Statistics and all of that.......

Im having so much free time these days. Nothing much to do...Post December life has changed. Its become so difficult to motivate myself to open a book and read......!!!

Reading and accademics brings me to the topic of the day..Statistics....January seems to be the time for great people to hang up their boots and say they have had enough. Last year it was Glenn Mcgrath and Shane Warne and this year its Adan Gilchrist. So what, everyone has to go sometime or the other, so whats new?..I guess its the timing..

They were all playing good enough to go on for a couple of years more. In cases of Gillli he was just 4 test matches away from playing a 100 test matches. Who doesnt want that record? Imagine 50 years from now his he could tell his grand children about it !. Couldnt Mcgrath have gone on and claimed 700 test wickets? Could'nt Warne have touched the 750 wickets mark?

But they didnt. They didnt go after the numbers...Its so contrary to the way we in India approach life. Its inherent in us. ...We use numbers and statistics a lot more. We use to judge where we are, we use it to compare ourselves with others.

The very first topic of discussion after a new child is born is how much he weighs !...This is just the beginning....Starting from kindergarden his ranking in class is dissected. How much did your son get in Math? 19 and a half out of 20? Oh ! my son got 19 and 3/4th.. What is his aggregate percentage? We don't hesitate to go upto the 2nd decimal level...I got 89.63%. Ah! I didnt get a call..I got 99.13 percentile. The cut off was 99.23........My CGPA was 8.89, they didnt shortlist below 8.9..I missed out by a fraction.......My salary is 18.63...Her son earns just 15.38 lakhs. The story goes on....Not just in accademics...I guess it spills over to other areas as well.....

Just makes me wonder..Do figures always tell the true story? Do we stress a bit too much on them?....Do we play for records?

I would end with what Gilchrist said " So if the fire is not burning, theres no use to dragging on just to achieve a number or a milestone. And I always looked to Rodney Marsh's stats and he played 96 tests and I always thought to myself ' Why did'nt he play one more series or 4 more games? ' But I now know. When your time's up your time's up"