My Life, My Universe ... Sports

Losing the Super Bowl is charitable

2008-04-13T21:34:00.000-07:00

Here's one of the defining images of American sports. Seconds after any major game---the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the World Series, and heck even the conference finals of all these sports---all the players on the victorious team are seen wearing T-shirts and caps that proclaim them as champions. And, the first commercial break after the game features ads that all fans of the victorious team can purchase the gear that they just saw their idols wearing.

The fact that all this happens as soon as the game ends either implies that all such games are fixed, or that championship T-shirts and games are stitched up beforehand for both teams. So as to not lose my faith in sport, I discard the former option. Which begs the question: what happens to the gear produced for the losers?

I just discovered the answer: charity! Better than relegating all those T-shirts to the trash I guess ...

Food for thought

2008-01-03T02:47:00.000-08:00

After watching Laxman's wonderful innings today, I have been wondering: Do his strokes evoke a sense of beauty in us because they are indeed so, or because our minds have been trained to interpret which strokes are beautiful and which are not by listening to commentators over the years, and feeding to our minds positive and negative instances of beauty as suggested by the commentators?

Hmm ...

TV Viewership Ratings escape me ...

2007-12-06T11:24:00.000-08:00

Turns out the Patriots versus Ravens game on Monday night was the most-viewed cable TV program in history. How they come up with the numbers presented in that article goes beyond my comprehension.

One way out is sampling---ask a bunch of people that you think constitute a representative random subset, and extrapolate their replies to the complete US population. In which case, all these numbers are complete bullshit, because in practice any subset of people you pick will be biased in some way.

Another way to make an estimate is to have the cable companies track the number of TV sets that are tuned in. But, this scheme brings with it its own set of errors. For example, I saw the game while I was at the gym, where there must have at least another 50 people who were watching the game. So, there isn't a one-is-to-one viewers to TV sets ratio.

So, on the whole, I have no clue how they come up with these numbers!

Innovative captaincy in cricket at its best

2007-09-10T00:08:00.000-07:00

This excerpt from the latest Ask Stevens column on Cricinfo just caught my eye.

I heard that Mike Brearley, frustrated by Middlesex's inability to break a stubborn partnership, put the spare fielding helmet in front of the wicket to try to tempt the batsmen to hit it and score five easy runs. Is this true or is it an urban myth? asked Mike Shearing from China

No, it's not an urban myth, it did happen, and I was there! (I was working at Lord's at the time.) Mike Brearley mentions it in his excellent book The Art of Captaincy, saying it was in a match against Yorkshire, "who were batting without much sense of adventure". I remember him calling to the bowler, Phil Edmonds, "Let's try The Ploy": they placed a spare fielding helmet on the ground at short midwicket, to try to tempt the batsmen to play across the line to Edmonds's left-arm spin in order to collect the five penalty runs they would have received if the ball hit the helmet. Brearley doesn't mention the year, but I think it must have been this match in 1980. If that is the one, the ploy doesn't seem to have worked, although Edmonds did take three wickets, and shortly afterwards the regulations were amended so you could only park the spare helmet behind the wicketkeeper.

The legend of Mike Brearley's cricketing acumen continues to grow ...

Stat of the day

2007-09-06T09:41:00.000-07:00

Excerpt from this article:

If you're looking for an illustration of the phenomenal growth in prize money in this Tiger Era, look no further that the milestone Anthony Kim will eclipse this weekend in Chicago.

Kim, a rookie-of-the-year contender (though Brandt Snedeker is the choice here), made his PGA Tour debut less than a year ago, in September 2006. He has played in 26 official events and has earned $1,852,860, a total sure to rise Sunday because there is no cut in this week's tournament.

That means Kim, 22, will pass Arnold Palmer ($1,861,857) in career earnings.

I don't think inflation can account for such an amazing rise in payscales.

Test your golf wisdom

2007-08-16T22:17:00.000-07:00

Just chanced upon this awesome quiz on golf rules. I routinely keep track of golf in the news, and know the basic terminology enough to follow golf on the telly on weekends. However, this quiz exposed my true depth of golf wisdom. I do not know the answer to a single question! Looks like the solutions will be published only next month. I eagerly await them to wash away at least some of my shame at my level of ignorance ...

Freakosports

2007-07-27T19:46:00.000-07:00

The Freakonomics blog has been featuring quite a few sports stories of late. First, Steven Levitt covered the current scandal rocking the NBA of a referee having placed bets on the games in which he was officiating. Then, with the Tour de France going to the dogs with title contender Alexander Vinokourov (well, he was a contender when the race began; not by the stage when he was dumped) and yellow jersey Michael Rasmussen getting kicked out for doping, Stephen Dubner suggested that maybe we should just legalize doping in the Tour. Finally, today, the blog features a rebuttal by sports writer Joe Lindsey on why legalizing doping in sports won't work. All make for interesting reading.

Something I think everyone can learn from ...

2007-07-25T10:04:00.000-07:00

(An excerpt from Irfan Pathan's interview on Cricinfo)

You have said you made an extra effort to not let stardom go to your head. Can you elaborate on that?

I have made an extra effort in the sense of doing normal things which I do regularly. Small small efforts like sitting on the floor to eat when I'm at home. Not everything, but whatever I can do. I try really extra hard. I think everybody should try harder to not let it affect them.

When you are playing international cricket, when there is so much hype, people only say nice things to you and about you. Everything is good, good, good, nothing is bad.

I remember when I had done well against Australia [2003-04]. I was bowling really quick, and I heard some nice things said about me. What I did the next day was go the gym and do an extra workout. I told myself, "Look, this is my life. People are going to say so many things, and I need to work hard." In doing that hard work, I did some new exercise to push myself, and after two days there was a game and I injured myself. It was a side strain, minor injury. At least I learned from that - not to push too hard, not to let what people say affect you.

I wanted to work hard. I wanted to say: This is my life; I just need to go out, bowl, run, bat; that is going to give me everything. Then I tried to shut people out, not let what they say affect me. But at the end of the day, it does affect you. There are so many people in India who say so many things. You go on flights, people say something; the driver has something to say; the paanwala has something to say; your friends have things to say. I have to put in extra effort to not let all that get to me.

Eating goes mainstream

2007-07-18T00:07:00.000-07:00

As I had blogged earlier, there was much hype about hot dog eating as a sport a few weeks back. However, in spite of the tonnes of online space devoted to hot dog eating, I was surprised today to see this Coors Light ad on TV that stars Kobayashi, the former world champion at hot dog eating who got dethroned at this year's contest. Considering that the other Coors Light ads in this series feature Michael Johnson (the world record holder in 200m and 400m), and Magnus ver Magnuson (the world's strongest man), this is quite a rise in status for hot dog eating in the world of endorsements.

Soccer question

2007-07-14T14:49:00.000-07:00

Has the referee in a soccer match ever overturned his decision? I don't think I've ever seen that happen. And, yet, every time a card is handed out, be it yellow or red, all the players on the affected side swarm the ref and crib big time. I don't understand what's the point given that even the players know the ref is not going to change his decision once he has made it. In fact, like cricket, if fines were levied whenever the players showed dissent, I think their match fees would not suffice, and soccer players would have to pay out of their pockets!

A case of reliability paranoia, or a cool idea, or an illusion?

2007-07-11T12:26:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, while watching the Copa America semi-finals game between Brazil and Uruguay, I thought I saw the referee wearing watches on both hands. Oddly enough, that issue came up due to completely different reasons while chatting with a friend yesterday night. He said soccer referees do wear two watches all the time. With my curiosity perked up, I hailed wikipedia to resolve the issue. Unfortunately, wikipedia let me down on this occasion. Then, randomly hunting on Google, I hit upon this page which says "Prepared referees will wear two watches in case one goes out, even though it looks a little funny.". My immediate reaction was "That's crazy!". How often do watches fail? Soccer referees must be really paranoid to account for reliability against such failures of abysmally low probability. It's not as though referees get banged up on the field like the players!

Anyway, continuing with my hunt on Google, I found this message board, which presents a more plausible explanation:

Some referees will wear two watches, one counting up to 45 and one counting down. The one counting up will be the one that is like a stop watch and the one counting down will run without stopping. That way when the countdown stops a ref can quickly look at the counting up watch and calculate how much time needs to be added.

If this is indeed the reasoning behind the two-watch theory, that's a pretty cool idea. On the other hand, maybe both my friend and I are just hallucinating about refs wearing two watches :)

Update: Confirmed that the soccer-ref-wears-two-watch theory is no illusion in the ongoing Argentina-Mexico encounter.

A lacklustre Tour de France

2007-07-10T14:43:00.000-07:00

After my rant about South American soccer yesterday, let me express my disappointment today about the lineup at this year's Tour de France. After Lance Armstrong's retirement two years ago, there was expected to be much more intense competition amongst the riders who constantly challenged Lance but came up short. Sadly, doping scandals have taken away all those riders who had been contenders for the title. Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso, Floyd Landis, Tyler Hamilton ... all perfectly capable of winning the Tour, but unfortunately succumbed to the temptation of drugs (Talking about drugs, the fallaway of the rivalry between Justin Gatlin and Asafa Powell, due to Gatlin's suspension, was also extremely saddening :-().

Anyway, shorn of all these star riders, my interest in the Tour de France has taken a severe beating. To make the event at least slightly interesting for me, let me stick my neck out and make a prediction. Given the lack of competition from any other serious climbers, I say this year's Tour should be a cakewalk for Andreas Kloden (the second runner up behind Armstrong and Basso a couple of years ago). I'll revisit me prediction in a couple of week's time when the Tour comes to a close :)

Update: So much for my prediction! With the onus of my support on his shoulders, Kloden took a tumble in yesterday's stage and suffered a fracture in his tailbone. His continued participation in the Tour is now in doubt. Looks like I jinxed him :)

BTW, I realized that I got some of my facts wrong. Kloden actually finished second behind Armstrong in 2004, and finished third last year.

South America let me down

2007-07-09T17:28:00.000-07:00

I had high opinions of the quality of soccer in South America, and was looking forward to some keenly contested matches in the ongoing Copa America 2007. Instead, this is what the Latinos have to show as the scorelines of the quarter-finals matches.

Uruguay 4 - 1 Venezuela

Brazil 6 - 1 Chile

Mexico 6 - 0 Paraguay

Argentina 4 - 0 Peru

When I was visiting Rio last year for a conference, my labmate who was with me told me that the best player in the soccer team at their high school used to be a Brazilian. And, that Brazilian dude had to be content playing goalie when he went back home. Looks like I extrapolated a bit too much from that piece of data. Based on the performances so far at Copa America, the right conclusions I should have drawn seem to be -- 1. quality of soccer in the US sucks, and 2. the average quality of soccer in Brazil (not the whole of South America!) is much higher.

Anyway, hope at least the semis and finals turn out to be exciting encounters.

Add eating competitions to my list of favorite sports

2007-07-05T09:44:00.000-07:00

If you haven't already been pained enough by the daily coverage on ESPN of the hot-dog eating championship, let me point you to the results of the final showdown that occurred yesterday. Some others have expressed disgust at treating hot-dog eating as a sport. But, count me out of that club of whiners. I had already fallen in love with eating as a contest when we had 2-minute shootouts with grad students stuffing down hot dogs, pies, and chocolates at the TGIF in school sometime last year. Now, after tracking the stories about hot-dog eating over the last few days, I must admit that the sport is filled with more intrigue than this year's Wimbledon.

First, in the lead up to the championship, the main challenger to the world champion (of course, there's a world champion in hot-dog eating as well!) broke the world record. Then, the world champion announced that his jaw had been injured, and so he might have to withdraw from the competition. This was inevitably followed by allegations that the champion was chickening out after seeing his record broken. Finally, Kobayashi (referring to him as world champion is getting repetitive) got his wisdom tooth removed a few days before the event to reduce the pain in his jaw. And, as is obvious to anyone who has had his wisdom tooth removed, this resulted in swollen gums.

Anyway, in spite of all this, the contest between Kobayashi and his main challenger, Joey Chestnut (the one who had broken Kobayashi's record), did happen yesterday. And, lo and behold, as is fitting for any great sport, the challenger triumphed! That too, with both breaking the world record!! Given the relative calm in the rest of the sporting world at the moment, I must say I'm keenly looking forward to Kobayashi making good his promise of reclaiming his title next year.

Separated at birth?

2007-06-16T15:09:00.000-07:00


Paul Casey, Golfer on the PGA Tour	Nick Feamster, Assistant Professor at Georgia Tech

Freakiness at the French Open

2007-06-03T11:08:00.000-07:00

I am watching the match between Tommy Robredo and Filippo Volandri (one of the three guys to beat Federer this year) at the French Open right now on TV. And, I can swear this is the first time in my life I have had such difficulty in differentiating between the two players on a tennis court. Not only do both players have identical shirts and shorts (which are not plain white, mind you), but they even have the same freaking bandana! Maybe their shoes are slightly different, but from the distance at which they are shown on TV, it's tough to make out anything about them other than that both are white. I normally take pride in being able to identify sportsmen, especially fielders on the cricket field, just by their gait and stance. But, this one really leaves me dumbfounded!

Please ... USA != World

2007-06-02T22:46:00.000-07:00

Calling the finals of Major League Baseball "The World Series", and the NBA finals "The World Championships" was atrocious enough. I learned today that things are even worse than expected. The playoffs of the NCAA Women's Softball Championship are called the Women's College World Series. Crazy! Someone please tell all those people who came up with these names that the term "World" does not refer to the United States!

Amazing record!

2007-04-28T00:52:00.000-07:00

Glenn McGrath has played in four World Cups and batted all of FOUR balls! Man, this record is going to take some serious beating. Further, the immensity of the record dawns on considering that Australia made it to the final of all four World Cups in which McGrath played ... phew! Anyway, hope McGrath gets to the batting crease tomorrow. That should be a sure shot sign of an exciting encounter, and maybe even a (at the moment unthinkable!) Sri Lankan victory.

