First of all , let me clarify, I don’t drive. So you can flame me for speaking shit without doing it. Ok that apart, I always wondered why people (especially Indians) get a Manual transmission car. Some say its easier, some like to be in control, others say its more fuel efficient.
But is the stick really worth it. I mean, to me it looks like ’stone-age-ish’. If you are driving in a traffic, half of the time you are fiddling with it. People say manual transmission gives better acceleration. I dont see how thats true. Every time I look, the first bikes to speed off a signal are the ones with Automatic transmission(Honda Activa for example). Buy the time you you hit the first gear, and release the clutch in slowmo, you are already wasted 3 seconds of your life in something that could be done so much better.

With the stick comes the awful clutch. You want to start the car, hit the clutch. U want to switch gears, hit the clutch, Brake, again hit the clutch. What the heck? the only thing that works without a clutch is accelerating, Oh hold on, u have to release the clutch slowly for that. Have you imagined how much time and more importantly brain time you lose.

In cities like Pune you hit a signal every 300 meters. Your car/bike easily reaches second gear by then, u have to manually bring it down to stop. Ain’t that the job for the car/bike to manage. You are paying good amount of money for your vehicle, whats the point if you cant drive it with fun.

Yes i agree Manual transmission saves fuel, but automatic transmission has really matured in the past few years. The max difference you can get on fuel saving is 10% under any conditions. 10% ? I think its a small price to pay for the comfort.
Maybe its just India. 80% of the cars in US and Europe are Automatic . Like everything in India , price always comes before comfort. Automatic is normally priced higher that Manual.
I am a system admin, I have to automate many of my daily tasks into scripts. Even though i don’t get optimal results from them, they save me a lot of time, to concentrate on stuff that are important. To me Automatic transmission is the future. My first car is going to be Automatic transmission. fullstop.


Here’s a funny video I found when I was researching on the topic.

Did the wall crack, did dravid really step down because he could not handle the pleasure ? I wont believe that. Everybody knows how tough he is. People have accused him of not being aggressive. How do you then define aggressive. I was though Mahatma Gandhi was aggressive.

Is removing shirt in safety of dressing room aggressiveness? or facing attacking bowling an agressiveness? or declaring one self unfit after seeing green top wicket aggressiveness?

Saurav Ganguly matches captained 147 Matches won 76 Win percentage 51 %
Wins against quality oppositions Aus 4 Eng 7 NZ 6 Pak 7 SA 7 SL 6 WI 8 total 46 Win percentage quality oppositions drops to 31 %

Rahul Dravid matches captained 73 Matches won 39 Win percentage 53 %
Wins against quality oppositions Aus 1 Eng 6 Pak 5 SA 4 SL 8 WI 8 Total 32 Win percentage quality oppositions drops to 43 %

Why this halla Hoo..? Both are excellent record In fact percentage of win against minnows is more in case of Saurav Ganguly and percentage of win against stronger teams is more in case of Dravid. But ganguly obviously played more matches as captain.

Still I believe Saurav makes a better aggressive captain than dravid. Dravid is not agressive by nature, and cricket has changed. But I will no way criticize dravid, he is a unique player and one of the best that has lived my generation.
Ask a bowler and he will tell you, if there is a cricker with 0 weekness its Dravid.
His stats don’t say the number of times he has stood up for the Indian team when needed, Ask any player and they will tell you how much India depends on Dravid, because stats say India loses early wickets every 1.6 of 3 times it plays.
Dravid was given the captaincy when Sorav was ‘kicked’ out of the Indian team for horrible performance. Sachin was not ready to take captaincy. His tenure was supposed to end with the England tests and it has. India saw a lot of young guys stabilise during his tenure, unlike Sorav’s tenure where in every match we saw new guys pulled and kicked out of the team.
I would like to see India under a young captain, instead of guys who we dont know will last till the next world cup. I dont know who the next captain will be, but I am damm sure, he will face a lot a criticism and also praise. Thats how Indian Cricket has been for 75 years and that’s the way we love it!!

To sum up, here’s Dravid’s and Ganguly’s most remembered performances.

