Akshat Verma

Cricket | Tech | Finance

[Caught At Silly Point @atsillypoint]

Don Bradman owns one record nobody has seriously threatened since 1948. Kumar Sangakkara died with his bat on its doorstep, one double century short, and kept being turned away in the 190s. On this day, that man played his final day of Test cricket.

Eleven years ago at the P Sara Oval, India's players formed a guard of honour, Ashwin found his edge for 18, and Test cricket lost the closest thing it has produced to the Don's appetite. Bradman made twelve double centuries. Sangakkara made eleven, more than Lara, more than Tendulkar, more than every other batter in nearly 150 years of the game, and the margin should have been his. He kept arriving at the doorstep of 200 and being refused entry, never more cruelly than at Hobart in 2007, given out for 192 to a decision still argued about. No record in cricket has been guarded by fewer runs, and no batter since Bradman has lived in the 200s the way Kumar Sangakkara did.

And the terrifying part is that half his career was played with a handicap. For 48 Tests, Sri Lanka asked their best batter to also keep wicket, and he gave them an average of 40 while doing two jobs. The day the gloves came off, the same man averaged 66.78 across 86 Tests with 31 hundreds, and he finished at 57.40 overall, the best average of anyone in history with 10,000 Test runs. We file him beside Gilchrist and Boucher out of habit. The wicketkeeping was the only thing that ever kept him mortal.

Even ageing couldn't slow him properly. Batters are supposed to decline sharply after 34. At 37, in 2014, Sangakkara produced the greatest year any international cricketer has ever had, a record 2,868 runs across formats, past Ponting's 2,833, becoming only the fifth man ever, after Richards, Chappell, Lara and Ponting, to top the Test and ODI run charts in the same year. At Chittagong that February he made 319 and 105 in the same match, a feat only Graham Gooch had ever managed, his 424-run aggregate falling 32 short of Gooch's all-time record for a single Test.

[Kanan Bahl @BahlKanan]

IRDAI has banned Niva Bupa from opening any branches for the next 6 months.

Why? Because they paid too much in commissions*.

Niva Bupa had one of the lowest Claim Settlement Ratios at 92.4% in the industry.

When your reputation is going down, you have to pay more commissions to sell your product.

Niva Bupa paid 21.8% in commission as a %age of their net premiums.

This is too high for a health insurer because the renewals generally carry 5-10% commissions. So on a blended basis, 21.8% is too high.

*Simplifying this for the broader audience. EOM hit crossed the threshold.

[Caught At Silly Point @atsillypoint]

Greatest t20i inning ever? Lasith Malinga had never been hit for more than one six in a T20 innings by anybody. That night Marlon Samuels hit him for five. Malinga went for 54 off four overs, the worst figures of his entire T20 international career, and 39 of those runs came off eleven balls to one man. Only the real ones know how magnificent that innings was.

Look at where West Indies actually were. Fourteen for two after the powerplay, the fourth-worst score at that stage in the history of T20 internationals. Thirty-two for two after ten overs, the fifth-worst. Chris Gayle, of all people, had defended his way to 3 off 16. Samuels himself was 26 off 37. In a World Cup final, against the best bowling attack in the tournament, on a surface Cricinfo called among the tackiest and trickiest produced.

Then he hit the first six, and the press box glass at the Premadasa is thick enough to shut out a full house, and they felt it anyway.

He had planned it. Samuels said afterwards that he had already played Malinga in his mind the night before, so he decided to take him on. And in the 13th over Malinga went for five yorkers, nailed two, and missed the other three by a combined distance of about a foot. Samuels, sitting deep in his crease, hit two of them over the leg side and one over extra cover.

West Indies scored 105 in the last ten overs, which was more than Sri Lanka managed in their entire innings. Ajantha Mendis took 4 for 12 in that final and it counted for nothing. Eight sixes were hit in the whole match and Samuels hit six of them. He made 78 out of a team total of 137.

Cricinfo called it simply the best Twenty20 international innings ever seen, and a reader called it the 281 of T20 cricket, which is about right.

It is a shame T20 was not celebrated much back then. The occasion, the opposition, the circumstances, and a man who had decided the night before that he was going after the best death bowler alive.

What a spectacle it must have been.

[babu bisleri @baabuOP]

What Madhya Pradesh thinks today, world thinks day after tomorrow

[I. @Heisenberghive]

Wait till you see this

[Cricinfo @cricinfo]

Ricky Ponting is worried about the future of ODI cricket 😰

[Akshat Verma @_vermaakshat_]

@shwetaxdesign Better to use a different WhatsApp number not registered on these sites

[Pranjal @Pranjal_one8]

Ambulance Blinkit se aa Rahi..
Nadi Nale Bittu Tabahi saaf kar Raha..
To govt kya kar rahi he?