BTW, before the World Cup even began, I had predicted a Sri Lanka versus New Zealand final. How can I miss a chance to brag that I was at least half right :)

Bollywood vs. Cricket

2007-04-10T23:29:00.000-07:00

The recent Bollywood flick, Namastey London, gained a lot from India's ouster from the cricket World Cup. With no other reasonable movie around, Namastey London cashed in on The Blue Billion's sudden hatred for cricket. However, I think it is fairly presumptuous of YashRaj Films, the biggest production house in Bollywood at the moment, to release Ta Ra Rum Pum, their next production, on the same weekend as the World Cup final. Even though India surely won't figure in that match, I would think a large fraction of the Indian population would be drawn towards a good game of cricket (though I have to admit that the last two World Cup finals were major letdowns). For the sake of a good game of cricket, I'll hope that Ta Ra Rum Pum suffers :-)

What's up with the sports media btw? Federer loses to Guillermo Canas in two consecutive tournaments, and the news hardly makes a dent in Google News. All the tennis reporters seem to be in slumber, just like this blog!

Spoken a bit too soon ...

2007-02-07T18:18:00.000-08:00

These comments from Mickey Arthur, coach of the South African cricket team, certainly seem out of place after the thrashing SA received at the hands of Pakistan in the second ODI. Instead of looking to overtake the Aussies in the ODI rankings, they better first concentrate on winning the series against Pakistan.

Spectators "light" up the game

2007-02-07T11:23:00.000-08:00

The floodlights are currently out at the SA-Pak ODI. This prompted a bored Cricinfo commentator to drop a gem from cricketing folklore.

It was the third Test of the 1978-79 series in Calcutta between Alvin Kallicharran's West Indies and India. West Indies were set to chase 335 in the final innings and were battling for a draw. Kallicharan and David Murray the wicketkeeper, shared a vital partnership, but a mini collapse followed. and at 183 for 8 India had a great chance to wrap it up However, with the light fading fast at the Eden Gardens and Sew Shivnarine playing a stubborn innings at one end, West Indies still had some hope of saving the game.

Unlike today, the batsmen had to appeal to the umpires if they felt the light wasn't good enough. That's what they did then, and India would have fallen short by two wickets if the appeal had been upheld. However the crowd at the ground, nearly 70,000 were not going to give up easily. They had brought along hand-held fire torches, originally meant for the celebrations and decided to light them at that point.

It was a great sight to see almost everyone in the stadium clutching a torch and the light generated was enough to make the umpires decide to resume the game. Floodlights were not too common in those days and the sight of all those lit torches was absolutely unbelivable. Just when the West Indians thought they had done enough to draw, they had to bat out another 15 odd minutes with flames burning all around the ground.

One more wicket fell and the tension was simpy unbearable. The last wicket pair, Sylvester clarke and Shivnarine, hung on grimly however, appealed for light again and were lucky to get away with a draw. It is often said that the crowds are as much a part of a sporting spectacle as the players and it was never more true than on this occasion.

Delicious account

2006-11-20T22:32:00.000-08:00

Clearly, I have been extremely lazy over the last few months in posting to this blog. To address this problem, I have instead started a page at del.icio.us now. You can check out my page there at http://del.icio.us/what_007

Hopefully I am not that lazy to atleast post links! Anyway, will try to get back to regular blogging soon.

The Madden Curse

2006-09-26T23:59:00.000-07:00

I'm finally back on my blog after being away in India for a month and being swamped by deadlines on returning. In the meanwhile, India got thrashed in Malaysia and USA got wallopped by Europe in the Ryder Cup. And, oh, the biggest news of course was that Michael Schumacher finally decided to retire. The dark ages of F1 are finally over!

The new NBA season is still a month away, and I haven't taken to baseball with as much passion yet. So, for now, all my attention is directed towards happenings in the NFL. The Steelers, the defending champions, have got off to a sluggish start and yet they have the quiet confidence that things will turn around for them once Roethlisberger recovers completely from the physical and emotional injuries inflicted by his infamous bike accident during the summer and his recent appendectomy. On the other hand, the Seahawks, the Steelers' opponents in last year's Super Bowl, have got off to a 3-0 start to their season. But, they too are beset with injury problems at the moment. Last season's MVP Shawn Alexander will not be able to play for the Seahawks for another few weeks atleast due to a foot injury. The popular reason going around for his injury is quite comical! EA Sports releases a new version of the computer game Madden NFL every year (for the uninformed, John Madden is a football legend; in the Pro Hall of Fame for his coaching of the Oakland Raiders and winner of several Emmys for his commentary over the past three decades). Every year EA Sports chooses one of the stars from the previous season to feature on the cover of the game's CD. The urban legend going around is that the guy featured on the cover of Madden NFL is cursed. Over the past six seasons, the player featured on the cover has been injured. So, everyone believes it's Shawn Alexander's turn now :) Amazing!

Fashion code at Wimbledon

2006-06-27T23:33:00.000-07:00

Sometime during the next couple of weeks, if you hear that one of the players in the womens' draw at Wimbledon has been suspended, the reason could well be this!

It's time common sense prevailed!

2006-06-19T11:19:00.000-07:00

Already far too many yellow cards have been handed out in the first 10 days of the World Cup. The referees have been too harsh on not so severe tackles. On top of the several frivolous cards handed out, here is one instance where a yellow card was issued because the player took the penalty too early! Come on. Given that two yellow cards can lead to the player being suspended for a game, yellow cards cannot be handed out for such minor offences. It's high time some common sense prevailed in FIFA.

Sporty Professor in charge of U.S. Soccer

2006-06-18T14:27:00.000-07:00

This certainly comes as a shock to me. All of us know the popularity of soccer in India pales in comparison to that of cricket. And, we also know that both the male and female soccer teams representing the US are far superior compared to their Indian counterparts. Yet, the head of the US soccer federation is an Indian -- Sunil Gulati. Even more surprising is that managing soccer is one of his secondary activities. Sunil's day job is as an economics professor at Columbia University! Check out the article linked above to read his amazing story. Certainly an inspiration for people like me, who lack the skill to play any sport, that enthusiasm for sports can be sustained as life goes on.

Keeping it Simple

2006-06-18T12:01:00.000-07:00

Brazil's play may be a bit scratchy at the moment, but atleast their lineup has been kept simple -- their starters are appropriately numbered 1 to 11. I like that :)

Must ridiculous suggestion ever?

2006-06-10T09:56:00.000-07:00

India's minister for Sports and Youth Affairs, Mani Shankar Aiyar, says India might make a bid for hosting the football World Cup in 2014. I'm in complete consensus with the comments that follow the linked article -- Mani Shankar has gone nuts! I still distinctly remember the time when PSV Eindhoven had come over to India to play three games with the national team. I think the best result we obtained in those three games was an 8-2 defeat :)

Warnie joins the blogosphere

2006-06-08T13:59:00.000-07:00

Shane Warne starts off a new blog, on which he says he is going to be posting once a week. Nothing really of interest in his first post. But, anyway, yet another blog to keep track of ...

Questions

2006-06-08T00:10:00.000-07:00

How is it possible to have a written round in a spelling contest?!!

(Well, for those wondering how this is relevent to this blog, the Spelling Bee competition can be considered to be a mental sport!)

Update: I have another question. In cricket, the bowler's rhythm is largely determined by his run-up. Similarly, in tennis, why doesn't the consistency of the serve depend on how many feet away from the center-line does the player serve from? I never see any player marking the spot along the baseline from which he/she wants to serve.

The Tricky Tradeoff

2006-06-07T22:35:00.000-07:00

Sportsmen are always up against a tricky proposition in preparing for a game. Every sportsman hopes to have undergone sufficient practice before the game, and for the practice to be beneficial, it should be as close to conditions during the game as possible. Practice ensures that the player is "in the flow" as soon as the match begins, and his decisions are made almost by instinct. However, match-quality practice does not come without its downsides. More practice not only hones the player's skills but also makes him tired. Even worse is that practice that simulates real game conditions exposes the player to the risk of injury as bad as that in a real game. In essence, the player faces this tricky tradeoff - practice ensures he's fit for the game, but also makes it possible that he does not even play the game!

Well, reading that para over, it reads almost like a paper abstract :D Anyway, I had this "startling" relevation about the tricky tradeoff (must be obvious by now I like that phrase) after all the friendlies being played out in preparation for the World Cup. Germany's key player, Michael Ballack, was injured in the friendly against Colombia. Three Holland players were injured in the game against Australia. Atleast these players are hopeful of recovering before their countries' World Cup sojourn begins. Cisse, the man supposed to partner Thierry Henry, is out of the tournament after picking up a knee injury in the warmup game against China. After these incidents, I'm not sure if it is a wise decision to play warmup football games. Especially, considering that the chances of picking up an injury in football are higher than in other sports. But, I guess the players are enticed by the other side of the tricky tradeoff (ah, how can I miss an opportunity to use that phrase again!) -- practice ensures they are match fit. As of now though, it looks like the number of players ruled out of the World Cup will increase with every additional warmup game. Thankfully, the tournament begins in less than 36 hours, which implies no more friendlies :)

England == India?

2006-06-07T00:08:00.000-07:00

In my view, the English football team is similar to the Indian cricket team. Both teams look extremely strong on paper and the media never wastes an opportunity to spin up a frenzy about either team's chances. Rooney and Owen in the front, Gerrard, Lampard and Beckham in midfield, and John Terry, Rio Ferdinand and Sol Campbell at the back. Similar to how Dravid, Sachin, Ganguly and Laxman were hailed as the best middle order, the English team appears invincible based on the star value of its members. But, just like the Indian middle order that rarely fired in unison, I am skeptical about England's chances at the World Cup. I can't really put my finger on a particular reason for my pessimism. But, based on past experience, my hopes for England are not too high. There was similar hoopla about England in the last World Cup as well as during Euro 2004. And, on both occasions, the English challenge just fizzled out. If the scan of Rooney's foot tomorrow shows that he will be able to play (I believe at the earlier from the third match of the first round), I am sure the hype will be raised to another level. I am not certainly buying into the hype as yet ...

BTW, what the hell has Lara been smoking?!! To quote him:

At the end of the day, it's a sport you're playing and you got to trust the guy who you're playing against. There are situations where we can't come to a decision. Of course, it's left to the umpires. But if we can't back each other as a team, it doesn't say much for the sport. I just felt that the spirit of the game was being tested.

Let's make things clear. Dhoni says that Ganga himself told him that he wasn't sure whether his boots touched the ropes. And, there has been no statement from anyone contradicting this. Then, where the hell does the question of trust arise? The fielder himself is not sure whether the catch was legit, and Lara wants people to trust his guy! Either it must be really hot in the Caribbean, or it is time to put Lara through a doping test :)

I miss Sportstar

2006-06-02T17:34:00.000-07:00

In the last couple of months, I've been repeating this to several of the Indians around me. I really miss Sportstar (yes, that weekly publication from the Hindu group; not any particular "sport start"). Cricinfo and the Sports page on Google News give me lots of info. But, there's no substitute for the coverage offered by Sportstar across a wide range of sports. It had news on everything ranging from cricket to kabaddi, and from golf to boxing. The range offered by Google News pales in comparison.

I'm really looking forward to reading the one and half year long backlog of Sportstar editions when I return home next month ...

Update: BTW, I found out that the Sportstar's articles are now available online. But, technology hasn't improved as much yet that browsing a website can replace scanning through a book :)

Also, was surprised to find an entry for Sportstar in Wikipedia. Sadly, the entry incorrectly claims that Sportstar covers only sports in India. Interestingly, the entry also claims Sportstar recently switched from being a magazine to a tabloid. Will have to wait till I get to India to find out more about this.

"Cricinfo" for football

2006-06-02T10:38:00.000-07:00

The football World Cup (yes, after the realization in my previous post, I've decided not to call it soccer any longer) is just a week away, but I feel I'm hardly into the thick of things. Other than all the hype about Rooney's metatarsal, I have read pretty much nothing related to the World Cup in the past week. This clearly shows I need to look out for new sources of information. Google News is filled with too much crap about MLB's regular season.

So, is there any good site out there for keeping track of news related to the football World Cup? Thanks.

Football or Handball?

2006-05-30T23:12:00.000-07:00

This thought just struck me. Why the hell is American football called so? The only player who even touches the ball with his foot is the kicker. All other players either throw or catch the ball (well, most of the players are just pushing each other around!). So, why the heck is this sport called "football"? Going by how the game is played, it should be called either "American handball" or "American Wrestle-ball".

In the last couple of years, I have been conspicuously using the term "soccer" to refer to the real football. It's time I reverted back to calling it just football, and referring to American football as American rugby or some such.

Spotting a Star

2006-05-22T23:55:00.000-07:00

Suppose you are new to NBA and are watching a game on TV. How do you find out who are the star players in the game?

Easy.

When a star player shoots a basket, the commentator proclaims the player to be "The King".
When any other player shoots a basket, the commentator points out deficiencies in the opposition's defence that led to the basket!

Heart-Breaking

2006-05-17T17:28:00.000-07:00

Imagine you get a paper accepted and you are told you have won the best paper award

And then, a week later, you are told there was a mistake. Your paper was actually rejected!

I'm sure Justin Gatlin wouldn't have felt as bad. But, being told a week after breaking the world record that there was an error ... phew ... he must certainly be left heart-broken ...

Bollywood dominates Indian sports too?

2006-04-13T02:11:00.000-07:00

Sad but true!

Is the President so jobless?

2006-04-06T23:00:00.000-07:00

The Indian team wins yet another inconsequential ODI series (all ODIs are worthless IMHO), and they receive a message of congratulations from none other than the President of the nation. Looks like it's high time the nation figures out a way to better utilize the time of a great intellectual ...

Restoring the balance in ODIs

2006-03-26T19:15:00.000-08:00

An interesting discussion has just begun on Cricinfo's blog Wicket to Wicket about the changes that should be introduced to make ODIs an even contest between batsmen and bowlers. Bob Woolmer just made the first post in the discussion. And his controversial suggestion is:

Allow the ball to swing by adjusting the current legislation to allow bowlers to prepare the ball to reverse swing a lot earlier.

For this, he suggests that the bowler should be allowed to rub one side of the ball. How this change can be accommodated without making all forms of ball tampering legit is left as an exercise to the reader.

