The Allegedly Unfair ICC Test Rankings

It's that time again. People find flaws in the ICC Ranking System every time it's India on top. 'There surely must be an error if India can be at the top' cries started doing rounds barely 5 minutes after Herath picked up his 13th wicket of the match to make it 3-0 in favour of Sri Lanka, toppling Australia down to 3rd in the rankings.

The New Rankings:

The Issue:

The concept of recent memories outweighing older ones, gives us an illusion that India don't deserve to be at the top of the table. Pakistan, with their 2-2 performance in England should be there.

The Real Picture:

The Rankings for the current period show Pakistan having played 25 Test Matches. Let's have a detailed look at these 25 most recent matches they've played. 

Here's how these 25 matches sum up:

• Pakistan have played 14 matches at Home (Yes, I'm committing to calling UAE their Home) and 6 more in Asia (Against Bangladesh, ranked 9th and Sri Lanka, ranked 6th).
• Out of the 14 Home Matches, Pakistan won 7 (50%).
• Out of 5 overseas matches, 1 was in Zimbabwe. And they LOST that one. To a team that is right at the bottom of the Rankings Table (Only 8 Ranking Points as opposed to Pakistan's 111).

Comparing that to the 20 matches India have played so far in this period, we get this -

Summing up:

• Overseas matches played outnumbered Home matches by a big margin. India played 16 Overseas matches in this period, winning 5 out of 16 matches.
• Only 4 out of the 20 matches were played at Home, with India winning all 4 of them.

Collecting the above summary and putting it together:

Pakistan:

• Outside Asia Wins/Matches: 2/5
• Asia Wins/Matches: 10/20

India:

• Outside Asia Wins/Matches: 3/12
• Asia Wins/Matches: 5/8

We can definitely argue that these two teams are too close to call for the top spot - the rankings depict that with just 1 Ranking Point separating them. 

But to say India don't deserve to be on top is not correct either, as the stats show.

The Water Tank

Imagine a town with only one water source - a huge concrete water tank, open from the top, and multiple ladders (with 20 steps each) to reach the top, placed all around it.

Person X shouts he's too weak to climb all the way and asks for a tap to be drilled next to his ladder at the first step's level.

Seeing this, Person Y (while climbing) says he wants a tap drilled at level 5 next to his ladder.

Person Z who was halfway up already by this time, looks down at these new provisions and asks for a tap drilled next to his ladder at level 10.

Other people persevere and climb all the way up to the top for the water, but by that time the water level has already gone considerably down due to all those taps being constructed at lower heights.

Our country is that town, with the water representing opportunities - be it for education, jobs, promotions, etc. The ladders are the paths we take, with each step signifying increased effort than the previous ones. And yes, I don't think I need to mention what X, Y and Z represent.

We're all familiar with what's going on around us. And it's not only happening now, been a part of our system for decades. Just think of the consequences it has had in the past, and the kind of perils it poses for the future.

Be sensible, stop herding in flocks for different reservations. I fear the word "General" might actually be the "Minority" some day, and "Hardworking" may be an attribute which is laughed at.

Behind The Scenes - AAP Headquarters

It’s the result day. There is just one place to be today – the AAP headquarters. The volunteers deserve the coverage they are getting, the candidates and the leadership come out smiling to give the expected “aam-aadmi ki jeet” bytes.

As they catch their breath, their national convenor calls the important men inside to begin work – yes, you read it right – WORK! They are, after all, the party with a difference.

Ashutosh: Congrachulashuns Sir! We difitted BJP! You are CM of the Delhi.

AK: Relax Ashu, relax. Leave the celebrations to until we’re in front of the cameras. It’s time to work now. Someone get me our Manifesto.

*Some frantic searching around until a voice booms*

Raghav Chaddha: SIR! I DON’T THINK WE HAVE ANY COPIES LEFT! WE THOUGHT IT WAS JUST PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL, AND GOT RID OF IT ON THE DAY OF POLLING!

AK: Salim ji, you see what kind of people we have here? And Raghav, I told you to save your shouting for The Newshour.

*Silence in the room for 5 minutes*

Yogendra Yadav: Oh, you were talking to me! I totally forgot about that Salim card I played during the Lok Sabha Elections.

AK: Please people. We don’t have much time before we’re asked questions. Let’s concentrate on work. Someone find the tweet we all posted with the manifesto and read the first point.

Raghav Chaddha: I found one from the 2013 elections lying outside.

AK: Never mind, it was all the same. Bring that one and start reading out point by point.

Raghav Chaddha: Free water for all citiz…

AK: Salim ji, write down – “BJP led Haryana Government not releasing enough water to reach Delhi” against point number 1.

Prashant Bhushan: Are they not?

AK: Do we care? Next point, Raghav.

Raghav Chaddha: Electricity at half the…

AK: Salim ji, you already know this one, right? Ambani, power control, BJP agent and all.

Yogendra Yadav: Yes sir! This excuse is my favourite, memorised it by now.

Ashutosh: Sir jeenius. What about the new point this time - about wife?

AK: Not wife, WiFi you fool! But valid question. How do we evade that promise?

