Santosh Trophy 2006 Kerala drew Maharashtra 1-1

Maharashtra Kerala 1-1

I saw the match after some 18 minutes.
Maharashtra was Leading 1-0
I wondered how MH managed to score. they couldn't even stop the ball.
Kerala players were better. passing well in short passes and moving well.
Looked well organized and good going forward.
Defense was bit weak. Lionel did well. Joby too was good going backward.

Asif Saheer was sheer quality. i never knew he had such potential.

The Kerala goal came about 28th minute when a cross from the midfield was collected by Saheer just in front of the box, there were 3 defenders surrounding him , he managed to hold the ball for few seconds and make a good through pass , perfectly placed for Noushad who came running through the box , he managed to make a first touch bit wider and finish it to the opposite end of the net with ease. And finally Kerala scored a good goal. Worthy to watch.

Whereas our captain Hakkim was as usual, International Waste.
I don't think he should be in the first team and can't guess why is he captain of the team when Pradeep is there. Pradeep was inspiring as usual playing in the right wing.

All these were that for the first half. Kerala was doing well but was needed to create more chances. MH on other had nothing worth mentionable apart from the miss passes and the lack of control. But i think they produced more anxious moments in front of goal.Thanks to the poor defense of Kerala which permitted the ball to bounce around in the BOX.

In the 2nd half all the worst happening. Started with few fouls that may have taken the momentum away from the game.It was dull, worthless gameplay and MH dominated it mostly.

Saheer was again very impressive. Pradeep went out of steam. But still was playing. The team management made a good move by replacing Hakkim in about 62nd minute and bringing in Rafique. Pradeep was still on hte field and I think he was to be substituted. But that never happened. Kerala made another change to by bringing in another striker. But nothing worked out.
And finally they panned for the third change, everything was ready at the 92 nd minute and referee stopped the play. That replacement never happened !
What a wonderful team management !

Maharashtra on the other hand kept attacking.. few corners went across the posts without finding the tall Abhishek Yadav. And finally in the 82nd minute when a cross from left came which bounced in front of the onrushing defender at the near post, Abhiskek was at the far post, the ball crossed the goalkeeper who was ball watching, the defender who was to mark the Forward was too caught ball watching..
the the forwarded rushed to it dived in, and nothing happened. He couldn't connect. had it touched somewhere, It was end of the game for Kerala, who never seemed to have got back the rhythm.


Had the refree been a slight strict, there wont have been 11 players on the field for MH. Refereeing was not bad. But should have been a little more stern.

In the end i feel we were lucky to escape with a Draw.

Intruder goes Pro on Flickr !

At last the inevitable happened. I got a pro account on flickr. Thanks to Anish’s credit card, I was able to do it in seconds.

It was in September 2004, to be more precise on 22nd of September, 2004, that I signed up to the flickr.com. I had my new camera purchased in August 2004, and had some pictures with me which I wanted to upload. As everyone else Yahoo! was one of my main preferences. But I don’t know why, I dint like Yahoo Albums. So I switched to my Webshots.

Webshots desktop wallpaper switcher and gadgets were very famous then. Almost all home PCs had Webshots installed because it had the calendar with good downloadable wallpapers.

I used to read lots of computer magazines those days. Digit, Chip, PC Quest etc. Digit was my favourite. Fortunately for me one of the articles it covered was on photo upload. There were two or three websites mentioned in it. And I tried them one by one. I don’t remember now which all they were. And finally I choose Flickr.com. A decision that I believe that was the perfect.

Flickr had the introductory 3 months free Pro status. Those days the simple and elegant interface gave me a sense that it was intended to be acquired by Google. So I signed up with my Gmail address. But that was a dream that never came true.

Having no restriction to say, the 1 GB or 200 MB transfer limit it was those days I remember. I may be wrong because I never had used it up for a month. And Infinite sets and photos were on cards. But I never used them. I knew those days are being numbered. And getting a paid account on internet was then a distant dream. That too paying in dollars with a credit card was simply Unthinkable to me.

Flickr grew at real pace and was later brought by Yahoo! Inc. I wish they had given Pro account to the existing users for a lifetime or perhaps for 6 months to be more practical.That too didn’t happen. My limit of 200 images were exceeded and my old photos were lost. But for few days I could enjoy it from the archives sections. Later they found out that too 

I lost my Red dragon, My Kayal and was loosing more worthy ones. I couldn’t bear it. I wanted a pro account. I wanted a credit card. I was desperate. That was when it clicked to me : the cost was affordable why can a card stop me ? And with Help of the card from Anish. I am now a Pro





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