[THE SKIN DOCTOR @theskindoctor13]

I'm sure the Delhi govt will soon order a structural audit of all old buildings.

That’s just how the sarkari system works. Pul gir gaya, order bridge audit. Aag lag gayi, order fire audit. School ki chhat gir gayi, order school structural audit. Dawai se bachhe mar gaye, order pharma companies audit. Prevention ka system hi nahi hai. Sarkari kaam balidaan maangta hai.

But the irony is, kaam balidaan ke baad bhi nahi hota. All these knee-jerk audit drives become yet another opportunity for the sarkari naukars to earn more. "Oopar se pressure hai" bol kar they demand more and let the defaulters continues to operate unabated.

[Chirag Barjatya @chiragbarjatya]

PGs and Hostels all over the country are in these conditions because there is a false narrative since ages that the more difficulties you study in, the damp room, the broken ventilation, 1 inch thicker mattress, the black mold in the washroom and the 2g protein mess food, the more you will excel in studies because 'struggle cannot be done in good facilities'.

You can't even ask your guardians or parents for better humane facilities because 'aish karne gaya hai ya padai karne' is the first dialogue.

Glorification of the struggle is ONE of the biggest reason why you see kids dying in random building collapse, hostel food, live electrocution and floods.

[Ravisutanjani @Ravisutanjani]

🚨 RuPay Credit Cards Need Govt Support

Many Merchants Have Disabled RuPay CC

Because They Have To Pay Transaction Fee

Defeats Whole Purpose of Credit Cards on UPI

[Ravisutanjani @Ravisutanjani]

🚨 RBI Imposed ₹26.82 Lakh Penalty on CIBIL

TransUnion CIBIL Didn't Comply with RBI Norms

CIBIL Failed To Credit The Compensation Amount Timely To Eligible Complainants

RBI is One of The Finest Regulators in India

More Govt Department Should Learn From Them

[Chirag Barjatya @chiragbarjatya]

Don’t do this. Don’t drink ghee like this. I know many people who passed away next morning because of this. It causes a gall bladder contraction that can cause severe issues. These people are poor they see ghee they go crazy because generational poverty makes them think (subconsciously) that they won’t get to see ghee again.

[Devanshu Dhandhal @mrtechpedia]

India was revolutionized exactly 10 years ago today.

Every youtuber has food on their plate because of this 😅

For the first time our nation witnessed what internet actually is.

Before this I used to download football YT videos but after this it was 0 buffering.

But all this was long ago, we all know what it looks like now 💸

[Gems Of Replies @GemsOfReplies]

X is the best social media app for a reason 😂

[Sam Altman @sama]

I wonder how many people will have fallen in love with an AI chatbot by 2026.

[Ranjit @geekyranjit]

Was looking at the product page of the Pixel 11 Pro fold on @Flipkart

Don't get it How can Flipkart give such wrong specs for the device and the spelling mistakes? God damn, you are the official seller, and such a big e-commerce portal!

Pixel 11 Pro fold triple-camera setup is 48 MP, 10.8 MP (5x zoom), and 10.5 MP Just get the specs right.

[Rohit Juglan @rohitjuglan]

Duniya Rohit vs Agarkar samjh rahi hai. Dikkat kinhi or do logon main hai

[Sameer Allana @HitmanCricket]

Ishant Sharma was considered a poor bowler but Edgbaston gave him his moment of fame that too in the grand finale of Champions Trophy.

Then a few months later, James Faulkner happened. Australia needed 54 off 24 balls and Ishant conceded 30 runs in an over. He became the overnight villain and wasn’t spared by any troll.

Come NZ Tour, he bowled exceptionally picking fifers in both Tests. Then at Lord’s, England were 173/4 and cruising to victory with the target being 319.

Ishant came up with the short ball that surprised Moeen Ali and he was gone on the last ball before lunch. The tactic continued and he picked seven wickets.

Ishant Sharma was never the same bowler again. He went on to lead India’s pace attack, became one of India’s fast bowling greats and the statistics are a proof of that.

Till 2013: 149 wickets in 53 Tests at 38.81 avg
Since 2014: 162 wickets in 52 Tests at 26.5 avg

[𝗬𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗲𝗿 @ImYorker93]

The problems we have: SL’s Nos. 9, 10 and 11 survived a whole fkin day against our Test team. We’re below Bangladesh in Tests, we got whitewashed by Ireland, no backup of Bumrah and Pandya for the 2027 WC, Captain Gill is yet to win any ODI series except against Afg, and the coach and selectors have flopped.

The problems they will discuss: