Astro-il-logical Cricket

So astrology is quite scientific, eh? This post is dedicated to all the astrology buffs, the one who believe that the stars decide your fate and everyone else's, and that Bejan Daruwalla and all others of his ilk can foretell almost everything. I picked up this data right from the website of one of India's leading astrologers, Bejan Daruwala's Ganesha speaks.

League Matches:

Match 1: Pakistan vs West Indies - Daruwalla predicted Pakistan would win. Wrong.

Match 2: Zimbabwe vs Ireland - Zimbabwe was tipped to win. Match Tied. Wrong, again.

Match 3: England vs Newzealand - England was predicted to win. Wrong.

Match 4: India vs Sri Lanka - Sri Lanka predicted to win. Correct.

The problem I have is not that he got so many wrong, but the way he went about carrying out his business of forecasting. In every single match that involved one of the minnows, the stronger team was tipped to win. So Mr. Bejan Daruwalla got it wrong every single time there was an upset. India and South Africa were supposed to beat Bangladesh, Pakistan was supposed to beat Ireland. So was Mr. Daruwala going by the stars or by the stats? How is it that when an expert like Daruwala studied the stars, they were always favouring the stronger team? How was it that the he got it wrong each single time there was an upset?

Not too dissimilar has been the case with the tarot card readers on Set Max. They have got it more wrong than right. If it's supposed to provide entertainment, that's alright - but too many people in this country get misled by these idiots, who work on a simple law of averages. If you make predictions for 5 people, chances are you will get a couple of them right - and they become your ardent devotees. Since every idiot goes to 5 such expert idiots each one of whom sings a different fore-tale and everyone can't go wrong, because there are only five possibiliites, another devotee is born, who besides devoting himself to his master, does some wonderful word-of-mouth publicity for his guru. The Guru who has the best mix of glib and percentage success becomes a Maha-Guru !!

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Consider this gem:

Considering the planetary positions on the match day and their effects on match playing countries and their players Ganesha feels that in this round 8 teams that qualify for the next round would be Australia, Sri Lanka, South Africa, India, Pakistan, Newzealand, West Indies and England.

I don't know much of astrology but do know a bit of astronomy and geography. Tell me, what kind of an alignment of the stars would suit India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka but not Bangladesh. Suits England, but neither Scotland nor Ireland. And suits the whole gamut of islands that form the Caribbean :) :) :) Next time round, Mr. Daruwalla, do pick up your basic geography text book or the atlas as well before you go about predicting everything that's going to happen, everywhere.