and the physical capabilities of a person. If I and my thinner friend Abhishek take these stuffs in accurate amounts, I don't think we both will be equally benefited by it.

An alternate solution can be deciding a set of rules (probably using a software) which can take all the important variables required to calculate the amount of intake of vitamins and minerals per day to give an approximate result and then let them approach the accuracy through routine experiments, consultations and wide research. By doing so, they will not only remove the inconsistency among various individuals but can also get deeper into the matters related to health.

Let me tell you, even after considering all these issues there will be few things which you cant consider - heredity. As I have seen and experienced over the years, it plays a decisive role in deciding the health and overall structure of one's body. I can give you a very good example in me. I deny neither the fact that I am overweight nor that I am pretty energetic, fit, healthy and free from diseases. They do seem to be contrasting in nature, they definitely are. The explanation is where the heredity comes into the picture. Its not that I havn't tried dieting or exercising or running in the morning or playing. I have tried all of them, more or less consistently for a period of time. I have seen the changes too, but then they were not worth it. My entire family is like that - extremely energetic, somewhat in the fitter side, not having the regular diseases (irregular diseases are definitely there, but not to a large extent), healthy look but slightly overweight. So am I. That, in no way, should mean that we are not among fit and healthy people.

Luckily, today I went through one more article, this time published in Times Of India. Just check here. According to the research, the persons who has a BMI of 25-30 at the age of 40 has the more possibility of living longer. Well, I am not a great fan of the researches carried out like this (considering a bunch of people and coming to a conclusion), but astonished by the fact that this time it may be correct! As the article has rightly pointed out in the end, that shouldn't mean that one can put on a lots of weight (somewhere around that 26 mark, where I belong to [;)]) just to live a year longer. Anyway, "the link between physique and life expectancy is not clearly understood" (again rightly pointed out by the article). So, we shouldn't be too wary of the overweight factor till one stop feelling fit and healthy himself/herself.

I do agree that being overweight means having comparatively more physical trouble than an average person in real life, especially in the old age. But then, in no way it should mean that overweight people should be discarded when any day-to-day thing is considered. They may seem to be doing something lazily but it may be just an illusion. Personally, I have been in situations where me, being overweight, did matter to others where it didn't matter to me. Thats the only difference it really makes.

P.S. - This blogs doesn't intend to encourage those having overweight to increase it further. It doesn't even demeans them who are in the better side of it. This blog just aims to clear the conception in few people who think that the over-weight people have some serious health problems or they have come from some suoernatural world. It is also aimed at those persons who has a wrong notion that over-weight means over-eating. Beyond that, If I have written anything which hurts the sentiments of anyone, I would like to say that I was just sharing my views. And then, comments are always welcome...