Its all about the game

Another majestic evening to remember.Courtsey - Liverpool :-)

2006-05-14T16:31:00.000+05:30

I am posting this blog from my home and am I thrilled or what? And as you can get the clue from the title of the blog,it is again because of Liverpool. It was almost an year ago at Istambul when Liverpool played that memorable match in the champions league final. This time the settings were different but the thrill and excitement was even more. It was the 125th FA Cup final against West Ham United in the Millenium stadium at Cardiff.

Most of the people thought that it would be a cakewalk for Liverpool, but it seems Liverpool has their own way of giving their fans some anxious moments before producing something special. And so was it this time. Only 28 minutes into the match and Liverpool were down 0-2. I was terribly disappointed but having seen some of their mathces for the past years was hoping for something miraculous. Afterall in the first round itself Liverpool were down 1-3 against lowly Luton before winning it 5-3 and reaching here.

And I was right. It was their inspirational captain Steven Gerrard (a whole article dedicated to him coming soon) who produced one of the most sensational performances in a cup final. He assisted Cisse with a 45 yard pass for the first goal and then scored with a fantastic right-footer to score the second. it was 2-2 now and Liverpool were starting to dominate but very soon they found themselves down again, when West Ham scored a fluke against the run of play. It's 2-3.

Only one minute before the final whistle reamining and the West Ham fans had already started to celebrate their win. But Gerrard was not done yet for the evening. Just when everything seemed to be lost he struck a thunderbolt from 30 yards and equalized to leave the West Ham team stunned. It was one of the best goals scored in FA cup history and to score it at a time when your team is 2-3 down with one minute to go in the final shows the character of the man. Match went into the extra time and Liverpool won it on penalties 3-1.

There is something special about this Liverpool team. Their theme song itself is an ultimate motivator. I have learnt a lot from them, watching them all through the last year. Most notably their never-say-die attitude. Whatever be the situation they somehow always find a way to escape and that is simply superb. Watching Gerrard is a pleasure. The amount of passion he has to play for his club and his country reminds me of Leander and there is no surprise that he is one of my favourite sportsmen. More about Gerrard in the next article. Till then congratulations to Liverpool. YOU WILL NEVER WALK ALONE :-)...

The real IQBALS of Indian Cricket

2006-04-21T21:32:00.000+05:30

I don't know how many of you guys have seen the movie Iqbal directed by Nagesh Kukunoor, but it is one of the best movies that I have seen recently. I am not going to discuss this movie here, but will tell you about some young cricketers who turned the story of this movie into reality.

Until the late-90s most of the cricketers in the Indian team came from the big cities of India. In 70s and 80s team was full of cricketers from Mumbai and Delhi. In 90s several players from Bangalore played for India. One reason for that was certainly the better training facilities available in these big cities, but another reason was that the parents in the smaller cities were not sure about whether Cricket would be able to provide a good career to their children?

This trend started to change in the new century. Virendar Sehwag, hailing from Najafgarh, a small town near Delhi, emerged as one of the deadliest batsmen in the world cricket and since then there have been number of such players who are playing for India now.

Most recent example of such a cricketer is Munaf Patel. He comes from Bharuch, a village in Gujrat. The condition of that village was so bad until recently that his parents missed watching their son make debut against England, because there was still no electricity in their village!!! After he got some fame due to his exploits against England his village finally got electricity and better roads. When he first started playing cricket, he didn't even had a pair of shoes. Even in the national trials he bowled bare-footed. His rise from such a difficult situation to the ranks of Indian team is exemplary. And he is just one of many such example. Players like Irfan Pathan, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, R.P.Singh, Suresh Raina among several others have come into the national squads from places, which very few people outside their state have even heard of. These players have now become an essential part of the squad.

Seeing players like them succeed will certainly motivate even more youngsters from smaller centers to come forward and pursue cricket as their career. This is certainly a very good trend for Indian cricket. Another factor that will ensure that this trend continues is the financial security. Until very recently, players in the domestic tournaments were not that well paid. So the only way you could have made a career out of cricket was to play for India and that is clearly not a very easy task. But with the new Marketing strategies and professional attitude BCCI has crossed the 1 Billion mark in earnings and domestic players have started benefiting from this. Now even a domestic player can earn his livelihood playing for his state. If a player plays a whole Ranji season for his state, he will get around 5-6 Lakh rupees just as match fee. This is a very good amount of money considering that average salary for an IIM MBA in India is 6-7 Lakh per annum!!! If parents are sure that their children can make a decent amount of money, even if they do not play for India, they will surely encourage them to pursue their passion for cricket.

