5 moments which gave us the hope in 90’s that there is Indian cricket beyond Sachin. False hopes.

1. Abhay Kuruvilla :

Possibly the tallest player to play for India at 6'6", With his well endowed physique he gave us the hope that we have finally moved from lanky bowlers like Prasad and Srinath and we now have an answer to Ambrose and Walsh. He gave us the hope that we can check speedometer values during Indian Bowling sessions as well. I remember him taking long strides in his run up, come running towards the bowling end and bowling. At the speed of 125kmph. This was an end to our hopes of an express bowler. 

Though during his 1996-97 West Indies tour, Kuruvilla emerged as a key figure in the Indian attack and a haul of 5 for 68 in the second innings of the third Test at Bridgetown set up a winning position for India, but Sachin failed and the other batsmen contrived to throw it away and along with it the hope of a long career for him. 

2. Nilesh Kulkarni

This tall (6'4") and lanky player from Dombivili, a suburb in Mumbai, etched a name for himself in the history books by taking a wicket with his first ball in Test cricket. This was against Sri Lanka at Colombo in 1997-98. He is the only Indian bowler to achieve this feat and the 12th bowler in the history of the game. Finally we got a bowler beyond Kapil in the record books of bowling. That was cool. 

He bowled 70 overs but amazingly enough that was the only Test wicket he took for he had the misfortune to bowl when the Sri Lankan batsmen set several records in running up the highest total in Tests. Read 952 runs in an inning.

3. Hrishikesh Kanitkar:

Hrishikesh Kanitkar's name will forever be linked with his winning boundary off Saqlain Mushtaq in fading light in India's memorable victory over Pakistan at Dhaka in January 1998, when the team chased a 300-plus target in the Independence Cup final. We thought that we have got a finisher, an all-rounder. A very rare commodity back then. Rarer than a keeper who could bat or opener who could touch the ball.

But this however, was the only highlights of his international career, which included two Tests and 34 one-day internationals. 

4. Vijay Bharadwaj:

Coming into the national side on the back of a 1000-run domestic season, Vijay Bharadwaj was supposed to be Indian cricket's next big thing. His debut series - the LG Cup at Nairobi in 1999-2000 - suggested that there was substance behind the hype, as he took 10 wickets at 12.2 and scored 65 runs without being dismissed and was Man of the series. We were confident that he would be the person to share load of expectations with Sachin.

But a disappointing tour of Australia saw him become yesterday's news. He proved to be  a second Narendra Hirwani or Vinod Kambli.

5. Ajay Ratra :

 When Ajay Ratra gritted 115 not out in Antigua in 2002, he became the youngest wicketkeeper to score a Test century and the second Indian wicketkeeper to make one overseas. He was just 20 and it was only his third Test. Now we had a wicketkeeper who doesn’t get run out and scores century. That too in West Indies. Best possible thing that could happen to Indian cricket Period. 

This was supposed to be a long journey but later he lost his place in the Test side to Parthiv Patel, and in the one-day side to the appointment of Rahul Dravid as keeper in the quest for balance.

Right to Free Quality Education

It takes me great pleasure to introduce Edunetworking to you. 

Edunetworking is on a mission to provide free access to quality education for each and every child of this nation. We believe that the ‘Right to Education’ is an essential birthright.. To accomplish our mission, we have started ‘Edunetworking’, a non-profit initiative in the educational sector, initially targeting the 7th— 10th grades in India.

We have created an extensive library of over 2000 videos meticulously prepared by experienced teachers, covering most of the 7th—10th grade topics on various subjects including Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Mental Ability, Social Science and English. This library of videos has been uploaded on ‘www.edunetworking.com’ which can be accessed by anyone, free of cost, to learn what they want, when they want and at their own pace. This library can also be equally beneficial to aspiring and existing teachers working in high-schools, as well as to volunteers dedicated to spreading education amongst economically and socially deprived children.

With the advent of the Information Technology age, education has gone digital. We therefore made a conscious decision to spread the cause of education in a digital format keeping the future in mind. Our idea has received overwhelming support from many teachers who voluntarily devoted their time, experience and knowledge to creating these videos. We are committed to improving the quality of our video library on a regular basis. We are now focussing on widening the lecture content to incorporate topics for 2nd—6th grades as well as 11th—12th grades.

We understand that it is very difficult, if not impossible; to reach out to economically deprived classes with only web-content. Nevertheless, as we embark on our objective to provide free education to the nation we hope that our tiniest step in the direction towards the mission of ‘Right to Education’ would translate into several miles for the nation and eventually achieve the dream of a 100% literate and employed India.

To expand the reach of Edunetworking to children who do not have access to school, we need the support of as many people as possible. We would like your help in promoting Edunetworking to the masses. We want to reach out to students, teachers, parents and NGOs in the educational sector to make our dream of a literate India a reality. We hope that you will help us in achieving our objective.

 We look forward to hearing from you.

http://www.isb.edu/idiya/