Champions League Final between Chelsea - Bayern Munich : 19 May 2012

The exciting and fateful day finally arrives Sunday 19 May 2012 when Chelsea, the most unexpected team having reached the final of Champions League, meets Bayern Munich for the final show down.

When just before the quarterfinals, when everyone thought that either Real Madrid or Barcelona would make it to the final, the Blues dumped the 2-11 chapions Barcelona to make it to the finals. Bayern Munich, on the other hand, knocked out the Real Madrid to contest the Blues of the Champions League final.

Now that both Chelsea and Bayern Munich have made it to the final and come face to face on Sunday, many look for a surprise outcome of this showdown. However, if the London Blues win the Champions League, the win will grant them an automatic go through to next year's competition. This is something that the Spurs would never like as in such an eventaulity the Spurs, who finished in fourth spot in the Premier League, will be relegated to playing in the Europa League.

For the final, it is unfortunate that the Blues' captain Terry will not be playing on account of his red-card award in the semi final second leg against Barcelona. However, if Chelsea wins, he would be allowed to lift the silverware.

It may be noted that Chelsea knocked Bayern Munich out of the Champions League in the 2004/05 season. And may it also be said that this is the first final since 2007's game between Liverpool and AC Milan to not feature a league-winning side from their home country.

Probable Lineups:

Chelsea: Peter Cech, Ashley Cole, Michael Essien, Bosingwa, Frank Lampard, John MikelObi, Gary Cahill, Malouda, Salomon Kalou, Juan eyes, Didier Drogba.

Bayern Munich: Manuel Neuer, Jerome Boateng, Philipp Lahm, Rafinha, Franck Ribery, Arjen Robben, Anatoliy Tymoshchuk, Thomas Mueller, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Toni Kroos, Mario Gomez

The match will be palyed at the Munich's Allianz Arena on Sunday, 19 May 2012.

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West Indies vs England: Watch Live First Test (2nd Day of Play) at Lord's

The first day of the First Test between the visiting West Indies cricket team against host England Thursday at Lord's was perhaps a disaster for the visitors. Having won the toss, the hosts elected to field and put the visitors to bat and the decision to field spoke for itself.

At stumps on Day-1, the West Indies were almost finished and were at 243 with none of their players back into the pavillion.

Had it not been for Chanderpaul's resilience and maginfiecnt 87, the Windies would have been fielding right on the first day of the five days test match. 

SCJ Broad was the most deadly of the English bowlers, who bagged six wickets for 72 with six maiden overs. JM Anderson took two.

Friday, the Day-2 is not likely to add much to the Windies first day total and bring the hosts to bat. Would the Windies able to contain the English the same way the hosts did Thursday?

Let us watch the match today, that commences 10:00 GMT

The links for the free live streaming of the match are given HERE!!

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Mobile Phone Mania

My friend SAJ Shirazi is not happy the way I write. He says my blogs are too serious and “people” generally don’t read the stuff I write. So I sat back to find a subject that should interest the majority. Clueless from where to begin, I started surfing through my photo library to find a new topic - and suddenly the photo above ( that I shot while traveling in train ) struck me – “Mobile Phones” since everyone is after this small device day and night – whether on foot, bicycle, motorcycle, car or a truck, busy in digging into it as if oil will finally be discovered from within this magic thing.

I often see people talking for hours on this device as if no bills are to follow. Once I was sitting in the airport lounge and the Young man sitting next to me spoke with someone for good about 45 minutes and I could tell that in those 45 minutes, there wasn’t a single thing that merited such a long call. A recent survey shows that most of the users are from low income group, who spend a sizeable portion of their earnings on mobile phone cards.

Then I thought, that there must be something interesting in possessing this magical device, so I also bought one (courtesy my son who has all the knowledge about it). But buying the mobile wasn’t easy as my son (and my mentor on mobile technology) asked me hundreds of questions, most of which I did not understand. For instance which OS should the mobile possess – Windows based or Symbian technology.  Now how would an aging man know what’s the difference between the two. Then should it be 2G or 3G? GPS or WiFi or WLAN? And then as enough wasn’t enough. The next question was its memory status, choice of colours, screen size, conformity with MP3/MP4 and God knows how many formats. And not finally, what about the video capture and camera? And yet another: should it be touch screen or keypad operative.

Well this shows the amount of technology that has poured into our younger generation and how much digital have they become. So while I struggle to handle my new mobile phone, technology keeps on adding new features into these tiny yet very effective devices. And this just reminds me that how dependent we have actually become on our mobile phones as we no longer need to remember phone numbers of our near and dear ones by heart ( as we did in good old days when few people had phone and so was it easy to remember their numbers). Now even my Meat/Beef seller tells me to phone him before going to his shop, and so does my plumber, sweeper, vegetable shop wala and others ask me to get information about their whereabouts before looking for them.

More so, the mobile phone also has a camera, so no need to carry an additional load when attending marriages, conferences or going on vacation. It also acts as my timepiece to wake me up in the morning, serve as a calculator, or as a currency converter. And one last thing: I can send the SMS to anyone I feel like (on my phone list) and tell him anything I LIKE (whether he likes it or not – after all these are times of Freedom of Speech). 

So I enjoy its usefulness and nuisance fully now – I am digital too.

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