Due to this "new" talent pool, things are looking great for Indian cricket. I hope we will hear success stories about many more Iqbals in the future :-).

Guru Greg and his ways...

2006-04-14T10:48:00.000+05:30

When Greg Chappell took over as coach of Team India, I really thought that it was a very good choice. Whatever I have read about his career, he truly was a champion batsman of his time. Although this doesn't automatically make him a good coach. I very well remember Kapil Dev and his disastrous run as coach of Indian team. But with Greg Chappell I always knew that he must have some exciting things in store for Indian cricket. Afterall there are certain incidents with Greg that makes him "special".

Asking his bowler to bowl the last ball of the match "underarm" was one of such incidents. For those of you who haven't heard of this, in 1981-82 in the final match of the Australian tri-series, NewZeland needed 6 runs to win off the last ball. That time, underarm balls were still legal, although no one used to bowl them. Greg asked his bowler Trevor, who incidentally was his brother, to bowl the last ball "underarm" so that NewZeland has no chance to hit a six. Australia off couse won that game. After that final a lot of things were said about the sportman spirit and stuff. But I don't think he did anything wrong. I think if there were loopholes in the rulebook it was definitely not his fault. He did what he thought was the safest option for his team to win the match. For me, this was an example of out of box thinking and it surely made ICC realize that they needed to change the rule. That's the way how Greg deals and I like his ways.

In Soccer teams the coach is in total control of his team. Every strategy that is to be implemented on the ground is his responsibility. He decides the team and decides the way a particular player is going to play on the matchday. And off course most of the times only he is responsible for whatever results his team delivers. I have always thought that Cricket would become much more exciting if there is soccer style coaching in Cricket. Especially with all the politics involved in Indian cricket and all kind of selection controversies in the past, it is easy to understand that the caoch can never fully implement his plans.

Whenever, I am wathcing a match, I think that if I was the coach I would have done this and done that. Since Greg has become the coach of India a lot of times the things that I think, have come true. This has made watching the game even more exciting for me :-). The main thing with Greg Chappell is that he gets to the opposition with his novel strategies. They might seem gambles at times, but believe me he is not that kind of guy and neither is Rahul Dravid. I am sure that all the starategies are absolutely well planned. And I am not surprised at all that all of them have worked so nicely in the last few months. These kind of plans catch your opponent off-guard and it completely destroys their game plan. With his supporting team he has brought a certain zing in the team that was always missing. In his regime India have won more matches "as a team" than they hadn't won in many years combined. Players like Yuvraj, Dhoni and Pathan seem to have graduated to the next level and they have given a lot of credit to Greg for this transformation.

There is still a lot of work to be done with the Indian team before they can seriously challenge Australia. Until something drastic happens, I am sure Greg is here to stay and with Dravid as captain, we have a very strong combination that will surely bring more silverware for India. 2006 Champions Trophy is the first stop and then its the big World Cup in 2007. If everything goes well I have no doubt in my mind that we will see Dravid holding the World Cup on 28th April,2007 in Barbados.

GO GURU GREG :-)...

My Heros: Leander Paes

2006-04-09T17:44:00.001+05:30

I was thinking of writing this blog yesterday itself but somehow I had this feeling that today is just gonna be one of those days...Days when Leander Paes takes centerstage in Indian colors and plays a game that I will remember forever. And I was right :-).

Picture this- It's India vs. Pakistan in Davis Cup. The series is tied at 2 matches a piece. It's the final and deciding match. Leander has not played any singles match in the past two years, as he only plays doubles these days. His fitness is not as good as it used to be and it is Mumbai's weather at its April best :P. He observes that the younger players are not in good form, so he takes the onus on himself. He wins the first two sets and then...cramps. He loses the next two sets and the fourth one by 0-6. Everything seems lost. But as he has done on number of occassions in the past, playing for India, he rises above himself and battling through his injuries plays some amazing shots and clinches the tie. Game, Set, Match...India. Leander bursts into tears of joy and nearly so do I.