Ashish Khaitan: Sir I think we can conduct an SMS Survey and prove that most people don’t need it. Anyways most people just open a few top known sites.

Somnath Bharti: HOW DARE YOU REMIND EVERYONE OF TOP SITES?

AK: Not your Top Sites domain, Waqeel Sahab. He meant places at high altitude where WiFi signals are stronger. Leave that to me. 3 should be good enough for now, we’ll prepare the next set of excuses after a while. Everybody split to different news channels. Show out the ‘V’ with your fingers like I taught you last week. And don’t forget to thank Bedi ji. 

DISCLAIMER - This conversation may not (or may?) have actually happened. Reader discretion is advised as in the past, certain groups of people have been known to take offense to anything said against The Mufflerman (The name scares me now!). He's the hero Swaraj City (potentially the new name of Delhi) required as per the mandate. And though it's hot enough here to even wear a pullover, I will say - May The Muffler Never Come Off !

Is Your Data Really Yours ?

I stumbled upon the Location History feature offered by Google, clearly less advertised as their other services - and it made me realise that the data generated by our devices is way more than we think, and is stored by hardware/app providers in a manner that is surprising, to say the least.

Location History is a tool to track all the places you've been with your Android Device, with timestamps - plotting your movement without you even knowing. Ofcourse it may have been designed to help you track your position at a particular date and time, but the perils of this data going to someone else are big.

Here's how it plots your movement:

All this, along with the associated time lines, can be viewed by anyone who can access your phone for a few minutes, or someone who knows your Gmail credentials.


Apple users can now stop smiling - Apple devices sync your location data as well to the cloud.


And technically, we are the ones who authorise all this. Remember the long "Terms and Conditions" page at the device startup screen to which we 'agree' without reading, such things are slotted in there somewhere in the small print.


I couldn't help but wonder what the consequences of this might be - if not now, then maybe a decade down the line. And it looks pretty vulnerable to me. What do you guys think ?

The Largest Democratic Mandate

The 2014 Lok Sabha Elections were quite historic – in more than one way. We saw the first non-Congress party to take majority on its own, the Congress being reduced to its worse MP count despite coming out of 2 terms in power, and even in terms of the large voter percentage, considerably higher than ever before. However, it was also the first time people saw the emergence of a new Political outfit that was born out of the Anti-Corruption movement. With lots and lots of words, and very little ground results to show, it ended up winning only 4 seats – all in the state of Punjab.

You must have seen the analysis going on all around the media with the figures of vote-shares and victory-margins and all the fancy stuff. But here are a few things that I could not find anywhere – neither on TV, nor across the social media. So I’ve decided to write and illustrate about some statistics that really surprised me when comparing the performances of the big players.

SEATS CONTESTED v/s SEATS WON

First of all, the most shocking statistic I stumbled upon while reading through the Election Results was the number of candidates fielded by the major national parties [With more than 400 seats contested]. 

 

There by, the win-contested percentages of these 4 stack out to be as follows:

• BJP - 66.04%
• INC - 9.52%
• AAP - 0.94%
• BSP - 0%

 

LOST DEPOSITS

I was just wondering how the party which talks the most about utilizing funds effectively, ended up losing the maximum amount with minimal results to show for it.

First of all, it really surprised me that they chose to contest from 434 seats in their first Lok Sabha Elections (7 seats more than BJP’s tally).

The security deposit amount in this year’s election was Rs. 25,000/- per candidate per seat, refundable only if the candidate secured a sixth or more number of votes polled in the constituency.

Here’s how the stats shape out for parties having lost deposits over 80 or more seats.

 

Though CPI(M) tops this one having lost their deposit on 80 out of the 81 seats they contested, AAP Candidates lost their deposits in a staggering 413 seats out of the 434 they contested.

If we go into the quantification of this stat, Deposit for 413 seats = 413 x 25,000 = Rs. 1,03,25,000/- which comes to over a Crore worth of money lost in deposits by a single party!

VICTORY MARGINS

While the BJP dominated the majority of victory margins across the country with 36 candidates featuring in the list of top 50 margins of victory, they also had 2 out of 5 in the smallest margins list as well.

Constituency	Winning Candidate	Trailing Candidate	Margin(Votes)
Ladakh (J&K)	T Chhewang (BJP)	Ghulam Raza (Ind.)	36
Mahasamund (Chattisgarh)	CL Sahu (BJP)	Ajit Jogi (INC)	1217
Raichur (Karnataka)	BV Nayak (INC)	AS Nayak (BJP)	1499
Lakshwadeep	Md. Faizal PP (NCP)	H Sayeed (INC)	1535
Hingoli (Maharashtra)	RS Satav (INC)	WS Bapurao	1632

And just as I was about to post, I have come to stumble upon the news that AK has just conjured up a colossal drama once again in Delhi. With the Delhi Elections coming up, no wonder ...

Sources:

http://eciresults.nic.in

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_general_election,_2014

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahujan_Samaj_Party

http://www.aamaadmiparty.org/faq-contesting-for-lok-sabha-election