T20 victory celebrations.... and Striking hockey players....and Fickle minded media & public

What an eventful week this past one was. On one hand the whole of India was celebrating our teams victory in the inaugural T20 World Cup tournament held in South Africa. Not one person in the entire wide world expected Team India to be champions. But they did play wonderfully well as a team and deserved the victory. The whole media went berserk as did various governments competing with each other to announce cash prizes to the winning members of their respective states. Wow!!!! we do have a lot of money to spend on people who are already stinking rich with their endorsements and match fees. I cannot understand one thing about this. Yes they did our country proud and we ought to thank them for their performances but just announcing lakhs of rupees as awards.....are you kidding me??. On the same token, why not announce cash awards to the Indian Hockey team who won the Asia Cup and Indian football team for winning the Nehru Cup.

What makes these players achievements any lesser?. I almost fell down form my chair when I read that the Indian Hockey Federation(IHF) president Mr Gill announces a cash prize of Rs 1000......oh yes Rs 1000 for every goal scored. Wow!!!!! what a magnanimous gesture. He sure will do well if he learns the importance of zeros from the BCCI president or variosu state governments.

Its a pity that in the same week when the Indian cricketers were praised to the sky, had a celebratory drive from the airport and a huge presentation at the Wankhede stadium.....[and please pay good attention to the picture....The winners were the cricketers but the members in the front row of the dias were BCCI officials and Maharashtra ministers], there was disturbing news that the Indian hockey players were planning to go on a hunger strike for the stepmotherly treatment meted out to them. Agreed cricket is fascinating and captures the attention of millions of people in the country but look at other countries where all sports coexist and no wonder Australia for example are excellent in cricket, soccer, hockey and any other sport. Why cannot we the public and media treat all sports equally. It has been this way for a long long time and any hope that victories like Sultan Azlan Shah Hockey tournament, Asia Cup etc changes the mindset of the public .......unfortunately no!!!

Another place where the public and media need to change their mindset and become more mature is in reacting to wins or losses. So as soon as Dhoni captains India to a triumph, Dravid, Sachin and Saurav are targetted. And media conducting polls as to Do we need the holy trinity etc etc......what nonsense. Agreed, young performers are the future but they need to be groomed well before being thrown in the wild. Because if they are thrown in the deep and tehy fail, because of the fickle minded public and media just prey on them and some pelt stones at their homes etc.....Why can't we have a balanced approach to their victories or defeats?.

The same Dhoni's house was attacked when he failed in a few games and now he is forgiven. Dravid's house has been attacked. Every sportsman has to go through highs and lows. So if Team India fails against Australia, dont kill them, with some experts questioning their attitude, etc. And please for god's sake stop with all the competition about which government comes up with a higher cash award. Let us treat all sports equally. Our hockey team won the Asia Cup and the soccer team won the Nehru cup. They too deserve our appreciation and admiration for their stupendous achievement. .

Hail team India in hockey, football and cricket. They are all gifted sportsmen in a land of billion. Let us encourage them all without a heroic treatment for cricketers and a stepmotherly treatment to other sports. The media sure has the biggest role in creating this awareness among the public

Rahul Dravid, a Perfect Gentleman

There was not much fanfare as always associated with this person. Whether he is on the field or away from it, he never attracts much attention. And his call to quit the Indian team captain''s job was exactly simple and dignified without much hue and cry. Yes, it did cause a shock among the nation's many cricket fans and all the cricket experts who always have suggestions for others but can never take up responsibility on their own. But in the end I feel that the man himself must have put a lot of thought into that decision just like the way eh prepares for his game. Was this a good call from Dravid or wasn't this particular shot not timed well??

As always, there are going to be people who agree and others who just have to criticize Rahul for anything he does. For example, consider the fact that India won the test series in England after 21 years......yes 21 loooong years and what were the critics saying, Oh Rahul should have imposed the follow-on and gone for 2-0. But then anything could have happened and India might have been struggling to save the game and every ardent fan knows how we play under pressure. SO where was the big hue and cry for him not imposing a follow-on. Also, he just wouldn't have taken the decision on his own. It would have been a collective decision.

Secondly, there are a lot of experts in Indian cricket who did nothing worthwhile when they had an opportunity but when its time to criticize others, oh yeah..they are the first in line. I guess this has been the problem with Indian cricket. Too many self proclaimed experts who are of the opinion that Rahul is very defensive. Now, does aggressiveness mean sledging opponents or taking your shirt off and shout at your opponents. Thats what majority of the country believes. But I feel at the end of the day, it is the W or L that counts, not how many times the captain claps or encourages his teammates. Tell me how much more can you tell a certain Mr Agarkar how to bowl and yet this person is a constant in the team. Surprising is the fact that not many comment on his performance but oh yeah Dravid is very very defensive!!!

Finally, the Selection committee chairman should not comment on what a captain should do or not do. His job is to select the team. Period. What the skipper and his team does is their prerogative.