My earliest memory of Leander Paes (and with that of Tennis) is of 1993. The Davis Cup match against France. I watched that on TV. India stunned the world by beating France in its own backyard on clay courts. After that on numerous occasions Leander has given all the tennis fans moments to cherish forever. I can never forget that 5-set thriller against Goarn Ivanesevich in Lucknow. Goran was in his prime at that time and Leander lost the first two sets. In one of the greatest of fightbacks, Leander won the last three sets and won the tie. To play like that against such a player in a deciding rubber was completely out of this world. Winning bronze medal in Atlanta Olympics in 1996 is another such moment which effortlessly comes into mind. India had won an individual medal after 42 years and who better to win that than Leander.

I have never seen any sportsman having the amount of pride of playing for his country as Lee. I have seen him play well beyond his ability over all these years. People sometimes ask that what is patriotism. I can't think of anything better than Lee. I will say that it is patriotism that takes Leander to the next level while palying for India, that, at times, makes him play shots that even Pete Sampras would be proud of. He has beaten many players placed way above him in rankings while playing under Indian flag. He wears his heart on his sleeves and the passion that he brings into the game is truly unbelievable.

Leander is my hero and he will always be my favourite sporting icon :-).

My favourites: Yuvraj's best ODI and Test inning

2006-04-05T00:57:00.000+05:30

Let me first talk about his ODI innings. The inning that he played in this match in Goa was certainly a special one. Another innings that effortlessly comes to my mind is the one he played in World Cup 2003 against Pakistan. But for me the best inning he has played in ODIs has to be the one in THAT final at Lords. India needed to score 326 to win the final and end a 9 match losing sequence in the finals. The eventual win had looked highly improbable when India had lost five of their top batsmen, including Sachin Tendulkar, with just 146 runs on the board in 24 overs. Situation was so hopeless that even the parents of Mohd. Kaif who was batting at that time closed their TV and went to watch a movie instead!!!! Little did they know that their son along with Yuvraj are going to write a new chapter in Indian cricket history and that Saturday was to witness a miraculous recovery by the men in blue. For me this inning marked the arrival of Yuvraj and Kaif and the whole world took notice of that. Sourav's men took India to the next level and it was the starting of what would be remebered as Ganguly-Wright era of Indian cricket.

To be honest, I never thought of Yuvraj as a good test player. He still has not shown too much promise as a test batsman, especially since he hasn't played any test match in Australia, England, South Africa or even West Indies for that matter. I have not included NewZeland here because I consider the pitches there the worst in the world and they are just made for bowlers and cows, if you know what I mean :-).

The only test inning of his that I really like is the one he played against pakistan in the Lahore test in the 2004 tour of Pakistan. It was against some quality bowling and under a situation where any newcomer would have succumbed to pressure. Umar Gul displayed some top-class fast bowling that day and Laxman's middle stump being knocked out on a gem of an in-swinger still comes to my mind. Ironically it was played in a game where his biggest supporter in the team at that time, Sourav Ganguly, was not playing. He came at 94/4 and soon it became 147/7. He, along with Pathan, put on a decent partnership and beyond that the way he played his natural game on that hostile pitch was enough to show that he at least deserves few chances in test arena too. Eventually India lost that match but Yuvraj proved a point to all his critics.

The reason of his not being so successful in tests, in between, has been his totally bizzare promotion to opening spot. Now such a situation is most probably never going to arrive again because of how the things in Indian cricket have changed in the last few months. Suddenly a lot of spots in test middle-order have become available and Yuvraj, along with Kaif and Raina, is in the pole position to grab it. In the coming months, Indian team has some tough tours(West Indies and South Africa) on pitches that will not be conducive to stroke-play from the word go. In fact such tours can well end some player's career all together, as we have seen it happen in the past. It will be a test of Yuvraj's temprament and technique on those wickets and I am sure if he shows the application he has in the past few months he will pass these "tests" with flying colours.

Back in the game

2006-04-04T11:22:00.000+05:30

The people who know me will tell you that I am mostly pretty regular with everything I do (I was hoping that it will sound a bit more modest but... :-)) . But somehow I have not been able to be regualr with writing blogs and that too on topics that I love so much. Anyway I have decided to start writing regularly now and hopefully I will not lose my spirit now.

Yesterday India scripted yet another fantastic victory in the third one-dayer against England. Indian team has been playing very well in the ODIs for the last few months and one of the few reasons behind this has been the Yuvraj Singh. I first heard of him during the Under-19 world cup of 2000, which by the way India won. I watched a few mathces of that tournament on TV and the talent in him was evident.