On a related note, I just learnt about a new type of swing uncovered by some scientist at NASA, and already put into practice by England's bowling guru Troy Cooley. It's called contrast swing, and its distinguishing feature from conventional swing and reverse swing is that the seam is to be kept upright. Here is a detailed discussion (you might need to use bugmenot to get hold of an ID to access the article). Let's see how the mysteries around contrast swing unravel.

Update: The article I pointed to about contrast swing is no longer accessible. Here is the same article on another site.

Stoking regionalism in India

2006-03-23T18:41:00.000-08:00

What would it take for an upset of Mumbai by UP in the Ranji Trophy to generate the same amount of hoopla as LSU's upset of Duke?

Cricket is intrinsically biased?

2006-03-22T15:31:00.000-08:00

A recent article on Cricinfo clearly brings out an argument that I have thought about on several occasions - that cricket is intrinsically biased in favor of bowlers. Here's the relevant extract:

If the rules are on the side of the batsmen, it's because the game itself is intrinsically biased towards the bowlers. They get six chances an over; they have 10 people to help them; they can have a rest for an hour or two; they can make one mistake and it hardly matters. They set the tone: in tennis terms, it's always their serve. Physically, it's tougher being a bowler, but psychologically, it's tougher being a batsman, and as the players often tell us, top-class cricket is played largely in the mind.

This is an important argument to make so as to counter the constant criticisms levelled against ODIs that the rules are biased towards batsman. If the game is in itself biased towards bowlers, it of course makes sense to add rules that even out the disadvantage that batsmen face.

I haven't thought through this logic myself. Decided to put it out here as food for thought for everyone.

Is Sachin an all-time great?

2006-03-22T15:05:00.000-08:00

Questions about Tendulkar's place in the Indian team have been making the rounds in recent times. Though his ODI form has been awesome, he has been making insignificant contributions in Tests since his 35th Test century. The debate about his place in the team finally came to a crescendo when he was boo-ed by this home crowd at his home ground. The immediate reaction to this incident all-round has been that Sachin is an all-time great batsman and what the crowd did at Wankhede was disrespectful, not recognizing Sachin's yeoman service to the nation over the years, ignorant of his place in history, etc. etc. ...

In light of this, an interesting discussion cropped up today on one of Cricinfo's blogs whether there is any Test match that Sachin can claim to have owned. The author of the post, Gaurav Sabnis, cites 3 examples of other Indian batsmen owning a Test - Laxman at Kolkata, Dravid at Adelaide, and Sehwag at Multan. But, as one of the commenters points out, in these 3 instances, Dravid, Laxman and Sachin played stellar supporting roles.

So, are there any instances at all when a batsman has single-handedly taken his team across the victory line in a non-trivial fourth innings chase or a third innings comeback? If not, maybe we are expecting too much from Sachin?

Sania Mania goes global

2006-03-22T10:58:00.000-08:00

Sania Mirza has been named as WTA's newcomer of the year for the year 2005. Sadly, 2006 hasn't really taken off for her as yet. But, I guess that is to be expected after the out-of-the-world 2005 that she had. I haven't seen any of her matches this year. So, I am not sure if there has been any improvement in her game, especially her second serve. However, I was shocked a couple of days back when an ad on ESPN for the sports brand Lotto featured Sania as the lone model. I guess I missed the transition from Sania being hyped just in India to her becoming a global brand!

If the Indian cricket team continues to throw up dismal performances like yesterday, maybe India will produce many more top-ranked tennis players in the coming decade? ... huh, I'm sure if India wins the ODI series, all will be forgotten. Sad. But, true.

Am I drunk?

2006-03-12T10:27:00.000-08:00

Just woke up on a Sunday morning. Deleted all the spam in my Inbox. Then, saw this scorecard. And, am now wondering if I am drunk?!!

Will take me some time to recover to my senses :)

New Time-wasting Tactic

2006-03-03T09:38:00.000-08:00

If you guys aren't already whiling away enough of your time, check out the new game from Cricinfo. Addictive like almost any other game.

Reminds of the WWF trump cards game I used play sometime around when I was in 8th grade ...

A great weekend for India

2006-01-29T22:06:00.000-08:00

I'm sure most of the readers of my blog have been fixated with the ongoing Ind-Pak cricket Test since yesterday. But, in the meanwhile, two Indians have done much better than their millionaire-cricketer-countrymates. Bhupathi went on to win his umpteenth Grand Slam title by winning the mixed doubles; this time pairing up with Hingis. Bhupathi's exploits receive hardly any press coverage as compared to that received by our worthless cricketers, and even in tennis, he is sadly overshadowed by Paes, who has fewer Grand Slam titles than him. After the Paes-Bhupathi combo split up, the press seems to have foresaken him.

In addition to Bhupathi's win, it was a great weekend for India in golf too. Arjun Atwal ended up fourth in the Buick Open. Mind you this is a primary PGA Tour event with all the top players in the fray (Tiger Woods won it as usual ... looks like I'm gonna have to find someone else to support from now on). Considering the standing of Indians in golf, this is certainly a major breakthrough. Let's hope Atwal keeps up the good form and maybe even wins some tournament on the PGA Tour this year.

Can't believe I actually typed out this post with a deadline coming up in 12 days ... I was just so shocked to read about Atwal's performance ;)

Test team of 2005

2005-12-23T14:19:00.000-08:00

The end of yet another year is upon us and the usual year-end summaries have started flowing in. Here, Peter Roebuck puts together what he believes is the best Test team based on performances this year.

I think Inzamam and Flintoff would be unarguable choices. Both of them have put in stellar performances repeatedly this year. What irks me most about the team though is the choice of Matthew Hayden as opener. He was pathetic all through the Ashes and just because he hammered a few centuries against the worthless Windies bowling lineup doesn't make 2005 a great year for him. I think Langer had a much better year than Hayden. He always looked solid and never looked out of sorts like Hayden did through the Ashes.

The other controversial pick is Ponting. Roebuck picks him based on his match-saving innings at Trent Bridge. But, he conveniently forgets that Pietersen scored a much more important knock in the final Test. If Ponting hadn't scored that century at Trent Bridge, Australia would have lost the match but it wouldn't have affected the outcome of the Ashes. Whereas, if Pietersen had failed at The Oval, the Ashes would most probably still be with the Aussies. I'm not saying Pietersen should have been picked but I certainly don't think Ponting had a great year. A better pick at one-drop would have been Younis Khan. He had two superlative series in India and West Indies and put to rest all doubts over his abilities.

I'm not sure why Pathan is the twelfth man btw. He didn't do anything extra-ordinary in Tests. I would have picked Danish Kaneria instead. He proved beyond doubt that he can win matches for Pakistan on his own. Until last year, when asked to name which bowler in the Pakistan team could run through the opposition, the only one who would come to mind is Akhtar. Kaneria's performances against Australia, India and England this year have added him to that list. The only reason I wouldn't include him in the XI though is Warne is still miles ahead of him!

As is clear from my arguments, I believe Pakistan has all the makings for dominating 2006. Though England stole the limelight this year with victory in the Ashes, I believe Pakistan will be the team of year 2006. Let's hope India will be the team of the year 2007 in the ODIs atleast :P

Cricket and Cryptic Crosswords

2005-12-23T02:12:00.000-08:00

My first memories of getting madly hooked onto cricket are from during the 1992 World Cup. I remember that all that I could talk about during that period was about what transpired in yesterday's match and what prospects tomorrow's match held. Unable to bear my incessant commentary on cricket, some of my classmates even starting avoiding me!

7 years on from then I entered IITM and within a month, I was totally hooked onto cryptic crosswords. Picking up the nuances of cryptic crosswords sort of became the mission of my life during the first semester then. Almost throughout my four years there, I used to do the Hindu crossword daily during the break we had after having finished lunch at 12:30 before heading to the next class at 1pm.

And even now, these remain two of my favorite pastimes. Whenever I get a chance, I do the crossie from The UK Times over lunch. And, we (the desi students out here at UW) manage to sneak in a couple of games of cricket on weekends when we are spared the usual Seattle showers.

Anyway, to cut the long story short, all these memories of mine were evoked because I was just enlightened about the similarities between cryptic crosswords and cricket by this great post. After reading this, the reason why I enjoy Test cricket more than ODIs makes complete sense!

What a terrific fightback!

2005-12-20T18:31:00.000-08:00

Inspite of all the hype, I have always believed that Australia would just streamroll South Africa in this series. However, the fight and gumption that the Springboks have displayed in this first Test now gives me hope that we can maybe look forward to some great tussles like what we saw in the Ashes during the summer. With Kallis returning in the Boxing Day Test, the South African batting order looks solid. They only need to do something about their bowling attack. The only spinner they had in this Test was Justin Kemp! I have no idea why Nicky Boje isn't in the team. They need atleast one quality spinner to take advantage of the rough in the second innings. And, I believe Boje is better than all the pathetic spinning options that England has (seeing Udal bowl makes me cry! :(()

Am disappointed that I missed out on watching this great knock from Rudolph because I was seeing the drab Ind-SL match instead :(

The games of childhood

2005-11-30T23:33:00.000-08:00

This is a pretty old post, but thought it might strike a chord with others too. I don't really have much to add to it. Just read the post and my rather detailed comment that summarizes an outpouring of some of the memories from my childhood that this post elicited. Would be interested to know if any of you have similar tales to tell from your childhood.

Update:

Yet another blog entry on similar veins on Cricinfo's blog Different Strokes.

Ganguly!

2005-11-30T11:03:00.000-08:00

Much like it was the case with Azhar during the final stages of his career (before it was clipped by the match-fixing scandal), Ganguly's batting has been the bone of contention among Indian cricket fans for almost a couple of years now. When he first made it into the team, he was the "God" of the offside and whenever a bowler made the folly of putting the ball on a good/over-pitched length outside the off-stump, you could be guaranteed that Ganguly would collect yet another boundary. However, in the last 2 years or so, the going has become tough for Ganguly with bowlers almost always sticking to a length that is short or just short of a good length against him. To add to his woes, he seemed to have lost that golden touch through the offside even on over-pitched/good length stuff. But, no one could have expected things to have gotten so out of hand for him as it has after his infamous press conference during the Zimbabwe tour. He somehow managed to acquire a timely case of "tennis-elbow" after the BCCI "efficiently" resolved the squabble between him and Chappell, which made it convenient for the selectors to leave him out of the team.

Team India, after its horrid run in ODIs since the 2003 World Cup, surprisingly got its act together right after Ganguly was left out. And so, this clearly made it tough for the selectors to bring him back after he had recovered from his supposed injury. Bongs made such a hue and cry about it that all that they achieved was to bring themselves to shame. Everyone, from the West Bengal CM to the actress Rupa Ganguly (of "Draupadi" fame) got into the act of heralding their golden boy, Sourav Ganguly. Without having access to the local media in Bengal, it's anybody's guess whether this represented the opinion of the majority in Bengal, but considering the booing that reportedly Dravid and even the lord of Indian cricket, Sachin, were subjected to in the Kolkata ODI, that does seem to the case.

The selectors finally wilted under pressure and brought Ganguly back into the Test side. And things would have been fine after a day or two if not for Kiran More's stupid remark that they had included him in the team as a "batting all-rounder", and that too at the expense of Zaheer Khan. Bah! A few wickets in Duleep and Ranji Trophy doesn't maketh an all-rounder. As Harsha Bhogle rightly points out in his latest column, Ganguly certainly doesn't deserve humiliation in this form of having to make it back into the Indian side as an all-rounder. To make matters worse, Sharad Pawar, the BCCI's new President, when asked about Ganguly's future, had this to say:

He’s one of the best allrounders the country has seen. However, it will be the selectors’ decision (about his inclusion in the team).

Ganguly must be in tears!

This whole episode has actually changed my sentiments towards Ganguly from apathy to sympathy. He has undoubtedly been India's best captain and the second best Indian batsmen in ODIs. His batting skills might have waned, in which case, please just drop him and get done with this. But, please don't term him "one of the best allrounder the country has seen"! Anyway, let us see what he has to offer in the first Test against Sri Lanka. Irrespective of whether he does make it into the playing eleven or not, he will certainly be mocked at either knowingly or unknowingly.

Pity Ganguly!

NFL isn't all that bad!

2005-11-08T00:59:00.000-08:00

After coming to the US, I took to basketball within a very short span of time. I've watched more NBA matches than cricket matches in the past couple of years (though I certainly track cricket more closely in the online media). And, I think I would go so far as to say that I would rate any NBA game that involves any two of Suns, Sonics, Spurs, Heat and Pistons to be more exciting than an ODI, even if it involves India! I have certainly not followed baseball as closely, but I do watch it on TV when there isn't a sitcom or a good movie on air at that time. Though it's a pretty boring game, it's better than all those crappy reality shows.

However, I have totally kept away from the other two American sports - football and ice hockey ... until now. I still have pretty much no clue about ice hockey; other than that there was no season last year because the players were on strike :P But, I have started getting into football over the past couple of weeks. Till now, what annoyed me about football is that every play is just a few seconds long. A play that lasts even as long as 10 seconds is possible only if it results in a touchdown. And in addition, I did not have a keen appreciation for the finer points of the game, which btw I still don't have :)

Thanks to Google News however, I have been following the Terrell Owens saga pretty closely since before last season's Super Bowl (those of you who haven't heard of Terrell Owens, go take a hike! ... Or, maybe I'll write a post about him sometime later this week), and that is what initially attracted me into watching a few of the Philadelphia Eagles' games this seasons. And, I found the games to be pretty much like an ODI in Eden Gardens! The crowds are really huge (yesterday's game between the Eagles and the Redskins had a crowd of 90,000!) and they keep roaring all the time. The intensity of the crowd in turn is reflected on the field as well. Though each play lasts for just a few seconds, the tension among the players is clearly palpable, which is what makes it exciting to watch. However, I still am nowhere near becoming a regular follower. I don't even know all the teams that are in the NFL :( I understand only the basic workings of the game, and don't know any of the standard positions other than quarterback and receiver (have heard of others like line-backer and safety, but have no clue what their roles are). I also know the names of only handful of players; how can anyone love a sport without knowing who the stars are :)

Anyway, it certainly looks like my love affair with the NFL has begun. With time, as I gain more insight into the game, it should certainly make more rivetting viewing. Who knows ... maybe I'll begin with the NHL too next year :P

Cheers,
Harsha

The power of money

2005-11-05T00:42:00.000-08:00

Just take a look at the English Premier League now and what it was a couple of years back. Who would have even imagined that Chelsea would become such a dominant side? All that mattered back then was Arsenal vs. ManU. Chelsea was just one more team among the also-rans. If Mourinho had been coaching Chelsea back then, I'm sure Wenger would have cared two hoots about his comments. (For the uninformed, Jose Mourinho and Arsene Wenger are the current coaches of Chelsea and Arsenal, respectively. I hope I don't need to add that Sir Alex Ferguson is the coach of Manchester United!) But, now with Chelsea being the only unbeaten team in the league, obviously Mourinho is the man on whom all the limelight is on. So, when he calls Wenger a "voyeur" obviously it has to be big news; he can no more be dismissed as just another madman.