Agreed Rahul could have improved a lot & become a great skipper but being the thinking cricketer he is, he called it quits just after winning a series in England after 21 years. That calls for a lot of guts and self belief and above all total selflessness. There are too many nonsensical people running the Indian cricket. Rahul surely does not wnat to be dictated to by these people. In a way, Team India needs Rahul the Wall for his batting skills and the man has the sincerity to realize his batting contribution to the team is going down and gives up the captaincy, which many clamour for!!!. Unbelievable!!!!!

Hats off Rahul. You( and your good old pal Kumble) are probably the most dedicated and disciplined cricketers India had seen in the last ten years. You sure are the perfect role model for many youngsters. Let your bat do the talking once more and silence the many many armchair experts of Indian cricket!!!

Stepneygate.....oh what a shame!!!

So after two rounds of hearings by the World Motor Sports Council(WMSC), Mclaren are found guilty of posessing and using information about Ferrari cars (F2007), setups, designs for the 2007 F1 championship. All along, Mclaren seemed to deny that they had this 780 page dossier containing Ferrari information. Firstly, without going into the details of this dossier, just being in possession of the documents deserves penalty, a big one for the fact that they did accept that they did posess the documents. However, like many others, I was stunned when FIA let them off with just a serious warning. This is like a thief saying " I went in to a house to steal but did not find anything good in there and walked out without stealing". That is the most bizarre and ridiculous ruling I have ever heard!!

Ferrari were clearly not happy with the verdict(obviously who will with such a ridiculous ruling??) and it was quite clear that this issue was not going to die down. And quite rightly so, the World Sports Motor Council (WMSC) called the teams for a second hearing and then came the decisive blow to Mclaren. They were booted out of the Constructors championship but according to me, the transcripts reveal the fact that Alonso and DeLaRosa knew about the information and that is violation of rules too and the drivers need to be booted out too. But to my surprise, the drivers can continue to compete for the drivers championship. This is insane!!!

Let me explain why I feel this way about the ruling. McLaren's contention is that they never used the Ferrari infor on their cars. Well, having the information and just a quick glance at the info will be enough to stimulate their brains into improving their performance. They are not stupid to use the exact same parts that Ferrari have and be caught red-handed. So this is where I do not understand the WMSC letting the drivers free. I mean the transcript clearly shows DeLa Rosa discussing issues Ferrari info with Alonso. Just cannot understand the ruling. I guess the ruling comes as a big blow to Kimi and Massa's chances for winning a coveted Driver's championship. And Hamilton's counsel's plea about sport getting a bad name if drivers are kicked out is absolute rubbish. Ron Dennis still saying that they are not guilty but are bearing this fine for the sake of the sport.....oh yeah we believe you big time Ron!!!!

One thing for sure is the fact that there is so so much money involved in the sport and even more politics that the interest of the fans which flock to every race track is just not cared for. With such incidents, it won't be surprising if fans tend to lose interest in the sport. And every week, no one is talking about the race yet but it is still about the Stepneygate.......a couple of disgruntled employees taking matter into their own hands and a stupid ruling from the WMSC to penalise the team and not the drivers....very very hilarious!!!.

Hope we get back to racing for the last three races of the season but one thing is for sure, this is surely a tainted championship, whoever wins it!!!!.

Federer does it again.

By now, most people have already exhausted the adjectives to describe this once in a generation tennis superstar. Never has a player dominated men's tennis as much as this genius has. Yes Pete Sampras won 7 Wimbledon's and 14 Grand Slam titles overall. But he did it over a longer period of time. What Federer has done is just mind boggling. At 26, he is a 12 Grand Slam title owner, and his first title was Wimbledon 2003. In a span of 4 years, he has 3 Australian Opens, 5 Wimbledons and 4 US Opens. And he has won the Wimbledon-US Open combination for the last 4 years. No one had accomplished that feat.

Many people still are of the opinion that he has not had challenging rivalries. Well, my simple argument is that Federer is just so so good that no one has been able to challenge him. Yes except for Nadal at the French Open, everytime he has been put under pressure, he has found answers and come out on top. The fascinating part about this year's US Open was the fact that he was never at his peak all through the tournament but yet in the end was the one holding the beautiful trophy!!!.

He definetely struggled in the first sets against Isner and Lopez but once it got to the quarterfinals, he was very focussed and hanging in there and finding ways to win. He did that against Roddick, dented his booming serves, was able to mentally slog it out against Davydenko in the semis and finally in the finals, against a fantastic player in Novak Djokovic, he somehow found answers to win two close tiebreakers and then his service was on song and was able to wrap up the match in straight sets.

This tournament showed that to beat Federer, he has to have a really really bad day at work or the opponent, no matter how great he is, has to play at double his capacity and that too for the entire duration of the match. Its not enough if they maintain a high level of play for 1 set and then fade away. Thats what most players do and end up losing the game.

Hats off Roger Federer. You have made tennis admirers all over the globe extremely happy with your game as well as your humility, conduct and personality. Sports needs more champions like you!!!