About photograph: At the KOP in Anfield
Camera: Canon Powershot S95
Showing posts with label sports. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sports. Show all posts
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Photograph of the Month May 2012: Chelsea Champions League 2012 Victory
About photograph: Chelsea Champions League Victory night near Stamford Bridge
Camera: Samsung Galaxy S2
Friday, September 9, 2011
Losing My Religion
Update: Yet another one bites the dust. STEVIE GERRARD to leave Liverpool! End of an era!
Update: That below sentiments were as of September 2011. And now on March 9th 2012, it's official. I have indeed lost my religion (and my childhood). Rahul Dravid and Peyton Manning have retired this week. It's time to get all nostalgic and re-live all the memories. Here are some of the finest moments:
The wolf who lived for the pack
Thank you very much from the bottom of my heart. I've tuly enjoyed being your quarterback
Rahul Dravid shows his greatness
A Rahul Dravid day at Trent Bridge
Number only tell part of Dravid's story
Nadal cramps up during press conference; Schumacher and Federer are made to look second best; Gerard is perpetually recovering from hamstring injury; Manning may miss the entire 2011-12 season; Hamilton crashes his car every other race; Entire Indian team minus Dravid has returned home injured! Rough Sports Season ? May be. Or may be I am just getting old and losing my religion along with an entire sports generation!
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Some things are meant to be! (courtesy Sambit Bal, Editor, Cricinfo)
Ten years ago, VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid constructed a partnership that would change Indian cricket. While the senses are riveted on the World Cup, a landmark day in Indian cricket has gone unheralded, unacknowledged even. Ten years ago, on March 14, the foundation for the golden age of Indian Test cricket was laid by two remarkable men. VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid looked defeat in the eye and refused to blink. Faced with a follow-on and an opposition which had won 16 Tests in a row, they batted on and on and on till hope and spirit drained off the Australians. For the record, they batted out the day, put on 376 runs for the 5th wicket, and the next day, which is ten years to the day today, Harbhajan Singh and Sachin Tendulkar spun out Australia for 212 to secure the improbablest of wins.
This would remain the defining moment of Laxman’s career, but the feat would have been less significant had it just remained a freak event. But not only was this match and series turning, it also changed the course of Indian cricket. The momentum carried India to a win at Chennai, the confidence derived from beating the one of greatest-ever Test teams carried them on a journey that ended with them becoming the No. 1 Test team in the world.
I should confess that I didn’t remember the day myself. But then I am hopeless with dates. It was Jaideep Varma, the rationalist half of our Running Between the Cricket team, who messaged me breathlessly from Eden Gardens. He was chuffed already to step in to one of cricket’s iconic venues for the first time in his life, but when he realised what day it was, he couldn’t believe his luck. “What an honour to be here today,” he wrote, “on the 10th anniversary of the greatest day in Indian cricket.”
I had a busy afternoon and it was quite late when I got around to reading his message. I then messaged Dravid, asking him teasingly if he knew the significance of the day. He replied a couple of hours later. No, he hadn’t known till late evening when a journalist from Kolkata called him.
But would you have guessed who his dinner guests were for the evening? VVS Laxman and family. It was a coincidence. Laxman’s wife had spent the day at Dravid’s house, and Laxman, who is in Bangalore to train at the National Cricket Academy, joined them for dinner. There are things you can plan, but some things are just meant to be.
Earlier this evening, I spoke about the day to John Wright, who is in Mumbai on duty as the New Zealand coach. The day before Dravid and Laxman’s partnership, with India 254 for 4 after following on, Wright had been counting his days as India’s first foreign coach. “That day, that Test, changed my life, and Harbhajan’s.”
We spoke for a while. I asked for one memory, and he gave me half a dozen. "It's all so vivid still." The fire in the stands after the win (“and then I looked back, and it was gone”); the noise when the wickets were falling (“I was asking myself how intimidating it must be for the opposition batsmen”), Laxman driving the first balls after the lunch and tea breaks for four (“just how can anyone manage to do that coming out of a break?”); and driving back with Sourav Ganguly after the press conference (“we were quiet, but a great weight had lifted off our shoulders”).
India is a different country now. And Indian cricket is unrecognisable from then. Victories are now expected, taken for granted even. But Indian fans must find a quiet moment, rewind to that day, and feel grateful for it.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Cricket World Cup 2011
As the cricketing world gets ready for the start of the Cricket World Cup 2011 and its return to the sub-continent after 15 years, below are the previews for all of the participating countries.
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Australia: Australia there for the toppling
Bangladesh: Bangladesh's best chance to make impact
Canada: Young Canada bank on experienced hands
England: England need to back ability with desire
India: Odds on batsmen to deliver in familiar conditions
Ireland: Ireland gunning for at least one sizeable scalp
Kenya: Kenya weaker than other Associates
Netherlands: Netherlands hope to make an impact
New Zealand: New Zealand tend to lift in major tournaments
Pakistan: Battle-hardened Afridi the lynchpin
South Africa: South Africa promise but never deliver
Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka go in as one of the favorites
West Indies:
Zimbabwe:
Sunday, October 3, 2010
My All Time XI
Gordon Greenidge – A West Indian who learnt his trade in England and then represented the Caribbean, Greenidge is statistically the finest opening batsman ever produced in the region
Sunil Gavaskar – The original wall and the master blaster. His mantle as both was picked up by the 2 men to follow, Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar, but if the Gavaskar Calypso is any clue, he was definitely the original wall and the master blaster.