And the reason for this drastic change in just two years is because of the limitless funds that Chelsea has its disposal now with Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich having bought the team. Now, they can afford to buy as many players as they wish without concern for the moolah that the team manages to rake in via game tickets, endorsements, sales of merchandise, etc. I really pity the other teams in the league. How can they be even expected to compete with Chelsea in such circumstances? Whenever any player has a great season, you can rest assured that Chelsea will certainly consider buying him. Even Steven Gerrard almost gave in to the temptation after scaling the heights at Liverpool by winning the Champions League last season. If this continues any longer, they might as well not have any matches in the league and hand the championship to Chelsea forever!

And all this because of Abramovich's billions. The power of Oil has come to dictate sport as well now. What a sad state to be in? The only reason to have any hope is that ManU too has been bought over by a billionaire! And this time by an American, Malcolm Glazer (who incidentally owns a team in the NFL as well, Tampa Bay Buccaneers). Wow, the Cold War will be fought all over again - this time in the English Premier League :-) Until now, ManU haven't made any really big acquisitions other than that of Rooney from Everton. If they continue to play like they did this week - they lost to Middlesborough in the Premier League and an unheard of French team, called Lille, in the Champions League - we could soon see the power of money coming into play at ManU as well pretty soon. And then, every year, we'll have the English Premier League decided by the bidding wars that ManU and Chelsea have at the start of the season.

The only way out to maintain any sense of parity between different teams seems to be either
1. Put up every team in the league as being on sale to be bought by a billionaire, or
2. Introduce a salary cap system

They better make the obvious choice soon or shut down the Premiership ...

(I apologize for any errors in spelling out all these crazy names!)

Cheers,
Harsha

I'm back

2005-10-20T00:53:00.000-07:00

Am finally back to the surface after having gone underground for the past four weeks putting fight for a paper deadline. As expected, the number of hits per day on this page has been steadily falling. Hopefully with increased activity, I will get my reader base back :)

Anyway, there doesn't seem to be anything really interesting going on around. The Super Series was clearly a dud (I can't believe we actually bought the package to watch that stupid match!). Alonso winning the championship has pretty much been a certainty for most of the season. Nothing great has been going on in tennis - the only event to await is the Masters Cup; hopefully we'll see someone challenge Federer there. Out of all the possible options, the Challenger Series seems to have been the only event that invoked some interest over the past month. So, it doesn't look like I really missed out on anything significant.

The only thing I missed which I'm not sure would have been exciting or not is the baseball postseason. Only yesterday did I come to know that both the Yankees and the Redsox had been knocked out, and today on SportsCenter I learnt that the World Series (what a misnomer!) is going to be fought out by the Houston Astros and the Chicago Whitesox. Maybe I'll catch a game or two of that series.

An interesting development has been the introduction of a new dress code in the NBA. The league has instituted a new code of conduct that whenever the players are not on the court, and are representing the league, they have to be in "Business Casual" attire. Which basically means, they need to wear either a suit or a full-sleeve shirt, be dressed in proper trousers and wear decent shoes (no sneakers, flip-flops, etc.). What makes this even more debatable is that they are not allowed to sport any medallions or pendants that are visible from outside, and use of headgear/headphones off the playing field is banned too. For a precise outline of the new regulations, go here. The first thing that comes to mind on reading this is that it's aimed at restricting the black players in the league, who clearly form a significant majority. And, unsurprisingly, the players too have voiced their opinion that these regulations are clearly racist. Even Tim Duncan, who is almost always diplomatically correct, has termed this "a load of crap".

I personally don't think these stipulations will last for long. One can understand regulations to curb violent outbreaks like what happened in the infamous Pistons-Pacers match last year. But, what's the point of restricting the player's apparel?!! The only reason I can see is that the NBA is afraid that seeing the players in their ridiculous attire (which happens to be normal for them :)) puts off people and so lose interest in the game. If anyone can think of any other reason, please do let me know. Anyway, like Duncan, I too feel it's a load of crap because all that the fans care for is that the games are of high quality. It's not as though I'm gonna put on the TV before a game, see some player dressed shoddily and so, turn it off! Who the hell cares what they wear off the court? Let us see how long this ruling stands and how many of the players get penalized for not abiding by them (I'm sure there are going to be many :)). Anyway, right now, can't wait for the season to begin!

Cheers,
Harsha

A Random Thought

2005-09-25T21:20:00.000-07:00

Following on from the theme of my previous post, here's a random thought that I just had as I was browsing Google News. Just take a look at the Sports and Entertainment sections on the India-specific page. What immediately struck me was that hardly any of the news on the Sports page is India-specific. Whereas, on the Entertainment page, almost everything is about Bollywood, Kollywood, etc. Is this just the Indian media's obsession with sleaze and scandals of our stars? Or, is this essentially the result of what most Indians care about? After all, reporters write more about what readers want more! Anyway, though the above links on Google News are surely going to change over time, I am going to bet that the proportion of India-specific articles on both are going to remain more or less the same.

BTW, Google News is made just for people like me who get bored of coding every hour. Every time you hit the refresh button, you are almost certain to get pointed to some new articles and so, you always have something to read. This ensures that you will surely waste time every time you switch from your terminal to your browser. But, I would like to look at this as that it also ensures you always return to work with renewed enthusiasm :D Anyway, long live Google News!

Update:
My reasoning turns out be incorrect. Right now, the Sports page is completely filled with India-related stories and more than half in the Entertainment section are not related to India. So, looks like cupping dog's suggestion that Google's indexing and ranking in an Indian context sucks seems right. Dog, as usual you score over me!

Cheers,
Harsha

Are we too meek?

2005-09-22T08:25:00.000-07:00

Here is an interesting article by Prem Panicker that he had recently linked to off his own blog. This is a fairly old piece but I guess much of it is still true. Most of us have often questioned about the apparent racism in the fines/suspensions handed out to Indian cricketers, though the Aussies and South Africans seem to get away with similar if not worse transgressions on the field. But, the above article brings into focus another point that I have often wondered about. Teams visiting India invariably crib about the dust bowls that we serve them. A tour to India is not complete without the visiting captain claiming at some point that "This is the worst pitch I have played on!". But, all that India is doing is playing to its strength (questionable if that still holds!) in the spin department. When we in turn go to Australia or South Africa, we never crib about having to play at Perth or Durban. Why is a pitch that helps spin any worse than a pitch that aids pace and bounce? When our batting order crumbles on those hard greentops, we complain about their techniques. When the Aussie lineup falls like ninepins facing Kumble et al., they crib about the pitch! Has anyone from the Indian team ever responded with a statement that the opposition should learn to play spin better rather than comment about the pitch? I don't recollect any such instance. Please do point me to it if this has ever occurred.

Anyway, I don't really have much time on my hands right now to write a longer post on this. Maybe I'll add on to this post later. Till then, hope to hear comments from some of you on this.

Cheers,
Harsha

Cryptic clues about the Ashes

2005-09-14T13:30:00.000-07:00

My friend Sumit has contributed a set of cryptic clues about the Ashes. He posted them in the comments section of my previous post, but I thought I'll put it out on the main page as well. Here they are:

1. A bigger boat leads the Aussies all at sea
2. Will have to make merry in his own royal land.
3. The first man to not cross any significant batting landmark in an Ashes since 2004
4. Comic hero finally retired from lecturing in England
5. DCth saves himself and country of ignominy from teammate
6. Acted like Mike, Alec and others but not anymore; still sounds like Shane
7. Required air towards the end but to his credit did suck some out of the opposition.
8. Had a perfect hold of gili-danda.
9. A couple here and there, and the freak would have no chance
10. Carriage took a lot of flak from the captain, but deftly substituted its worn wheels

Sumit, I'm hoping these are not PJs :-)

Cheers,
Harsha

Check it out!

2005-09-14T07:43:00.000-07:00

With one of the greatest ever Test series having just ended, I guess the statistics about this series should be fresh in all our minds. Well, then, check yourself out in this quiz over at BBC's webpage. For the record, I scored a paltry 6 out of 10! :-(

Also, check out this page in The Times where readers have listed out how they helped England win the Ashes. One of the readers says this:

Firstly I must apologise to Andrew Strauss, Michael Vaughan and Ian Bell. Unfortunately I must travel through one of the Mersey tunnels to and from work. As it is impossible to listen to the radio whilst journeying through them, I am forced to break my otherwise uninterrupted listening. Each time I emerged from the other side I found a wicket had gone down. This was the cause of Strauss's dismissal in the first innings. Due to a slow moving bus I was delayed in the tunnel on Monday morning and, when I did emerge, Vaughan and Bell had fallen victim to this tunnel of dismissal. Sorry guys.

:)) I myself do this often - making bets with myself that "In the next 5 seconds, if something does not happen, then something good will happen". I was especially guilty of doing this during my JEE days. I used to make such ridiculous bets! For example, if someone I was going out with was kick-starting a scooter, I used to say to myself that if the scooter started within 3 kicks, then I would make it through JEE, else not. And obviously, whenever my bets failed, I used to switch to the best-of-three mode and bet on two other ridiculously high probability events soon after. If several bets failed on a day, that day would go by in a particularly glum mood. It's good to see that there are other psychologically impaired people out there :)

Cheers,
Harsha

More Ashes coverage

2005-09-12T07:39:00.000-07:00

Ok, we are into the final session of the Ashes now. For all those who have been following the dreary ball-by-ball commentary on Cricinfo until now, check out the coverage on the Guardian instead here. It is clearly much more refreshing to follow. The commentator throws in comments received from several readers and most of them are extremely hilarious. Some excerpts:

"I have the answer to cricketing success: ear-rings," says Richard X. "Just look at the success of players with them: Warne, Flintoff and Pieterson. I think McGrath may have one too. Someone should have pierced Bell's ears before this Test?"

Meanwhile this from Richard Moore. "Apparently my wife's boss, who only learned the rules of cricket yesterday from her young son, has announced in a conference call with the Sydney office that 'Shane Warne is a perfect sporting example' for her young son, and that 'she hopes he grows up just like him'. There was an obvious guffaw from Sydney, closely followed by the sound of my Wife's head hitting the desk due to a sudden dizzy spell."

Even if you read this post only after the end of the match, going through the commentary on Guardian (links to the commentary of every session of each of the 5 Tests is available on the Guardian's Ashes page) would make for exciting reading. Anyway, for now, I can certainly say that the commentators are going to suffer heart attacks if the Aussies go on to win from here :-)

Cheers,
Harsha

Misery at the US Open

2005-09-09T16:20:00.000-07:00

I finally made my visit to this year's US Open yesterday and it turned out to be pathetic! I guess I should have trusted Federer for delivering a damp squib :-( As I had mentioned in an earlier post about my adventures in trying to attend the Sania vs. Sharapova match, I had booked tickets for Thursday as I wanted to catch a competitive match live. And, the men's quarterfinals seemed the only option available that would not cost me a fortune. Due to a sudden spurt of work, I began contemplating on Wednesday that I might as well sell the ticket. However, the schedule for Thursday showed up on the US Open webpage sometime on Wednesday evening, and the thought of getting to see a Federer vs. Nalbandian match enticed me into going for it. How I wish now that I had gone ahead and sold the ticket!

Watching the matches of Federer in the earlier rounds at this year's Open, it was apparent that he was nowhere near his best. He really had to scrap for a win even against mortals such as Santoro and Kiefer. Also, until an year ago, Nalbandian had Federer's number consistently. Before yesterday's match, the record between the two was 5-2 in favor of Nalbandian; the 2 wins for Federer coming after the 5 defeats. So, I was certainly justified in hoping that this would be a hotly contested encounter. Sadly, Federer chose precisely the wrong match to return to his sublime form :( I hardly remember Federer making an errors while Nalbandian piled on the double faults and groundstrokes in the net to help out. After the match started off on a great note with Nalbandian breaking Federer's serve, it was pretty much downhill from there.

The only exciting part of the match was that there were 6 Argentinians sitting behind me who were in really high "spirits"! They cheered every point that Nalbandian won wildly. Those points unfortunately were two few to stretch the match beyond two hours. The match that followed this one was a senior's doubles match, which I certainly had no intention of watching. I have no clue how they can schedule such a ridiculous match for a night session on Center Court!

So, I was at the USTA Tennis Center for just a little more than 3 hours. The Federer-Nalbandian match was to begin at 7:30 and so, I was at the venue by 6:30. During the one hour before the match, I saw Conchita Martinez/Ruano Pascal losing to two females that I had never heard of (BTW, Ruano Pascal is going to partner Sania in doubles at some WTA event in Kolkata. Sania is certainly beginning to get the right contacts!), saw John McEnroe catching some tennis practice before heading into the studio for his commentary stint with USA, and walked by Billie Jean King. While returning from this miserable outing, I was to endure more because of a fire on the tracks in New York Penn Station. Having left Flushing Meadows at around 9:45, I reached home at
1:30am!

