On God

It had never been done before, at least on the Indian Subcontinent. But if it had to be done, it had to be done by the God and from his own bat. In a way, it was poetic justice at its best. In 10 years (remember 1999, actually every Indian cricket follower remembers that heart breaking day), Tendulkar has given us a sweet memory that people like me will cherish for a long long time!

And as I followed the match through the meeting that I was in, I was on the edge almost all the time. I did let out a big cheer as Sachin hit that paddle sweep in his inimitable style. It was pure unadulterated joy! And I think everyone in the room realized that everyone else was following it as well! Indeed Sehwag set it up but it was Sachin who saw to it that there was no proverbial slip between the cup and the lip!

Thank you, Sachin

Yes, I am a few days too late on this. But there was no way that this post was not being written on this blog!


Sachin, this is for you.

Thanks for the years that have gone by. In the last 20 years, you have given a lot of moments to us to be happy/ elated about. You have also given us moments that just wrecked our hearts. But most importantly, you gave us hope. You gave us hope that India can be good at some sport. That an Indian can dominate and decimate the rest of the world, with elan.




Probably, Ponting would overtake Sachin on a couple of statistics. But he will never be able to even come close on how the world has held you in awe over the last two decades!


Here's to the 'hope' that you will bring home the 2011 World Cup!

The Twenty-Two Yard Jihad

Yes, we did it! I think an occasion big enough to get me out of my slumber and type out a small note on this page. It was an awesome feeling. A match worthy of a final. Seems to be a good year for India in sports. First Football then Hockey and now Cricket. The 'boys' did us proud.

However, I found the post match conference very interesting. With Shoaib Malik thanking all the Muslims all over the world for supporting Pakistan and getting all apologetic for letting them down.

“I want to thank everyone back home in Pakistan and Muslims all over the world. Thank you very much and I’m sorry that we didn’t win, but we did give our 100 per cent,” Malik said.

Who is he playing for? He should realize that only a small proportion of all Muslims live in Pakistan and not all of them are interested in Cricket. Incidentally, who would Kaneria play for? I believe the answer would be Pakistan and not a specific religion. Almost all teams today have a mix of multiple ethnic identities in their teams.

I think that religion or faith is a personal thing and that is the way it should be treated. As a captain, he should understand that he is speaking for his team. Even though almost all of his team is made up by Muslims, I doubt religion is the reason why they play. I think the glamour, money and pride in playing for the nation (in that order at times) are the reasons why anyone in the sub-continent would be attracted towards the game.

The seductive powers of Religion and the need to confirm socially has played a strong part in the team dynamics of Pakistan. With Yusuf Youhana converting to Islam from Christianity, Sayeed Anwar sporting the beard and the wide cracks in team structure because of public display of religious beliefs - team Pakistan has seen it all. And not all with great results. It has been a bad year for them (apart from T20) and it would do them some good to concentrate on the game and avoid religious overtones. It has taken some time to reduce racism in the cricketing world and the last thing anyone would want is polarization in the name of religion.

Whatever Happened To The Game!

Yes, I wrote sometime back that I would not talk about cricket for a while! In hindsight, I could not have made such a declaration at a more inopportune time. While the news channels have been smattering the television screens with anything remotely connected with cricket, I have had tried hard to get onto the indifference curve with respect to the game. But have been an utter failure at it!

From the perspective of just the game, this has been the most insipid of world cups in recent memory. While everything else related to cricket grabs headlines, the game itself has taken a back stage. With Woolmer’s death, Coach-Player scuffle in India and with players being dropped for excessive drinking this World cup has the makings of a regular soap. To add to that we have our own Pawar, Vengsarkar, Senior Players and Subhash Chandra to spice-up the proceedings. I think the lure of this gossip is too strong to resist. Even the latest edition of Knowledge@Wharton has an article on the state of cricket in India.

If it were not for Bangladesh, this world cup would have been as exciting as a sun boiled Cola! They have been the source of all excitement at the tournament level. First eliminating India and then defeating South Africa in the super 8s. Arguably, they have the best spin attack in the trio of spinners (mind you – not the best spin bowlers but the best spin attack). Apart from that, Lanka’s bouts with South Africa and England got very interesting towards the end. But over all, most matches have been lop-sided. What is any sport without the proverbial unpredictability? So while one is made to concentrate to everything related to the game, one wonders what happened to the game!

Anyway, let me try my hand at being a soothsayer. As of now, it seems that the final four would be Australia, Sri Lanka, South Africa and New Zealand and in that order as well. So the semi-finals would look like the following:

• SF1: Australia Vs New Zealand
• Outcome: Aussies get a sweet revenge of the pre-world world run down
• SF2: South Africa Vs Sri Lanka
• Outcome: This would be a tough one. But hoping that South Africa wins this one

Now the finals would then be a replay of the 1999 world cup and I am hoping that we see a first time winner. Even if the final clash of Aussies is with the Lankans, I hope the cup comes to the sub-continent. But most likely, the Aussies would take it third time in a row! And I think it will be in line with the bland tournament that we have had till now.

Anyway, I think the composition of the Indian team for the upcoming tour of Bangladesh would make more exciting guesswork. Any thoughts?

Pride and Shame

Two days with two emotions. Indian sports have just managed the same. Pride because the Indian cricket team won the first test in South Africa. Not pride actually, but some semblance of respect after the pathetic performance in the 50-50 format. But definitely pride for the compulsive cricket follower. The last cling-able strand of hope. Laxman has his feet moving, Dada had a good comeback, Tendulkar is back on the front foot (Seems to be in good nick. Just needs a big one). Bowlers are doing great. Zaheer has matured, Sreesanth has the aggression of the untamed and Kumble is the seasoned hunter. The optimists need no more reasons to remain interested in the rest of the test series. We do secretly believe that team India stands a chance in Caribbean 2007. But that is a secret, so sussssh!

Shame. If the cricket episode was shame converted into pride. Santhi’s failure to clear gender test was exactly the opposite. She (?) was the toast of Tamil Nadu as she won the 800m Silver medal at Doha. Apparently authorities at Indian Olympic Association (IOA) were in the know on this as Santhi had failed to satisfy the railways on this very issue. Interestingly, gender testing has been discontinued at International athletics. The test is conducted only if a fellow competitor complains of foul play. If someone who ran a race along with Santhi could sense this, how can Nagarajan, Santhi’s Coach at Prime Sports academy, claim innocence on this?

Anyway, Pride is a difficult emotion to come by in Indian sports. There are a lot of promising sportspersons but more often than not their sporting careers meet a sad end. Professionally, a clerical job with the railways or the Indian Airlines is not the best fallback option as well. I had set-out to cover one pride and one shame. With some more blabbering on Indian sports it would be one shame too many. Hence, the stop!