Right from his debut in Nairobi and that unbelievable inning against Australia in the mini world cup, I knew he is a special talent. Somehow it took him a long time to come out of age and be where he is today. There always have been doubts about his ability to play quality spin bowling and (Muralidharan will readily tell you how much he enjoyed bowling to him :-) ) swinging balls outside his off stump, but for the past year or so he has certainly looked better in tackling these and he has been playing like a certain Maharaja :-).

I think Yuvraj is a perfect example of changing things in Indian cricket. The amount of patience that selectors have shown with him was never seen in Indian cricket in 90s and before that. Due to this a lot of good talent was wasted and was left to the show their skills on domestic dusty wickets. Some of the credit for this change must go to Saurav Ganguly. Whatever people say about Saurav now, in my opinion he has done lots of good things to Indian cricket. He backed up a lot of youngsters, whom he believed in, went out of his ways to give them chance to play for India and most have done have shown their potential. The amount of trust that he showed for Yuvraj and Harbhajan is paying dividence now and I am sure these two will be in the all time greats list of Indian cricketers, when their playing days are over.I am sure that Yuvraj and Bhajji know how much they owe to Ganguly for this.

Chappel-Dravid as a coach-captain have certainly helped him mature as a cricketer and he is certainly one of the senior players of the team now. There seems to be a certain role for every player in the team these days and you can cleraly see that team has given him a lot more responsibility and the way he has responded in the last couple of series, knowing exactly when to attack and when to play the supporting role has been impeccable. I have always been an admirer of his game and it gives me so much joy to see him graduate to the next level in the international cricket.

Next Post:- My favourites among Yuvraj's Innings
Champions League QF round-up

New zeal... and thumping win

2005-09-02T23:20:00.000+05:30

Today the three headlines on rediff.com are as following:-
Sania takes Bartoli in her stride
New zeal and thumping win
Indian 1-2 in Asian women's heptathlon
It's very rare that these kind of good news comes from Indian sports scene. And when that rare moment comes it's really a great feeling. Today Sania made it to the last 16 of the US Open. Who would have thought last year at this time that she will be even playing in the US Open leave alone reaching the last 16. She will most probably face Sharapova in that match and that must be a thriller. If Sania plays her A game, which she has not played so far in the tournament, she can give Sharapova a run for her money.I hope she does. And if, somehow, she is able to win that match, it could be the turning point of her career. She could move to the next level with that win. But it will be very difficult to even give a fight to Sharapova. Let's see how it goes. Indian cricket team also performed well for a change today. Although it would have a lot better had India won while Bond was playing. I hope India gains some confidence for the Final. So all in all a good day for Indian sports...I wish these days are more frequent in future. May be this Sunday we will hear another good news from the Flushing Meadows.Who Knows......

Some died another day, some lived on.....

2005-08-27T13:00:00.000+05:30

Liverpool has done it again. Who would have thought around an year ago that they will be winning the UEFA Super Cup . On that night in Anfield when they were down 0-1 against Olympiakos and needed 3 goals to reach the knock out phase,very few people gave them a chance. But they did it. Again in Istambul on 25th May they were 0-3 after the first half. Even the most ardent of Liverpool fans would have thought that the title is gone. But what happenned after that was something out of this world. It is now firmly placed in the history of sports and my memory. There are very few performances in the history that can match, what Liverpool did that night. The most recent thing that I can remember is the victory of Boston Red Sox against New York Yankees, winning the world series after being 0-3 down in the 7 match series.
And today, Liverpool did it again in a fashion that they have made their own for the past few months. 0-1 down till the 82nd minute, they equalized and the scored 2 times in the extra time to lift the UEFA Super Cup. And in another continent, not too far away, a team, which might be way ahead when it comes to the amount of talent in the team, but nowhere close to the killer instinct Liverpool posseses. Indian cricket team, in one of their worst batting performances I have ever seen, gave another example that something has really gone wrong with this set of players. Still, Bond bowled like a true champion today and simply killed the over-hyped Indian batting line-up. It was a previlege to see him bowl one of the best spell of fast bowling ever bowled in ODIs. All in all, it was yet another day when you are "paid" to like SPORTS in general. I wonder sometime when the Indian cricket team can pull a "Liverpoolesque" performance. And if they do it some day, well.........

Let the game begin...

2005-08-26T15:07:00.000+05:30

I am creating this new blog to express how I feel about the sporting scene. Here you will found daily/weekly reviews and my point of view on some of my favourite and not-so-favourite sportsmen and teams. If you are interested in Sports even a little bit then believe me you will enjoy this blog.So let the game begin.....