What depresses me more about yesterday's match, is that all the other 3 men's quarterfinals before this one had been rivetting. All of them had been 5-setters going right down to the wire. I managed to catch only the Agassi-Blake match on TV though and it was awesome. Just my luck that I ended up attending a match featuring Federer. If Federer's dominance continues for much longer, I might begin to abhor him just the way I loathe Michael Schumacher. I am the perennial supporter of the underdog!

BTW, to end this post, I must remark that I have been pleasantly surprised by the quality of women's tennis at this year's Open. The Clijsters vs. Venus match especially was a classic. The athleticism of Clijsters is really amazing. The player I hate most though on the women's side is Dementieva. She has a joke of a serve and her game is all about consistency. Not entertaining in anyway and certainly not worth watching. I am glad Pierce managed to prevent her from making it to the finals. Of course, I am happy for Clijsters too that she made it to the finals. Hopefully she can finally do away with her Grand Slam jitters tomorrow night.

Cheers,
Harsha

Ashes coverage

2005-09-08T08:47:00.000-07:00

For all those who haven't discovered this all through the first 4 Tests of this amazing series, live commentary of the Ashes is available online on BBC. Here is the link to the page on BBC; needless to say, click on the live commentary link on this page :P

As I have religiously listened to every word the BBC commentators have uttered since the last day of the 3rd Test, I have become fascinated with the English accent. It is so refreshingly different from what we get to listen on TV daily out here. Sometimes it is fun when what one of the commentators says cannot be understood even by his colleague! Also, considering that I'm backing England, it certainly helps that the commentators are vociferously doing the same. Listening to commentators who support the Aussies would be pathetic. You would get to hear the commentator moaning about a big six from Flintoff with the crowd applauding in the background!

Anyway, let's hope this Test turns out to be a cracker too. From what I heard on the last day of the Old Trafford Test, the BBC commentary panel (which btw comprises of Henry Blofeld, Jonathan Agnew, Christopher Martin-Jenkins, etc.) does a great job of capturing the excitement out there in the field (I sadly couldn't catch the end of the Trent Bridge Test :(). At the moment, the Aussies seem to be slightly ahead thanks to Warne ...

Update:
Excerpt from an article on Cricinfo:

John Howard, the Australian prime minister, has asked bosses to go easy on their staff this week if they turn up yawning after watching Australia's push to retain the urn.

From a search on Google News, looks like the Aussie PM did say that! Amazing :)

That reminds me of this excellent article on Rediff yesterday where India's lone medallist at last year's Olympics argues why any Indian would be motivated to get into a sports career. For once, the reader's comments on a Rediff article were also worth reading. Oh, btw, John Howard's comment reminded me of this because Rathore compares the sports culture in Australia with that in India ...

Cheers,
Harsha

The Sania Mania!

2005-09-04T15:38:00.000-07:00

On Friday, it became known that Sania Mirza had become the first Indian woman to reach the 4th round of a Grand Slam and that she would face off against Maria Sharapova on Sunday. I had already bought tickets for the men's quarterfinals, but the prospect of catching this match in person was too much for me to resist. So, I decided that spending another 50 bucks for this opportunity was worth it. I managed to rope in a couple of my friends too. The only problem was the schedule of play for Sunday was not yet out on Friday evening. However, at that time, tickets were available for Sunday only for the night session on center court. Well, with Sharapova in the match, we were certain the match would be on center court. But, obviously the chances of it being in the morning or evening were even ... After pondering over the situation for a few minutes, my friends and I decided to go ahead and buy the tickets for the night session on Sunday. Clearly, we were just gambling and if the match turned out to be in the morning, we would be screwed. But, we decided that if match does get scheduled for the evening, we shouldn't have to blame ourselves later for not grabbing the tickets while they were available.

Then, on Saturday afternoon, the schedule for Sunday was put up on usopen.org. And, as lady luck would have it, the match did get scheduled for the AFTERNOON! I immediately checked again on ticketmaster, and obviously there were no tickets available for any session on Sunday. Still hoping against hope, I kept checking for the next hour. Also checked other random sites found by googling that were selling tickets for the Open. No luck. After getting over the depression that this had brought forth on me, I decided there is no point going to the night session. I would get to see Kim Clijsters and Roger Federer in action, but their opponents were pathetic. Having already been to the US Open last summer, I certainly had no excitement left in me for "just going to the Open". Last summer, I had been to the US Open on the second Monday and though I was excited and all, the fact that both the matches I saw were not hotly contested by any means left me wanting for more. That is why I decided to go for the men's quarterfinals this time (the tickets for the semis and finals were way too expensive!). Amidst this mindset, watching two damp squibs on a Sunday night certainly didn't seem appealing.

So, I set out to sell the 3 tickets I had. After googling once again, I found a couple of random sites where I posted that I am looking to sell three tickets for Sunday night. I was certainly not very hopeful of these tickets getting sold. But, within half an hour of me putting up the posting, my phone rang! It was some desi dude called Suresh from Delaware who was interested in buying my tickets. He was extremely excited and he even offered to drive all the way to NJ to pay me by cash. Then, after talking for a bit, I asked him "You are looking for tickets for the night session, rite?". He immediately lost all his enthusiasm and cried out "NO!". It turned out that one of the sites I had posted on had goofed up and listed my post under both the day and night sessions. In the next half an hour, I received 4 more calls. All from desis around NY and I first up asked them the question "You are looking for tickets for the day session, rite?" and as soon as they said "Yes", I added "I only have tickets for the night session." and broke their hearts. I received a few emails too, and all were asking for tickets for the day session. That Suresh dude also called me back and asked me if I knew someone who had tickets for the day session. I guess he thought I was some sort of broker/agent! :)) Clearly no one was interested in buying my tickets for the night and so, I went back home on Saturday night consoling myself that I'll atleast get to see Federer from close quarters :(

I came back to the lab today and found that 10 more people had called me! All of them must have been for the tickets; none were from numbers of people I knew. I received one more call within a few minutes of coming in and I asked him the standard question by now whether he was looking for tickets for the day session. And lo and behold, he said "No". And he was looking to buy all 3 tickets too. Great! So, finally, I did manage to dispose off with the 3 tickets bought by gambling in the heat of the moment. If Sania does reach the higher echelons of the tennis world sometime in the future, I guess I'll be going around telling this story often :)

Anyway, I did catch Sania's match on CBS today afternoon. The only other time I had seen her play was when she faced off against Serena Williams in this year's Australian Open. At that time, having absolutely no expectations from her, I was pleasantly surprised by her power-packed game (remember my earlier post about Satisfaction = Performance - Expectation? :)). Her forehand was awesome and she whacked off numerous winners with it even against an opponent as formidable as Serena. But, her consistency, both in terms of groundstrokes and first server percentage, was pathetic. It seemed like all you had to do beat her was put the ball back in her half of the court consistently and she would self-destruct. I did not manage to catch her game on TV again after that, but her ranking had progressed by leaps and bounds into the top 50. So, I was hoping her game would have significantly improved by now. Based on the evidence of her match today against Sharapova, that clearly is not the case. Her serve is still pathetic and she makes as many errors as the number of winners she pulls off.

I am certainly not belittling her game. All that I'm saying is that there are clear areas for her to work on, assuming she aspires to continue her rise through the WTA rankings. Her current game may ensure that she wins the first 3-4 rounds in most tournaments and keeps her ranking around the 40 mark. But, to break into the top 20 and go further in Grand Slams, she'll need to work on her game. I hope all the hype around her doesn't get to her, and that over the next couple of years, she does manage to improve her game. Though tennis is an exciting sport, having an Indian to support certainly makes it all the more exciting :) Go Sania!!

Cheers,
Harsha

The end of a champion's era

2005-08-29T17:14:00.000-07:00

This weekend ESPN Classic was dedicated to covering the careers of Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson. So, all weekend, they showed the professional heavyweight bouts of either boxer. I happened to catch the legendary fight between Mike Tyson and James "Buster" Douglas. Until this bout, Tyson had pretty much had his own way in rising to the top and earning the world heavyweight championship. Knocking out opponents was routine for him and several of them were in fact disposed off in the first round! In this instance however, Buster Douglas was clearly not frightened of Tyson. Tyson never got the chance to deliver one of his infamous uppercuts and Buster Douglas was dominating the proceedings until the 5th round. All along, Tyson had the quiet confidence of a champion. He seemed to believe that all that he needed was to connect an uppercut and he would have added another KO to his record. Tyson finally became a bit desperate in the 7th round and began attacking furiously and even managed to get Buster Douglas to fall to the floor. However, Buster Douglas managed to beat out the count. The commentator was predicting this all along and he was overjoyed that it had finally come true. He now predicted that the bout would be over in the next round. What happened instead was that Buster Douglas came out fighting once again (I mean in spirit; of course they had been fighting all along :-)), connected a left-hand jab and Tyson was down .... and Mike "Iron" Tyson failed to beat the count .... James "Buster" Douglas was the new heavyweight champion of the world that no one expected to be.

Doesn't this whole story draw an eerie resemblance to the ongoing Ashes? When the series began last month, no one gave a chance for the Poms to win (though several, including me, hoped they would). After the Lords Test, Australia had their usual swagger of a champion and though England had put up a decent fight on the first day, everyone thought this is the same old Ashes story. But, England have continued with their aggression over the next 3 Tests and Australia's quiet confidence has been shown to be what it's worth. The Aussies have come out fighting whenever they are thought to be completely down and out, but apart from Ponting's brilliant century at Old Trafford, it has usually come too late. In the first Test, the Aussies were under some pressure after being bowled out cheaply in the first innings and so came out firing to skittle out the English for even less. Since then, England has batted first in the next 3 matches and the Australian bowlers have generously allowed them to post more than 400 on all three occasions. The Aussies have shown zero resolve unless defeat is staring them in the face.

So, even if Australia wins the last Test, the popular opinion would be that it is England who gave it away and the Aussies managed to escape ignominy. Given their performance so far, I don't think they can return home with their invincible image intact. The only question that remains now is whether the remaining teams can capitalize on the psychological battering that the Aussies have suffered? Or, is it just going to be the case now that both England and Australia are way above the rest of the heap? Either way, it is the end of the Aussie era of dominance.

Cheers,
Harsha

Is Lance Armstrong guilty?

2005-08-29T16:35:00.000-07:00

One of the big stories of last week was that of the Tour de France organizers finding a sample given by Lance Armstrong in 1999 to be positive. The sample taken from Lance before the 1999 Tour was found to contain some substance called EPO. This substance increases the capacity of the blood to absorb oxygen and so, can clearly be of help to any athlete. The TDF organizers have come out only now with this news of the sample taken in 1999 being positive for EPO since there did not exist a test for detection of EPO back then. Incidentally, 1999 was the year in which Lance made his comeback to the Tour de France after surviving testicular cancer.

Armstrong has been hit with doping allegations several times in the past. He is associated with a doctor whose name I think is Michael Ferrari, who has been suspected of advocating steroid use. A few months back, one of Lance's former servants sued him claiming that he had been fired because he had found steroids in Armstrong's bathroom cabinet. But, this latest instance has been the most damning evidence found against him so far. Even this detection of EPO is not fully assured because every doping test requires the test to be positive on both the A and B samples, and in this case, I think only one of the samples had been retained since 1999.

As expected, the reaction to this news has been markedly different in the US and elsewhere. In France, the media has declared that Armstrong's lies are finally out and even the director of the Tour de France said that "we have all been fooled". In the US however, the media has been firmly in support of Armstrong and the reaction largely has been that it is a case of sour grapes that the French have not been able to produce anyone to match Armstrong. The organization of professional cyclists in the US (not sure what they call themselves!) has also released a statement saying that they back Armstrong. This was the same organization that had backed Tyler Hamilton last year when his doping test at the Athens Olympics was claimed to be positive, and once the positive test was confirmed, they immediately backed out and withdrew Hamilton's license! So, I don't think their backing counts for anything.

This controversy has not only hurt Armstrong's image but also thrown up interesting legal issues. Supposedly, whenever samples are taken from an athlete for a dope test, those samples should be disposed off within a few months. But, in this case, the TDF organizers retained Armstrong's samples for as long as 7 years. So, maybe Armstrong can sue them and actually make some money out of this :-)

Anyway, I am not really sure what to make of the whole episode. I take it that these doping tests are not reliable enough and hence, they need to be validated on an extra sample for certainty. But, still .... I would think the reliability of these tests is not so bad that when a sample turns out to be positive, the probability of that indeed being the case is less than say 75%. So, in my mind atleast, the image of Armstrong has been eroded. Giving him the benefit of the doubt (using the principle that innocent until proven guilty :-)), we still have no evidence of him using any illegal substances during the years 2000-2005. And even disregarding 1999, the achievement of winning 6 successive TDFs is unprecedented.

I only hope Armstrong is indeed innocent and he has not taken all of us for a ride ....

Cheers,
Harsha

The oddities of a slingy action

2005-08-25T14:05:00.000-07:00

Shaun Tait made his debut for Australia today and from all reports, it looks like he was easily the most effective bowler. The tonnes of newsreel about him since the end of the previous Test has repeated over and over again that his slingy round-arm action will cause problems for most batsmen. The same thing has been said often about Lasith Malinga of Sri Lanka. Unfortunately, neither did I get a chance to watch Tait bowling today nor have I seen Malinga bowling. Tait's action has also been compared to that of Jeff Thompson, and obviously I haven't seen him bowl too! So, it is not really clear to me what oddity in their actions everyone is referring to. From what I have gathered, it seems like both bring their arm over from behind their backs, giving the batsmen very little time to pick the ball coming apparently out of nowhere. However, it is hard for me to imagine anyone bowling like this :-)

Can anyone please offer a better description or insight on what problems these bowlers offer? Or, is there any other bowler of the 90s with a similar action, whom I would have surely seen bowling?

Update:
Here is an article in today's Guardian, in which Richard Williams (isn't that Serena and Venus' father's name too?) dismisses all the hype about Tait's action. He gives as good a description as one can give in plain text of a bowler's action. :-) Anyway, I am looking forward to watching Tait and Malinga bowling sometime soon.