Rahul Dravid – My favorite cricket player ever. The finest No. 3 and slip fielder in Indian cricket history, and one of the best ever.
Sachin Tendulkar – There are not enough words that can describe him and his impact & importance to world cricket and Indian cricket. Many odes have been written in his honor already and million more would be written in the years to come. I think in the end it’s just enough to say that when Sachin is happy, usually so is the rest of the India!!!
Sir Viv Richards – The real Calypso King!!!
Adam Gilchrist – If you really want you can debate about having Bradman in your team but Gilchrist as a wicketkeeper is a no brainer. I think that says a lot. Probably would be the only 100% unanimous choice.
Anil Kumble – Mr. Perfect 10. For me, there is no more awe-inspiring sight than watching Anil Kumble coming to bowl with his broken jaw wrapped in bandages and taking the wicket of Brian Lara. Absolute giant. He is the Muhammad Ali of Cricket.
Glen McGrath – Probably the most effective fast bowler in the history of cricket. He walks into my XI on the sheer aura he had through the 90s and 2000s.
Michael Holding – The silent death. My pick from the great West Indian pace battery from the 1970s and 1980s. His over to Geoffrey Boycott is stuff that legends are made of.
Shane Warne – The show-man of cricket. His leg spin bowling was legendary but his antics on/off field were pure entertainment!
Wasim Akram – The sultan of swing. He probably was the only bowler who could bowl 6 different type of deliveries in an over.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Its just not cricket
Over the last few years, as extremism and terrorism have taken a stronger foothold in the sub-continent, we have seen a sharp increase in the terror attacks and ,if I may so, the audacity of the attacks. The most recent and ,probably, one of the most audacious one that comes to mind is the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. Some of these have taken place during or before a sport tournament but never have specially targeted an event or ,god forbid, a sports team. But now this has all changed. Sportsperson have always been regarded and considered as ambassadors for their countries and any attack on them makes you sit up and take a closer look, if you weren’t already paying attention.
The Sri Lankan Team had gone on goodwill tour to Pakistan, who have been devoid of top-class international cricket for over a year now, after the India Team cancelled their scheduled tour. Even though I am ardent fan of Indian cricket team often flirting with the realms of nationalism when Sachin or Dravid are batting, I will be the first to admit that probably Sri Lankans are the only gentlemen remaining in this “gentleman” game. While match referee Chris Broad and Pakistan cricket chief traded sound bytes over the security structure, the response of the Sri Lankan team and even the authorities has been nothing short of exemplary. While the rest of the world had already started the process of isolation of Pakistan from the cricketing world, Sri Lankans stood by their host. They appreciated the reality of terrorism and related it to their experience back home, another war-torn country for decades. That’s it. In fact, Kumara Sangakara even obliged to write an article for cricinfo.com while waiting for his flight back home.
But wherever your loyalties might lie, one couldn’t escape the fact that these attacks went wrong on multiple levels. To start with, Pakistan government and cricket board had guaranteed the Sri Lankans presidential security during this tour . In the aftermath of the attack and on the video records, the security didn’t look very “presidential”. And to make it worse, Pakistan cricket chief’s public statement of almost equating these attacks to “someone cribbing over some scratches” sounded blasphemous! To me that interview explained the root of all evils in Pakistan - the absolute state of denial of the situation at hand by authorities at all levels. Pakistan is in a state of emergency. The Taliban and terrorism has made unprecedented in-roads into the country over the last few years and if remain unchecked it has the potential to take the whole country down with it. As the Pakistan captain, Younis Khan, warned the world that if in Pakistan cricket dies, it will provide further fire to terrorism and young, misguided teenagers as easy baits.
As the attacks happened, cricketers all over the world took notice. There were silence observed in all the cricket matches that followed that week as mark of support and respect to the Sri Lankan Team. But in spite of these well-intentioned gestures, there had already started a scary undercurrent. Indian Captain, MS Dhoni, was interviewed after the India-NZ match in Napier and he said that he was glad to be in NZ and players would now think more carefully about these things. Dhoni has always been his own man and doesn’t mince many words. But this is a scary thought. If Dhoni doesn’t want to take his team to Pakistan, what chances do we give for an Australian, England or NZ team to visit Pakistan in the foreseeable future ? This thought scares me and every true cricket fan around the world. Cricket is enduring the toughest period of a colorful, contentious history. Of course all cricketers experience bad patches when form deserts them. But it's been a long time since the advance of the game itself was in such serious doubt.
It’s just not cricket!
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