Rahul Dravid :
Tests

* Dravid has been involved in the most century partnerships in Test history – 65 (May 2007)
* Dravid has the second highest Test batting average among those who have scored over 9,000 Test runs (May 2007) [23]
* Scored nearly 23% of the total runs put up by India (with a batting average of 102.84) in the 21 Test matches won under Ganguly’s captaincy. This is the highest percentage contribution by any batsman in Test cricket history in matches won under a single captain where the captain has won more than 20 Tests.[24]
* Longest streak of consecutive Tests since debut (96)
* Only player to score a century against every Test playing nation away from home (until the ICC decides to add more nations to the list of Test playing nations his record can only be equalled, not broken).[25]
* Involved in highest partnership made away from home for any wicket for India with vice captain Virender Sehwag of 410 runs vs Pakistan at Lahore in 2006 (the highest partnership between a captain and the vice captain).
* He is the fastest to reach 9000 runs in Test cricket. In all he took 176 innings to do this, bettering the previous record set by Brian Lara by 1 innings.
* Dravid is one among the only three batsmen to hit Test centuries in four consecutive innings. The other two are Jack Fingleton and Alan Melville. Dravid achieved this by hitting scores of 115, 148, 217 and 100* in three successive matches against England and one against the West Indies. Only Everton Weekes, with centuries in five consecutive innings, has achieved a longer sequence of consecutive Test hundreds.
* With scores of 50 or more in 7 consecutive Tests Dravid bettered the previous Indian record of 50+ scores in 6 consecutive Tests for a single batsman. This record was shared by Vijay Hazare, Chandu Borde , Sunil Gavaskar, Dilip Vengsarkar and Sadagoppan Ramesh. As of October 2006 this streak is unbroken.
* He is currently joint 4th along with Brian Lara among batsmen who have scored most away runs in Tests (5288 as of August 9th 2006). Only Sachin Tendulkar, Allan Border and Vivian Richards have scored more away Test runs.
* 9th batsman to score twin hundreds in a Test twice, and only the 2nd Indian to do so, after Sunil Gavakar.
* 1st Indian to score 5 double hundreds, each bigger than the previous (200* vs Zimbabwe, 217 vs England, 222 vs New Zealand, 233 vs Australia, 270 vs Pakistan).

One Dayers

Partnership Records

* The only batsman to have been involved in two ODI partnerships exceeding 300 runs.
* First batsman to be involved in a 300 run partnership in a Cricket World Cup along with Sourav Ganguly in the 1999 World Cup match against Sri Lanka at Taunton.
* Involved in all three highest 4th wicket partnerships against South Africa, two with Yuvraj Singh.
* Involved in the highest partnership in the history of ODI cricket with a 331 run partnership along with Sachin Tendulkar vs New Zealand at Hyderabad in 1999-2000.
* Has the record of not being dismissed on duck for 120 consecutive ODI matches

World Cup Records

* He was the leading run scorer in the 1999 World Cup with 461 runs.
* Highest score by a wicketkeeper in a World Cup.

Captaincy Records

* He is tied with Sachin Tendulkar in fourth place for having captained India in the most victorious matches
* Has the highest ODI batting average as captain of 45.58 (as of 4/7/06), among all captains who have captained more than 10 ODIs.
* Has the second highest tally of ODI half centuries (81), behind Inzaman-ul-Haq’s record of 83.

Captaincy

Achievements

* Rahul Dravid led India to a historic Test series win, against the West Indies in their home soil in 2006. Since 1971, India had never won a Test series in the West Indies. This is also their first prominent series win outside the Indian subcontinent (barring the win against Zimbabwe in 2005) since 1986.
* Under Dravid’s captaincy the Indian team tied the previous record of most consecutive One-Day International wins for an Indian team thus equalling the record run that the Indian team had achieved under Sourav Ganguly in the 2003 World Cup in South Africa (8).
* During his captaincy the Indian team broke the 14 match West Indies record for most consecutive won matches in One-Day Internationals while chasing a total. For this 17 match run, Dravid was the captain for 15 matches and Sourav Ganguly was the captain for the other two. This streak was broken on 5/20/06, when India lost to the West Indies by one run, at Sabina Park, Jamaica.
* Rahul Dravid is the first captain to lead India to a Test match victory against South Africa on South African soil

* He became only the third captain from India to win a Test series in England. This feat was achieved after 21 years. The other two captains being Kapil Dev (1986) and Ajit Wadekar (1971).

Sorav Ganguly :
Test

* Scored a century on Test debut
* Scored a century in each of his first two Tests
* Captained India in a record 49 Test matches
* Led India to a record 21 Test wins

ODIs

* Second fastest player to reach 10,000, 11,000 ODI runs
* Fastest to reach multiples of 7,000, 8,000, 9,000 ODI Runs
* Holds the record, shared with Mahendra Singh Dhoni, for the second highest score by an Indian cricketer in an ODI — 183, against Sri Lanka in 1999.
* Held the record, shared with Sachin Tendulkar, for the highest first wicket partnership for India in a ODI match, 258, against Kenya in 2001. This record was bettered by Sri Lankan opening pair of Jayasuriya and Tharanga in 2006 at Headingley.
* Was involved in the first 300 run ODI partnership with Rahul Dravid.
* Sixth on the all time list with 31 man of the match awards.
* He is also the only player to win 4 consecutive man of the match awards in ODIs.
* India’s most successful ODI captain.
* First Indian to score a ODI century against Australia in Australia.

Career Statistics

Tests:

* One of 3 batsman who made tons in their 1st two Test innings.
* Ganguly was only the 3rd batsman in the world to score a century on debut at Lord’s.
* His 131 still remains the highest by any batsman on his debut at Lord’s.

ODI’s

* Second fastest after Viv Richards to reach 6,000 ODI Runs in 147 Innings and Sachin Tendulkar to 10,000 in 263 Innings