Almost ...

Bangladesh seem to have heard my fervent plea yesterday for something miraculous to happen. :) They almost pulled off another upset win over Australia. If they had indeed won, it would not only have provided a major fillip to the Bangla Tigers, but it would also have provided England the confidence throughout the summer that if Bangladesh can pull it off, then why not them. Anyway, Symonds and Clarke ensured that no such miracles happen. If Symonds had been absent again like in the previous Bangladeshi win, you never know what might have happened ... the world of sports is always filled with IFs.

The other major sports story of the day was theoretically atleast an upset - Venus Williams thrashing Maria Sharapova. The Williams sisters clearly have not been at the forefront in any tournament in almost a year now. The slew of Russian teenagers and the two Belgians have overshadowed the Williams sisters time and again. Come on ... no one expected Venus Williams of all people to make the Wimbledon final. Anyway, now that she's there, she will in all probability face off with her fellow American, Lindsay Davenport. The final is surely going to be a field day for the folks in the ESPN studio who take interest any match only if it involves someone from the US of A (I think I'll never be able to forget that they did not telecast the monumental Aus. Open semi-final where Safin beat Federer just because neither of them is an American!). But, on the whole, having a Venus Williams versus Lindsay Davenport final at Wimbledon does no good to the women's sport. They clearly need the younger breed of players to take over and bring back some excitement into the game. Nadal has done the trick for the men's game; who's going to be the next prodigy on the women's circuit (Sania Mirza?!! ;))

Won't be able to catch the men's semis tomorrow because I gotto head to work :(( Praying for a Federer vs. Johansson final (even better if it is Hewitt vs. Johansson, but that's next to impossible).

Cheers,
Harsha

Disappointing week of sports

I'm finally back to blogging after an extremely long break (my last post was about the Indo-Pak series, which seems ages ago now!). I doubt if anyone is still going to come back and read this page :D Anyway, here I go again picking up the threads of the latest in sports ...

Firstly, the week gone by (yes, that means the week beginning last Thursday) has been extremely depressing for me as a sports fan. To begin with, Thursday night saw the Pistons losing to the Spurs. Being an eternal supporter of the underdog, the result was quite a dampener on my spirits. Also, as outlined in one of my earlier posts, there are several sportsman whom I intrinsically hate and Tim Duncan and Tony Parker belong to that category. Though everyone in the NBA goes ga-ga over Duncan as "Mr. Fundamental", he is by no means an exciting player to watch. And Tony Parker ... well, I think he is just a product of hype; rarely delivers the good when it matters. Over the course of the series, I had really begun to appreciate the play of Rasheed Wallace and Chauncey Billups. Rasheed seems to possess that elusive quality that people like Horry have - perform better under greater pressure. In fact, in the 7th game too, Rasheed knocked down a 3-pointer in the last minute but sadly the Spurs did not miss any of their free throws. Chauncey on the other hand, is simply amazing at free throws. Having a guy like him on your team means that you just don't have to worry about missing free throws in the 4th quarter. Having a free throw shooting percentage of above 90% is no easy task! Anyway, all said and done, my dislike for the Spurs increased and I had begun to love a couple of players in Detroit over the series - only to see the Spurs emerge victorious. Thankfully, none of the major players in either team is a free agent and so, let's hope the Pistons can extract revenge next year.

Anyway, that was just the beginning of the depressing week. What followed was the resurgence of the Aussies. Having read all that there was to read about their 4 losses in the previous week, I was clearly riding high on the wave of Ashes hype. After all, the scenario of the Australian cricket team losing to Somerset and Bangladesh in back-to-back matches does not happen often! Just when people were beginning to question the "aging" players on the Aussie team, they fought back with two resounding wins. They not only silenced Bangladesh with a 10-wicket thumping, but also wreaked havoc on England by reducing them to 6 for 3. It has to be admitted that the young brigade of Lee and Symonds was primarily responsible for the victory over England, but others like Martyn and McGrath did play their part. I was hoping that Pietersen would be able to pull off yet another miracle (his average is over 100 and he has 3 centuries and 3 fifties in 17 matches!!!), but it was to be the week of anti-hype. The spate of Aussie losses had added fire not only to the hype around the Ashes but also to the speculation surrounding the Super Series in October. I guess everything is back to normal now ... who the hell cares for these ODIs? Bring on the Ashes!

The final stroke of desperation was brought on by the happenings at the US Women's Open over the weekend. At the end of the 3rd round on Saturday, Michelle Wie was in the lead and the media was going crazy about the teenager winning a major. But, sadly, the 15 year old buckled under pressure and shot an atrocious round of 82 (that's 11 over par!) on Sunday, ending up in a position that no one cared to even notice. For those of you who haven't heard of her, Michelle Wie is this 15 year old supposed phenom, who's still in 9th grade in Hawaii. She is basically bringing to women's golf the revolution that Tiger ushered into the men's game more than 6 years ago now. Like Woods, Wie has been capitalizing on her power-hitting - covering much more distance with her drives compared to her compatriots. Michelle is still an amateur and is not yet playing on the LPGA tour for money. Many feel that she did not do the right thing by skipping the junior tour as that would have taught her how to win, and after her debacle in the final round on the US Open, those questions will surely come up all over again.

Anyway, with the week gone by not throwing up anything out of the ordinary, let's hope there are better things to come by next week. Three things to hope for:
1. Johansson wins Wimbledon (Federer or Hewitt winning it would be too boring and I just *hate* Roddick)
2. Pietersen and England get back into form and crush the Aussies in the remaining ODIs before the Ashes
3. Tiger wins the British Open (that's actually the week after next, but I just can't wait for it :))

Hope to be back more regularly from now on (Hey, it's summer again ... that's when I was bored enough to set this blog rolling last year :D)

Cheers,
Harsha