Category — Sports

If you’ve been as bamboozled by Ajantha Mendis’ carrom ball as the Indian batsmen have been, then you ought to unravel the method behind this “mystery” ball by reading how the Australian bowlers John Iverson and John Gleeson used to bowl in a similar fashion many decades ago.

In their loss to an exuberant and bold Bangladesh side, the Indian team (flat and knotted up with tension) created possibly the worst possible scenario for themselves in Group B!

Looking at the remaining matches in the group, one cannot help but notice that India’s path to the next round has become difficult… almost impossible! Lets look at a probable scenario with the following results…

India beat Bermuda
Sri Lanka beat Bangladesh
India beat Sri Lanka
Bangladesh beat Bermuda

This would result in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and India having 4 points each. But Bangladesh, having beaten India, would be placed above India in the points table. And all would come down to winning margins. For India to be able to qualify for the Super Eights stage, Sri Lanka would need to beat Bangladesh by a narrow margin and India would need beat Sri Lanka by a huge margin. And even this scenario assumes that India beat Bermuda by an obscene margin!

Just going through the above scenario makes it pretty much clear that the probability of it panning out as described is quite low. Given the form they showed against Bangladesh, the assumption that India would beat Sri Lanka (by any sort of margin) requires a big leap of faith! Also, given the form that Sri Lanka are in, it may happen that they beat Bangladesh by a comfortable margin.

Whew! … India has really painted itself into a corner! And they not only need to play like tigers to get out of that corner, but also keep hoping that other matches follow a pattern favourable for them! An absolutely rare case of ability and hope converging!

But then… as they say… if you believe in something hard enough, the entire universe will conspire to make it happen!

[cross-posted at One-Day Mataram]

Santhi Soundarajan failed a “gender” test and had to forfeit the silver medal she won in the 800 m race at the Doha Asian games.

Apparently this is not the first time she has failed this kind of a test. An athletics selector has said that “officials knew before the competition that Santhi had been denied a job in the Railways on similar grounds.”

There are two things worthy of note here. Firstly, this issue of a failed “gender” test should’ve been handled far more sensitively by the media and sports officials. But knowing them for the thick-skinned species that they are, I am not surprised that the issue has been played out in a tasteless manner. When a respected national daily prints a headline that goes “Santhi not a woman…” one cannot expect anything better!

The second and the more important point here is about Railways refusing a job to Santhi due to a failed gender test. This implies that a government entity (Indian Railways is a state-owned company) has denied employment to an Indian citizen on a gender/sex based criterion. Surely, this is unconstitutional!!

Shouldn’t the media report and question this rather than subjecting Santhi to humiliation by tasteless reporting?!

Update: Well some people say that Indian Penal Code’s Section 377 denies the basic constitutional rights to people who are of “unnatural sex”. But I wonder how that is possible! Section 377 of the IPC talks about “carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal…”. I fail to understand how it applies in the case of a transgendered person! Please enlighten me if you can. But until that happens, the point I raised in my post still stands. Indian Government, through it’s agency Indian Railways, acted unconstitutionally in denying employment to Santhi based on the results of a gender test! It was sexual discrimination. Period!

B Manoj Kumar and Mohammed Shaibaaz Tumbi, two 13-year old school-boys from Hyderabad, have managed to eclipse a record set by Sachin Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli in February 1988. They scored a world-record partnership of 721 runs off 40 overs to break the 664-run partnership record set by Tendulkar and Kambli. But then, you know that already! The news has been all over the media. These two (obviously quite talented) schoolboys are being heralded as the next Tendulkars and Kamblis. Too premature, I say!

Of course there is no doubt that 721 runs in 40 overs in a competitive match is no mean feat. But one must consider the fact that the other team was all-out for a mere 21 runs. That gives us a measure of the other team’s ability (or the lack of it, at least!)

By the way, one interesting point to note here is the way the two mammoth partnerships were achieved.

[Read more →]

Saina Nehwal, the rising teen badminton prospect from India, narrowly missed out on a junior World championship title this week. But her loss in the final should not detract from her awesome form and talent… and of course, the tremendous potential she possesses to be the next world-beater in badminton. With a coach like the quietly efficient Pullela Gopichand at hand, Saina has good things going for her. She needs all the encouragement in the form of top-notch training and consistent sponsorship.

But at the same time, the greatest dis-service that can be done to her is to inordinately hype her up to a point where she ends up becoming a poster girl for badminton rather than a true blue badminton champion. And it’s alarming to note that the media that was oblivious to her junior world championship campaign, suddenly jumped in on her entry into the finals and painted her as the star that she is yet to become. Of course, Saina needs all the publicity as that gets the whole country behind her, in spirit as well as in terms of sponsorships, etc. Because when that happens, she can concentrate purely on her game without worrying about the fringe details that may distract her. But can we please have some sense of responsibility from the media? Can we expect that we won’t be subjected to stories and pictures in the media (print, broadcast and online) that concentrate on the newest pair of ear-rings she sports or the cheekiest lines on the t-shirts she wears!

I voice this fear based on the obvious example of Sania Mirza, who undoubtedly is the best tennis talent we have produced since Hesh and Lee, and yet has hardly done justice to her talent. For all the talent she showed in her first year in international tennis, all she’s managed in the second is a great put-on American accent and an attitude worthy of a Bollywood starlet! It would be a shame to see Saina go down the same route.

So just let’s leave Saina Nehwal alone and let her concentrate on what she does best - play good badminton and win matches consistently!