Cheers,
Harsha

Reverse swing is the talk of the town

2005-08-22T13:58:00.000-07:00

After England's amazing comeback in the last two Tests, given the hiding they received in the first one at Lords, the unanimous opinion on the cause for this resurgence has been reverse swing. The story goes that Sarfraz Nawaz of Pakistan was the first to discover this skill. He then passed it on to Imran, who in turn taught it to his best finds - Wasim and Waqar. Simon Jones then learnt the art from Waqar while he was at Glamorgan. And now, he has passed it on to Flintoff. Waqar has even come out in the open now stating that what the English called "ball tampering" during his and Akram's heyday, is now being glorified as reverse swing :-)

Anyway, here is an article explaining the basics of swing and reverse-swing. Though the article does not have any cool animations to illustrate the phenomenon, it does a decent job. Reverse swing requires the ball to lose its shine and supposedly, this usually happens by the 50th over or so. But, with Harmison and Flintoff banging the ball in hard, this has happened by the 20th over itself! (I have read other outrageous claims that the England fielders throwing it in to the keeper on one bounce from the deep has also helped this cause, but I think that's rubbish!).

The fourth Test at Trent Bridge begins on Thursday, and it seems like an eternity since the one at Old Trafford ended! I just can't wait :) Gillespie is clearly out of the Aussie XI and the tussle is between Kasprowicz and Tait for the same spot. Let us see if the Aussies blood the youngster. I have been meaning to write a post on the state of Indian cricket for quite some time now. Sadly, my reduced online hours and increased workload have proved to be an obstacle. Hopefully I will be able to cross the hurdle soon. Meanwhile, sorry for the reduced frequency of posts.

Cheers,
Harsha

The signficance of a draw

2005-08-15T13:40:00.000-07:00

I guess most cricket fans would have had to, at sometime in their lives, explain to a novice in cricket what the significance of a draw is. The following paragraph from Andrew Miller's column on Cricinfo best summarizes it.

Non-believers have never got the draw. How can you plug away for five days on end and walk away with a shrug of the shoulders? This evening not a soul could fail to grasp the significance, as a team that had been playing catch-up since the very first morning grabbed its glimmer of a get-out clause. Had this been a one-day game, the tension would have dissipated the moment that Shane Warne fell and the distant prospect of an Aussie win had been banished. Today, however, the breakthrough had the absolute opposite effect.

Update:

Talking about exciting draws, here's a link to another drawn Test that must have been just as exciting as yesterday's match. This was the first Test played by England in Zimbabwe and the match actually ended up with the scores equal! It was a draw and not a tie because the team batting last was not all-out. I am shocked that I have no memories about this match! :) Anyway, looking at the current state of Zimbabwe cricket, we can be assured that they won't be involved in such matches any more ;)

Incredible Update:
Just read Shane Warne's latest column in The Times. He has this incredible story to offer that McGrath could actually have been run out in the last over. Not seen this story anywhere else until now. It's amazing how Hoggard's presence of mind in such a pressure cooker situation could have turned the whole series upside down! I guess that is what sports is finally about - performing at your best under pressure (Harmison is the one who needs to learn that lesson the most :)).

Cheers,
Harsha

Been offline

2005-08-15T09:31:00.000-07:00

Sorry guys. I have been offline for almost 3 days now. So, haven't had a chance to follow the ongoing third Test. At the moment, it looks like it will be a case of "so near yet so far" for England. Hats off to Ponting though on a century in such circumstances! Let us see what drama unfolds in the remaining one hour of play.

Will be back with a longer post later in the day.

Cheers,
Harsha

Reflecting on the Test gone by ...

2005-08-08T16:03:00.000-07:00

The pic that summarizes the final result of the second Test:

BTW, here is an excerpt from Justin Langer's latest column:

Michael Vaughan’s success as a captain has centred on aggressive fast bowling complemented by him setting quite defensive fields. The trick is to remain patient and wear down the fast bowlers.

Looks like he did not share this enlightenment with any of the other Aussie batsmen (maybe he did let in the bowlers Warne, Lee and Kasprowicz though on his little secret!).

Another excerpt from Martin Johnson's column in The Telegraph:

... yesterday morning's remarkable events made you suspect that the Australians, tired of knocking over the Poms without breaking sweat, were amusing themselves by imposing some kind of handicap system. You could almost imagine the dressing-room conversations. "Two hundred and thirty isn't much of a target, let's give 'em another fifty for the last wicket." "Six down overnight? Nah, that'll make Sunday far too easy. Let's make it eight." "We're getting a bit close now, Warney. Why not do something daft, like treading on your own stumps, then leave it to Brett and Kaspar? That'll really p*** 'em off."

ROFL!!!

Cheers,
Harsha

This is what India needs ... an all-rounder!

2005-08-06T12:25:00.000-07:00

Immortal Quote?

I'm Andrew Flintoff, and this is the way I play.

Ashes: The second Test (continued)

2005-08-06T09:22:00.000-07:00

The previous post was getting stretched out a tad too much, so decided to start off afresh. "Start afresh". That is what both England and Australia should be thinking to do in the next Test. This one hasn't been worthy of being called a Test match. It is more like an elongated ODI! Events have been unfolding at a breakneck speed throughout the game. The run-rate has been above 4 throughout the 3 days of play we have seen so far. And keeping up with the run-rate, wickets too have falling like nine-pins regularly. Other than Langer in the first innings, there hasn't been a single batsman who has shown application to stick out their in the middle.

Atleast in the second innings now, one would have expected the Aussie batsmen to put their heads down and plod their way to victory after Warne and Lee handed the advantage back to them this morning (though Freddie pulled it back a bit with this assualt). After all, they had 7 sessions to complete the job. But, no! How could they not keep up with the run-rate of 4, that seems to the par for this match?! The Aussie batsmen are freely going for their strokes determined to not let the English bowlers dominate. On their part, the England bowlers aren't doing a terrific job as such. Other than Flintoff's first over (which was just out of this world!), the rest of the bowling has been pretty ordinary. They seem to be having a tough time controlling their line and length with the ecstatic crowd pumping up their adrenaline. But, it certainly does not look like they have to worry about the Aussies putting together a long partnership given the way they are batting. Just consider the two other dismissals (I mean other than the two in Flintoff's first over):
1. Matthew Hayden - After all the talk before this test began, that he needed to play in the V, rather than square (supposedly one of the openers in the Aussies' 1930s Invincibles gave him this advice), he got out trying to drive through cover. With Simon Jones slanting the ball across the left hander, clearly the odds of the ball taking the edge are pretty high ... unless Hayden had been on top of his game, which he is not! To Vaughan's credit, he had a second slip instead of first slip and Trescothick gleefully dived across to his left to grab the chance.
2. Damien Martyn - Did his girlfriend ditch him just before the match? Or, is he coming in to bat doped? Looking at both of his dismissals in this test, just one word comes to mind - LAZY! In the first innings Vaughan caught him ambling across and this time round, he just lazily tapped the ball across to midwicket off the first ball of Hoggard's new spell. In fact, Michael Holding was wondering why the hell Vaughan had such a defensive field. There was just one catcher at slip, everyone else was saving a single as though it was an ODI. But, Martyn decided he's had enough out there and played a LAZY flick off this pads to pick out Bell at midwicket.

Anyway, inspite of all this, Clarke, Katich and Gilchrist might just guide the Aussies home. But, so far, the world champions have sucked throughout this Test!

Cheers,
Harsha

Ashes: The second Test

2005-08-04T15:40:00.000-07:00

We are through with the first day of the second Test and England notched up 407 at over 5 an over in just less 80 overs. The unanimous verdict all round seems to be that England messed up by scoring just 400 odd on such an insipid pitch. And, that Australia are going to pile up 600 odd over the next day or two. And, then bowl out the Poms on the 4th day to get an innings victory. Hah! Could I please beg to differ? Not completely though. It is certainly possible, considering the might of the Aussie bowling, that they could indeed pile up more than 600. And, just considering basic probability, England will most probably still end up losing.

But, how come no one is criticizing the Aussie bowlers for the hiding they received? The next time India plays on such a dead pitch, and our bowlers concede more than 400 in a day, who do you think the press is going to blame first? Of course, the bowlers! What's different if the bowlers happen to be from Australia instead of India? Just because the pitch does not offer any support does not mean you can just run in and deliver the ball and wait for miracles to happen. I saw the game for only an hour today. The three pace bowlers did hardly anything of note (don't give me the excuse of the pitch, please!). And, particularly Warne was nowhere near threatening. His bowling lacked a good loop and his customary big leg breaks were not to be seen (ok agreed it is a first day pitch, but this is WARNE!). On the whole, my verdict is that you cannot attribute England scoring 400 in a day just to the pitch. The Aussie bowlers are equally to blame. You need to have a gameplan for any sort of pitch. A bowler cannot say "Give me a friendly pitch and I'll drive the wits out of the opposition. Else, don't count on me!".

Anyway, let us hope the English bowlers are fired up by the huge total for once their batsmen have chalked up against Australia. Yeah yeah, all of us know how good the Aussie batting is and that they won't gift away their wickets and that they are surely going to score in excess of 600. But, come on, who the hell wants to see yet another Aussie victory! Let us hope there is a change in the script this time :)

Update: Day 2
Until now, the Aussies seem to be returning the gifts the Englishmen handed over to them yesterday. Ashley Giles is supposedly pointing to the press box in the below pic after getting rid of Ponting. Given the magnanimity that Ponting displayed in throwing away his wicket, I don't think Giles can claim any credit whatsoever for that dismissal!

Query:
BTW, can anyone shed light on why Giles is referred to as the "King of Spain"? Have read that phrase umpteen number of times since morning. Is it because he is not the "King of Spin"? ;-)

Interesting stat hot off the blocks:
Warne becomes the first bowler to take 100 wickets in an overseas country. Tells you not only what a great bowler he is, but also that the Englishmen have been his bunnies for 12 years now!

Update:
Another interesting stat I came upon just now. When McGrath is part of the Aussie lineup, Brett Lee's bowling average is 28 and when he does not have McGrath's support, Lee's average is an abysmal 47! One can only wonder what are the prospects of Lee continuing to play for Australia for tests once McGrath hangs up his boots ...

Yet another Update:
Just noticed this hilarious bit on The Guardian:

Stat of the day
It's been 22 Tests since England topped Australia on first innings. And to dial random Australian numbers to remind them of this fact, the international code is +61.

I guess no one can beat the English tabloids at stretching things too far!

Cheers,
Harsha

Everything dull all round ...

2005-08-01T18:46:00.000-07:00

There really isn't anything important going on in sports right now. The tri-series on in Sri Lanka lacks any appeal because a lacklustre Windies outfit has reduced two-thirds of the clashes to no-contests. There is still one month to go for the US Open to begin (yes, the one in tennis; the one in golf is already done with for this year). The regular season is still dragging on in baseball (why the hell do they play so many games?!). OK, the World Championships are on in swimming, but there really isn't anything much happening out there that would inspire anyone ...

The only way of dispelling this ennui seems to be by reading the petty stories conjured up the media. The best I have read today is this. The reporter has painted a complete picture of the Indian team's psychology based on how they sat at a table for a meal! The other interesting bit that I read today is Prem Panicker's post summarizing Ashes coverage in the press. As Panicker points out, I too can't believe how Ian Bell can openly state that he has no clue about Warne's bowling when there are 4 more tests left to play in series! He even claims that the ball with which Warne dismissed him was not a slider, but just a faster legbreak that did not spin enough. Dude, atleast don't openly admit in the press that you are clueless! Anyway, with the second Test scheduled to begin on Thursday, we can be sure that the Ashes hype will once again reach sky-high over the next couple of days. If nothing, this will atleast throw up enough interesting articles to pass time with.

If any of you have read any interesting sports article of late which has made you feel the reporter must be crazy, please do post a link out here. :)

Cheers,
Harsha

Srinath and Manjrekar

2005-07-30T09:27:00.000-07:00

At the end of today's match, Manjrekar and Srinath were discussing Dravid's captaincy and they concluded that even though India lost, he had done nothing wrong. Then, out of nowhere, Srinath says

Saurav, if you are listening to this, you are a good captain. But, Rahul is a good captain as well.

Obviously, that perked up Manjrekar and he asked Srinath

So, you think Dravid is a better captain?!!

That was followed by a moment of silence and then, Srinath (with his tail firmly in between his legs now!) says

Dravid is a good captain!

Got to love these guys! :))

Update:

Talking about ex-cricketers, here is an amazing story by another retired cricketer, Michael Slater, narrated in his soon to be released book Slats: The Michael Slater Story. For the benefit of those who did not know about the mental troubles he recently confessed to, here is a link about it. I don't know what his mental condition was when he wrote the above the story in his book!!

Cheers,
Harsha

Satisfaction = (Performance - Expectation)

2005-07-29T19:55:00.000-07:00

I first read the above formula in an article by Narayana Murthy a couple of years back. And since then, its significance has hit me over and over again. Of course applicable in day-to-day life (especially in one's relationship with his/her advisor :P), it comes to my mind most often in sports. As every sportsperson progresses in his career, he builds up a set of expectations that the public has from him. And, the satisfaction that the public derives from his performance is relative to these expectations. To offer a trivial example, consider the unlikely event that Roger Federer and Sania Mirza emerge the US Open champions in a little over a month's time (:)) ROFL! :))). Clearly, the effective performance, if I may coin such a term, of Sania would far outweigh that of Federer (still can't stop ROFL :))).

Let me stop dishing out such vacuous examples and tell you about what reminded me of this today. The World Championships in swimming are currently on in Montreal and just like last year at the Athens Olympics, Michael Phelps is again bidding to win a bunch of gold medals. He had managed to win 6 golds and a total of 8 medals at the Olympics. Now, coming into the World Championships, he decided to try out his hand in freestyle races - freestyle is his least favorite stroke. He even skipped one of the Individual Medleys, his pet event (not exactly sure which one). As expected he was totally routed in the freestyle sprints. His pace in the 100m freestyle was no match to traditional sprinters such as Schoeman and Neethling of South Africa (some other dude from Italy whom I've never heard of ended up winning!), and he finished 7th out of the 8 finalists. Having set sky-high expectations in Athens, the media is clearly unimpressed with this Phelps outing and they have stamped their verdict on this performance as a flop! This is a classic example of the subject of this post. Even though Phelps actually had the courage to skip the events he could have comfortably won and contested in events that he usually does not, all with the objective of emerging an all-round swimmer, no one cares two hoots. They expect some standard from Phelps and when he delivers below that standard, irrespective of what his intentions might have been, it leaves them disappointed. Anyway, I think I have belabored enough about the point I am trying to make. :)

The standout performance for the day was however by Tiger. He had shot a 1 under-par 71 yesterday at the Buick Open and was just on the verge of missing the cut. Today, he came back blazing and shot a 11-under 61! That was the previous best ever on this course and he came awfully close to scoring a 59 (he narrowly missed out on birdies on the last two holes), which is the lowest ever on the PGA Tour. Kinda sad that I could not catch the round on TV :( Anyway, I'm sure the rounds during the weekend will be telecast live and if he continues in the same rich vein of form, it should be a treat.

Cheers,
Harsha

The purpose of life is to enjoy sports!

2005-07-28T10:51:00.000-07:00

This article captures the essence of life. There cannot be a better way of leading life than to watch and appreciate great sportsmen day in and day out. As the article says, we are blessed to be born in the same age as Federer, Tiger and Rooney (Please note the conspicuous absence of one Mr. Michael Schumacher!). Let's just enjoy it!

Only wish someone could pay me for spending the rest of my life watching sports :)

Cheers,
Harsha

A new season of Indian cricket begins

2005-07-27T17:33:00.000-07:00

Amid all the hoopla of the Ashes and the Tour de France, the start of the Indian cricket team's new season had totally escaped my attention. The new season starts off with India playing Sri Lanka and West Indies in back-to-back ODIs this weekend. Though it has been a couple of months since Greg Chappell was appointed the coach of Team India, these will be the first matches they play under his tutelage. I believe rather than the Aussie spirit rubbing off on the Indian players, it is going to be the case that the coach will be driven to frustration. I can already visualize the press conference at the end of this series. The news-hungry wolves from the media will be at Chappell's throat for explanations as to why India did not even make the final of the tri-series. And, I am sure Chappell is not going to spare any words in ridiculing the Indian players. Hehe ... should be fun :)

The thing that has pissed me off though is BCCI continuing to drag the issue of Ganguly's suspension. The ICC's rules when a team fails to keep up with the over rate were known to all and the Indian team has been guilty of this offence quite often in recent times. So, when the 6-match suspension was slapped on Ganguly it should not have come as a surprise to anyone. The Indian board could have just accepted this decision and moved on. After all, who the hell cares for the results of ODIs anymore. But no. How could the Indian board back down so easily? Dalmiya defended Ganguly so stoutly as though he had been handed a death sentence! The ICC looked into the matter once and said "Sorry guys! He's got to serve the suspension". But, the BCCI refused to be cowed down and persisted with the issue. I don't know what's taken the ICC so long to give a verdict, but the final decision is expected to be out tomorrow. In contrast, when Inzamam was handed a one Test ban after the ODI series in India, he accepted it without any cribs and Pakistan even managed to lose that Test to the West Indies of all teams! The sad part of this whole controversy though is that even if Ganguly's suspension is not repealed tomorrow, the two matches he missed at the end of the Pak ODI series will be counted as part of the suspension :( The more matches he misses the better for the team :P

BTW, talking about Indian cricket, here's a really sorrowful story that I came across today via Prem Panicker's blog. Koneru Humpy had Bank of Baroda as her sponsor for funding her training, travel, etc. Not just for making money by endorsements, mind you. And now, BoB has decided to instead sponsor Rahul Dravid and make him their brand ambassador. What a load of crap! Why the *@&! does a bank need a brand ambassador? As though every time one thinks of Bank of Baroda, he is going to remember Dravid and think - "Oh! This bank must be solid". No way. The bank is wasting money either way. They might as well fund Humpy and ensure that the money is put to good use. I'm sure Dravid couldn't care less if he had this one additional endorsement under his belt. Anyway, let us hope she does manage to find a sponsor and put up a good show at the upcoming women's world championships.

Huh, reading over my own post, it looks like I don't have anything positive to say about the state of Indian sport! Let's see how the Indian team fares over the next couple of weeks ...

Update:
Just realized that the West Indies is playing with a bunch of jokers in this tri-series. If the scenario I predicted above of India not making it to the finals does arise, I think Greg Chappell will have to take more drastic measures than just ridiculing his players in a press-conference!

Cheers,
Harsha

The role of skill in F1

2005-07-26T18:00:00.000-07:00

This year, Fernando Alonso can seemingly make no mistake. He's been winning almost as often as Schumacher did last year without even having the best car around. For the past 3 races, McLaren has clearly had the best car with Raikonnen blazing away from the rest of the field during practice and qualifying. Sadly for Kimi though, his car's reliability has not matched up to its performance. I think he has had atleast 3 engine failures (If I remember right, one of them was during qualifying and due to one of F1's stupid rules this season, he had to drop down 10 places in the grid for having changed his engine!), because of which he has not been able to capitalize on McLaren's superior performance at the moment. But, atleast for me, what has been amazing is that Alonso has always been around to take advantage of other's misfortunes. In every race this season (other than the infamous US GP though :D) he has managed to grab a pretty good place at the finish, usually making it to the podium as well, even when it has been clear based on the performance of the cars on Friday and Saturday that Renault isn't the best car around.

Alonso's performance this season has made me believe once again that skill does matter after all in F1. After watching Schumacher's domination the last couple of years, when all that he needed to win was his Ferrari, I had lost complete faith that driving ability mattered at all in Formula One. This season has brought forth a fresh breath of air. In fact, this weekend was the best example of this. Not only did Alonso manage to capitalize on Raikonnen's misfortune, but Montoya managed to make good use of McLaren's advantage over the rest of the field to finish second after starting from the back of grid (this time because of his own error doing qualifying). Schumacher's 'skills' were for all to see as he was first passed by Montoya and then by Button :) It's time to retire Michael! BTW, F1 is considering some radical proposals for the qualifying format for next season. Check them out here.

To end, hats off to Lance! How many ever times I read about his story, it has always been an inspiration for me. I was still hoping Ullrich or Basso would manage to defeat him this year :P

Cheers,
Harsha

Ashes first Test summary

2005-07-23T15:28:00.000-07:00

I guess I don't really need to say much. The above pic pretty much summarizes what has transpired in the first Ashes test. The English batting has been woeful and it has only been Pietersen who has batted with any degree of confidence in either innings. But, I wouldn't pass Pietersen as a Test player just as yet because he came in to bat in either innings with England's innings in doldrums and the Aussies beginning to take things easy. In fact, Pietersen might have been the cause for this English defeat having dropped 3 catches. If Clarke had been dismissed for 21 in the second innings, who knows what the future had in store ... Anyway, irrespective of the dropped catches, everyone in the English top order clearly needs to pull up their socks. England cannot expect to win matches if Vaughan, Bell and Flintoff don't even make it into double digits!

For now, all that England can hope for is that Pietersen manages to strike a few blows tomorrow morning and garner a few psychological points before the next Test. Only Mother Nature can save them from a certain defeat now!

--Harsha (The occasion certainly does not call for 'Cheers' :( )

A great start to the day!

2005-07-21T05:40:00.000-07:00

I just woke up half an hour ago and as I opened up Cricinfo, all bleary-eyed and full of yawns, I was immediately brought back to life by the score - Aus. 100 for 5! Wow! I pinched myself wondering if this could indeed be true (OK, confirming all doubters, I did not pinch myself; I just hit the reload button :P). Anyway, seeing Australia reeling on the first morning of the Ashes was the best start to the day I could have had. But, with Gilchrist at the crease, I still had my doubts. All you need is an hour of power hitting from Gilchrist with staunch support from Katich and the score is all of a sudden 250 for 5! And my fears grew over the next 20 minutes as Gilchrist smacked 6 fours in the space of 4 overs. Thankfully though, the plot went according to script for England, and a few moments ago Flintoff manage to induce an edge from him which Geraint gleefully accepted.

So, do we finally see the re-emergence of the England team out of the shadows of the Aussie dominance? I guess only time will tell (what a lame cliche :P)! As I have said previously, it all comes down to whether Strauss and Trescothick can handle Lee and McGrath. Australia already seem to have started off the Test on the wrong note by choosing the totally off-colour Gillespie in place of Kasprowicz. I'm sure that decision is going to cost them. For now, let me enjoy the moment! Let us see whether the tables are turned by the end of day's play ...

Update:
This pic says it all ....

Cheers,
Harsha

The start of Tiger's domination?

2005-07-18T20:08:00.000-07:00

As most of you might know by now, Tiger Woods won the British Open yesterday by a margin of 5 strokes. In fact, he led from wire-to-wire without looking like *not* winning at any stage of the tournament. From my previous posts, it was apparent that I was rooting for a Tiger victory before the tournament began. But, after the victory and also looking at the way he won it, I am left pretty downcast over the whole scenario. As I have stated previously in this blog, the primary reason I root for Tiger is because of the basic human nature potrayed in his story that no man can be perfect. After utterly demolishing all competition around him during the period 1999-2003, he did not win a major for a long long time and people began to wonder if the Tiger era is over. Seeing him re-emerge from the slumps would have (and has indeed now) made for a great story. And, my allegiance with Tiger was basically to experience the vicarious pleasure of being able to emerge champion once again, fighting off the competition that had managed to chip away at his dominance.

The beginning of the year held great promises with Vijay Singh coming off a great season in which he had stolen the No. 1 ranking from Woods, and with Ernie Els and Phil Mickelson in the form of their life, there was great anticipation from the "Big Four". But, now it looks like Tiger is once again back to his dominant best and the other three have failed to provide any opposition. Tiger was challenged by Chris DiMarco and Michael Campbell, in the Masters and the US Open, respectively, both of whom were in all probability just one-off wonders. So, if Tiger is once again going to dominate every tournament, winning majors by such huge margins, there clearly isn't much motivation left to follow the game. Golf would become pretty much like what F1 was last year with the dominance of Schumacher/Ferrari making the whole season a farce. Who would want to follow a sport in which there is no competition? Let's hope that is not going to be the case and Vijay/Ernie/Mickelson can wake up soon.

BTW, here's an article in today's Indian Express precisely expressing my emotions. I hadn't realized the time when I would not be rooting for a Tiger victory would come so soon!

Cheers,
Harsha

It's the Albatross!

2005-07-15T21:32:00.000-07:00

As most of you would know, in golf, each hole on the course is assigned a number of strokes that is considered standard for that hole. In golf terminology, it is called 'par' for the hole - basically a synonym for standard. Now, if 4 strokes is par for a hole, then completing it in 3 strokes is not called just 1 below par. Instead, it has a special term 'birdie'. Similarly, 2 strokes below par is instead called 'eagle'. On the other hand, 1 above par is called 'bogey'. Instead of coining more terms, 2 above par is unimaginatively called 'double bogey' and 3 above par is called 'triple bogey'. (Never heard of anyone doing worse than that! :))

Now, on most golf courses, all holes are one of par-3, par-4 or par-5. Clearly, atleast one stroke needs to be made! And, the par-5 holes have presumably been classified as such since they are significantly longer (from the tee to the hole) than any of the par-4s. So, the best one can hope for is either a hole-in-one on a par-4 or to complete a par-5 in two strokes. However, I've never seen either of these happen live on TV and so, I've always wondered whether there is any special term at all for 3 below par. Surely, they must have some term to celebrate such a occasion than try to dryly capture the player's jubiliation with the statement - 'He just scored a 3 below par!'. :) I finally came across the term for it today while following the British Open. It is called the albatross! I came across the term not because one of the players scored an albatross, but rather because one of the players just missed out on making one. On his second shot on a par-5 hole, the ball went right at the hole and then bounced off the flagpole!!

Anyway, my long-lasting quest for 'the' term has finally ended - it's the albatross. Birdie, eagle, albatross ... who the hell came up with these terms!

Cheers,
Harsha

MLB Blackout

2005-07-14T17:41:00.000-07:00

Ever since I've moved to the US I have wondered whether I'll ever get to see on TV the "Sorry for the Interruption" blackout that used to be common on Doordarshan back home in India. In fact, even in India, I never remember seeing such a blackout on any of the channels other than Doordarshan, but that could be because we got cable TV at home only after I passed out of IIT! Anyway, considering all the professionalism that the Americans are supposed to bring into everything they take up, I was just curious if this happens at all on the channels out here. The golden moment finally occurred today, and it turned out to be even more stupid than DD.

Basically, tonight's baseball game between the Atlanta Braves and New York Mets was supposed to be telecast on TBS beginning at 7pm. Instead, after the episode of Seinfeld that was showing from 6:30 completed, they put up a message saying "Due to MLB restrictions, today's game of the Braves vs. the Mets cannot be telecast on TBS". Well, that is a bit unusual, but nothing surprising. What shocked me was the rest of the message - "Regular programming will resume on TBS after the baseball game. Stay tuned!". What!!! Not only do they not show the game but instead of telecasting something else instead, they decide to have this message up throughout the duration of the game, and they expect viewers to stay tuned. The guys at TBS must have gone crazy. What is this strange restriction imposed by MLB anyway?! I hope it isn't a part of their rules that channels who don't have to rights to telecast a game cannot broadcast any other program as well while the game is on. :P They better improve their anti-doping policies instead because of which they got kicked out of the Olympics.

The US is much crazier land than I had imagined!

And, oh, Tiger shoots into the lead in the British Open in the first round itself. Way to go!

Cheers,
Harsha

PGA Championship

2005-07-13T23:11:00.000-07:00

Just found out that this year's PGA Championship is to be held in Springfield, NJ next month. Looking up in Google Maps, the golf course is a couple of minutes walking distance from the place I'm planning to move to in Summit, NJ! But, sadly, the lowest ticket price available for among all 4 days (Thu. to Sun.) is $95. I guess I'll have to make do with going to see the practice rounds on one of the days from Mon. to Wed. Or, maybe I'll go on all 3 days - tickets are available for just $10 on these 3 days!

Anyway, great news to end my day :)

Cheers,
Harsha

There are just too many ODIs

2005-07-13T17:25:00.000-07:00

Finally, we are done with the worthless sequence of ODIs between Aus. and Eng. which I'm not sure who really cared for. Also, the last 3 games clearly demonstrated that the new "innovations" introduced certainly don't help in improving interest in the game. Frankly, I believe no amount of changes introduced is going to bring back the excitement to the one-day game. The problem is clear - there is just too much one-day cricket being played. How the hell can interest in the game be sustained if there are matches going on at all times of the year. Too much of anything is bad and so is the case with ODIs too. So, the simple solution to ensure every one-day game is treated with the same amount of anticipation is to just play them less often!

On a first cut at analyzing this logic, one might find this is counter-intuitive to what's happening in other popular sports such as soccer, basketball, baseball, tennis, golf. In all these sports, there are matches/tournaments being organized every week during the season. But, on a closer look, the differences become apparent. In soccer, most of the matches played are between local clubs, and most of these matches are pretty much inconsequential (other than between heavyweights such as say Man U. and Chelsea, but these games happen only around half a dozen times in a year). Similar is the situation in baseball and basketball. The only reason the games in the regular season count for anything is that they finally decide who makes the playoffs. So, an alternative solution one could possibly consider to solve the problem with ODIs is to introduce an annual World Cup, with the games played throughout the year determining who makes it to the World Cup. (The ICC has introduced an official ranking system but clearly it matters for nothing at the moment.) But, this solution will not work in cricket because there just aren't enough competitive teams! There are only 8 teams playing at the top-level and you cannot organize a league based on these many teams. This works in basketball, baseball and soccer because leagues usually have around 30 teams. I don't see so many teams making it to the top tier in cricket anytime during my lifetime :)

The other approach to take is that of tennis and golf. Though tournaments are held every week in these sports, hardly anyone cares for any of them other than the Grand Slams/majors. And they don't seem to have any problem with that! So, that's one more alternative solution - just ignore the fact that ODIs are getting boring and keep playing them nonetheless. Looks like the ICC is better off with this approach than trying out useless 'innovations'.

Anyway, let's hope the Ashes turns out to be a cracker of a contest. And, before that, here's hoping that Tiger conquers the British Open again. And, also hope someone on the T-Mobile team finally manages to figure out Armstrong. Phew .. too many exciting events in store. Thankfully the ODIs are done with! :D

Cheers,
Harsha

All-Star breaks

2005-07-11T18:41:00.000-07:00

As I am following the MLB home run derby online right now (following it online because some worthless undergrads are seeing Friends instead on TV!), I am wondering what the equivalent of this is in the NHL and the NFL. All-star breaks exist in all 4 sports - baseball, basketball, football and hockey - wherein they have a game with the best players in each division facing off against each other. In addition, the NBA has the skills challenge, the 3-point shootout and dunk contest on the night before the All-star game. The equivalent of this in MLB is the currently ongoing home run derby. But, I don't see how any such similar event can be held in either football or hockey. It basically boils down to the fact that in both these sports, there is no way to test out individual skill levels (for that matter, there is no way you can have a competition involving just the pitchers in baseball as well). The only possible event I can think of in football is to see how far quarterbacks can throw the ball; but that would be one real lousy contest :) I can't come up with anything at all for hockey! Do any of you have any ideas? Or, are there already such events and I'm one poor ignorant soul?!

Cheers,
Harsha

Closer than a photo-finish

2005-07-09T08:41:00.000-07:00

Phew! The image says it all. How much closer can it get after 216 km. of cycling?! This is the snapshot of the finish at the end of today's stage of the Tour de France. I am not sure the winner can be decided even based on this picture - so, theoretically it is closer than a photo-finish ;) Anyway, supposedly, every bike has a sensor attached to it, based on which the winning time was determined to be 0.0002 seconds! Who the winner was though - I'll refer to them as No. 14 and No. 59 as I am sure none of you have heard their names :) - is left as a test for the reader's vision!

Cheers,
Harsha

The ugly NBA riot

2005-07-07T21:43:00.000-07:00

Just happened to come across this video of the horrendous melee that broke out in the NBA game between the Pistons and the Pacers early last season. This is basically the complete coverage of the episode as shown on Sportscenter that night. For those you who haven't seen coverage of this before, take a look and realize why cricket is still called the "gentleman's game"!

Cheers,
Harsha

True rumour!

2005-07-06T19:39:00.000-07:00

The first news headline that I saw as soon as I woke up today is "London to host 2012 Olympics". Immediately, my heart sank in sorrow for all Parisians. After being fed on the hype instilled by the media that Paris is the clear frontrunner for almost two weeks now, I'm sure a cloud of gloom would have been cast over the whole of France today (Literally, it indeed began to rain around 1:49pm local time in Paris - just before the decision was announced!). I can almost visualize the general lack of spirit in every Frenchman's heart, just like the state in India after a loss to Pakistan in a cricket match :)

Anyway, the title of this blog is regarding another bit of news involving London and France. One of the many articles I read about the IOC's decision stated that there was a rumour going around that London had also been selected as the city from where next year's Tour de France would start. My instinctive reaction was that this is obviously impossible. Come on - isn't it the Tour de "France"? How the hell can they even consider starting the race in London? But, in fact, after googling around I found that this is indeed true! The TDF organizing committee is considering 6 candidate cities to host the prologue time trial that starts off the event every year - 4 of them are in France, then there is London and there is also a city in Denmark! London has proposed that the event be flagged off from the Mall outside the Buckingham Palace. After reading this, I lost all sympathy for the French. When they are so foolish as to even consider starting their traditional event - the Tour de "France" - in London, their certainly is nothing unfair in them losing out to the English capital for hosting the Olympics!

To close, here's the mind-blowing stat for the day: the average speed set by the Lance Amstrong-led Discovery Channel team in yesterday's team time trial was 57.32 kmph! If there are more of such guys, they'll soon need to introduce speed limits for bikes :)

Cheers,
Harsha

Controversy in cycling too!

2005-07-04T16:51:00.000-07:00

Cycling was the last sport in which I expected any illegal tactics to be used. Hitting other riders during the race I thought was possible only in movies such as Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander, but today the same was seen in the Tour de France as well! Today was basically a normal flat ride in which the sprinters fight for points and bragging rights of a stage win, but the result of the overall race could only have been affected by one of the major contenders getting injured. Robbie Mcewan from Australia, who won the green jersey (for the best sprinter) in 2002 and 2004, was relegated to the last position at the end of today's stage even though he finished third. This was because right at the finish line, he tried to nudge out one of the other contenders by head-butting him. And even worse, he later claimed that he had to resort to doing this because the other rider had elbowed him! All in all, a sorry sight. Here's the snapshot of the miserable event.

Anyway, I hope the Tour de France turns out to be more exciting this year than the last two years (that's when I began following it). In the previous two years, the race was pretty much like a standard F1 race with the expected winner emerging champion (in the TDF, Lance Armstrong in both years, and in F1, Schumacher last year and Alonso this year) and the challengers just not living up to the hype surrounding them. Hopefully one of Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso and Iban Mayo will come good this year and give Lance a tough fight. Else, the Tour is going to have one less follower! :)

Cheers,
Harsha

Women in Sports

2005-07-02T10:09:00.000-07:00

Just saw Venus clinching the Wimbledon title. Not really a great match in my opinion. But, sadly, it will still go down as one of the greatest women's finals in history as it is the longest women's finals in Wimbledon in the Open era. The previous record was 2 hours 28 minutes and I think this one exceeded that by around 10 minutes. That set me wondering why exactly is the women's game limited to 3 sets while the men play 5 sets? Watching this game, it was clear extending the women's game to 5 sets is not an option as both Venus and Davenport were exhausted in the middle of the 3rd set itself!

For that matter, consider other sports, says athletics. The world records set by women in all track and field events are worse than the bests set by their men counterparts in the corresponding events. In fact, if I remember right, I think the distance for the marathon is lesser for women compared to the distance run by men. I guess the same is seen in swimming as well. So, what exactly is it that limits women? Is it something intrinsic about the biological setup of the human female body? I can't imagine the reason being the domination of men in the social sphere! Or, are women just lazy?! ;) Hope someone will be able to offer some insight on this.

Cheers,
Harsha

Almost ...

2005-06-30T20:07:00.000-07:00

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

2005-06-29T20:49:00.000-07:00

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

Ganguly saw the ban coming?

2005-04-22T11:12:00.001-07:00

Video link

You get to listen to yet another stupid wisecrack from Manjrekar as well at the end :)

(Thanks to Ankur for the video.)

Cheers,
Harsha

Musharraf's generosity continues

2005-04-20T23:58:00.000-07:00

BTW, Musharraf continued with his charity work by announcing a cash bonus of 50 lakh for the Pakistan team on their return. Stay tuned for news on the collapse of the Pakistan economy ;)

Cheers,
Harsha

Maniacs in sports

2005-04-20T23:25:00.000-07:00

Maniac ... that is the first word that comes to mind when I think of Marat Safin. On his day, hardly anyone in the world can challenge him. He gave ample evidence of that at this year's Australian Open, where he finally gave the rest of the world some hope by beating Federer. After he streamrolled Hewitt in the final, things seemed all set for a few Federer-Safin spectacles. Instead, what's happened is pretty unbelievable. While Federer resumed his usual routine and went off on a 25 match winning streak, in the five tournaments that Safin has played in following the Australian Open, he has won just four matches! However bad form one might be in, surely one expects the world No. 4 to do better.

Safin's temperament has always been questionable. His problems with Wimbledon are well known, where in his own words he "just gets bored". I think there was even an instance where after losing the match, he admitted in the post-match conference that he lost on purpose! (Imagine what would happen to an Indian cricketer if he issues such a statement :P) If Safin had been able to keep his ship afloat at all times, we might have seen a great rivalry being played out between him and Federer. Instead, with Safin throwing up his hand to be counted once in a blue moon, the responsibility of challenging Federer falls on Hewitt (I don't even consider Roddick in the scheme of things; I'm amazed how he manages to stay in the top 4, he's pathetic!), who sadly just doesn't have the game to challenge the world No. 1. So, we get to see Federer winning tournament after tournament, until some unheard of player called Richard Gasquet gets the better of him (maybe because Federer too is getting "bored"? ;))

Talking of temperamental sportsmen, I just remembered the interesting piece on Bobby Fischer that I saw on Sportscenter on Sunday. For those of you haven't heard of him, Fischer was the World Champion in Chess sometime in the 70s. According to the Sportscenter piece, Fischer's crowning as world champion was a really great event at that time as he crushed the then champion from Russia, Boris Spassky. In the times of the Cold War, I guess the event must have really filled with tension (I'm guessing primarily because I have never had much of a sense for how intense the Cold War was). After taking over the title, Fischer went into isolation and supposedly got involved with some cult. He then went against the wishes of the US and played a rematch with Spassky in Yugoslavia, at the time when the country was under sanctions. So, the US termed him an exile and he spent almost a decade in hiding, running around in South-East Asia. He was finally nabbed in Japan a few years back. I don't remember what exactly happened after that, but somehow he's now in Iceland, who have given him honorary citizenship as that is where he had beaten Spassky to become World Champion.

Anyway, the main point of this segment on Sportscenter was that during his heydays, Fischer had a mentor-like figure called Dick Schapp, who was his public face. And now, Dick's son Jeremy was the ESPN reporter covering Fischer's return to the public scene. After Fischer went into isolation, Dick had apparently issued a statement that "Bobby does not have a single sane bone in his whole body". Fischer was pretty pissed off with that and a good part of this Sportscenter snippet showed the verbal tussle between Fischer and Dick's son Jeremy. With Kasparov retiring from the sport, might be there's still time for Fischer to make a comeback now :P And, it's time Safin woke up from his slumber too!

That's it for today folks.

Cheers,
Harsha

Musharraf's awards

2005-04-16T12:35:00.000-07:00

After Inzamam led Pakistan to victory in the 4th ODI, Musharraf announced an award of 10 lakh for Inzamam. And now, after Afridi led them to victory in the 5th ODI, Musharraf has awarded him too with 5 lakh. I was under the impression that the Pakistan economy was pretty much in shambles. Looks like most of the GDP makes its way into Musharraf's pockets! :P

The only other interesting news in sports over the last couple of days has been that of Federer's match winning streak being broken at 25 by unheard-of French teenager Glasquet, who's currently ranked 101 in the world. Anyway, Nadal has already dismissed off Glasquet in the semis and the Monte-Carlo Masters final is now going to be contested between Nadal and Coria. With the clay court season beginning, the Spaniards and the South Americans are back in the thick of things.

Cheers,
Harsha

The sorry state of women's cricket

2005-04-13T23:18:00.000-07:00

I guess most of you would have read about the Indian team losing to Australia in the final of the Women's cricket world cup. Guess how much the team won for finishing up runners-up .... a paltry US$1600. I guess the team members would have been better off applying to grad school in the US :P

As usual, the US media is back doing what it is best at - building up hype. After Tiger won his 4th Masters on Sunday, already there are umpteen articles and polls around speculating whether Tiger is going to complete the Slam this year! Please give me a break. Anyone who saw Tiger facing off with DiMarco on Sunday will know that the title could have gone either way until the very last hole. The 16th hole was clearly a fluke (for the poor souls who didn't get to catch it live or on the infinite number of reruns on SportsCenter, here's a video clip; found this on some random blog and was shocked to see that he's using Coral!) and DiMarco's chip shot on the 18th didn't go in because the ball bounced off the flag-pole. So, I am certainly not optimistic of Tiger sweeping all the majors this year. Anyway, even if Tiger retains his good form, I hope atleast one of Mickelson, Vijay and Els will give him a good fight the next time round.

Cheers,
Harsha

Tying physics and golf

2005-04-11T19:05:00.000-07:00

Just read this amazing article saying Tiger won because the principle of inertia holds!

http://www.ajc.com/sports/content/sports/masters2005/stories/12mastersshot.html
(you might need username and password from bugmenot.com if you haven't visited this before)

Anyway, just to state the obvious, I did see Tiger winning LIVE again!

Cheers,
Harsha