I think Roger has lost it. Maybe the robot that was inside him has been used in the Endhiran movie, but the bottom-line is that he has now become mortal.
We have all witnessed a Champion annihilate the mortals in the last 5+ years. We are also seeing the Champion become that mortal in the last 2 years. Now, will this mortal become the Champion again?
That, in my opinion, would forever eliminate any doubts on the fact that Roger Federer is the greatest tennis player of all time.
Showing posts with label Sportsperson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sportsperson. Show all posts
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Its time to say goodbye to Indian Cricket
At the outset, let me make it clear that I was an avid cricket fan till around the year 2000. That's the year I went to USA and got cut off from live cricket telecasts. That was also the year when my idol Kapil Dev was accused of match fixing.
To me that was the last straw. The whole match fixing allegations were making a sceptic out of me and when Kapil was accused, I basically lost it. I totally got away from cricket. Hated the players, the administrators and all the media folks who were trying to milk maximum coverage out of this scandal.
I practically gave up on cricket. The guys around me used to follow games on the internet. At odd hours too. Some of them were even planning to install dish antenna and subscribe to Indian channels. But I never did.
Even after I returned to India, my interest never reached the levels of say, 1999. I was probably indifferent to the whole thing. But being in the country, meant that one cant really escape the sport. It was telecast on most channels. Newspapers dedicated lots of newsprint to the most mundane of series. Ads were created with every Indian cricketer for many many products.
My interest did revive, but not I still didn't try to work my schedules around the matches. I caught up with the games only if I was done with other things in a day.
But this World Cup, somehow made me want to follow the games. But the debacle in the opening game itself - that was a shock reminder for me. It proved very clearly that this Indian team is a tiger on paper and not even a mouse in reality.
One thing though, that's always been the case with all Indian teams. So many of them have some of the best individual records. But none of these have actually translated into victories for the team.
We Indians are big suckers for romantic touches in sport. So we devote lot of time and space to all these batsmen who are best when:
1. The ball reaches them at an ideal speed of 120 Kph.
2. The ball does not move in any direction after pitching.
3. The ball does not raise above the knee level.
Being a great business house, the BCCI has ensured that we somehow get the worst possible teams to visit us. The Tendulkars and Gangulys maul these poor bowlers and the next day we hail them as the "World's greatest batsman" or "The Prince of Kolkatta". Probably, the only player worth his sobriquet is Dravid "The Wall".
All these guys have records worth killing for. But look at the BCCI's trophy cupboard. Its absolutely barren. Not the case with its coffers, but unfortunately that's where the BCCI's interests lie.
But its not that the BCCI is the only culprit. There are many others. I am not going to enter into any discussion about Dravid's captaincy or Chappell's coaching. Those are too technical for me and ultimately, I only feel its a matter of perception.
For me, the entire blame lies on the senior players in the team. Primarily Sachin. We have been deifying him for many many years now. Like I mentioned in an earlier posting, he is a spent force. Was a great player, no doubt, but less than a mere mortal these days.
Even in his heydays, I think you can easily count the number of critical matches where he has performed well. I am talking about matches like semi-finals or finals or elimination games. Invariably he IS A FAILURE. I don't care about how many gazillion runs you scored in your life. My father tells me that I once scored 705 runs against him, when I was only 7 years old, so am I better than him. If you cant perform when it matters, just shut the bleep up and pack your bags.
Next Sourav. Everyone went ballistic when he was dropped. The guy couldn't even score against Kenya for crying out loud. Once again, he was an exciting prospect, but not so in the last couple of years of his captaincy. He crossed the point of being aggressive and practically became arrogant. Its a fine line and he crossed it quite quickly.
He did make a good comeback. I don't deny that. I even admire his patience and guts and determination in wanting to come back and actually coming back. Its a different deal that his replacements were no better, but during the time he was away, he did have a few decent performances and so his re-selection was not an issue. But look at the insane number of balls he was facing to score his runs. Horrendous strike rate which definitely caused some concern to his team, but no one dare talk about it.
Lesser said about Viru the better. Not withstanding his 100 against Bermuda, he needs to be dropped. It was fun when he batted well, but he needs to spend some solid time at the nets.
Rahul - Has started showing some inconsistencies of late. But my money is still on him making a 50 than anyone else in this team.
Not gonna say much about the bowling, because I think that was one area where we performed decently. But, I must add that Harbajan is no longer the threat he used to be.
One thing that all the experts kept saying. The experiments by the coach and captain caused too much confusion. Say what? Did they ask Zaheer Khan to stop bowling and open the batting? Did they ask Yuvraj to open the bowling and operate at speeds in excess of 140 Kph?
No. The expectation was a slight modification to what they normally do. Pathan's batting was good. So they asked him to move up the order. He performed. If he "lost" his bowling, what do you mean by that? Did he stop bowling at the nets and did only batting? Then Sachin. He cant play at #4 is it? Isn't that where he plays while batting? But in one-dayers, he cant come there? Why? If the field is spread out, he cant hit 4s is it? Then why call him God?
If after years and years of playing cricket, you cannot make such subtle adjustments to your game, then get the bloody hell out.
Why don't these cricketers spend more time playing domestic tournaments? Why cant they play more county cricket? Just look at Zaheer and Sourav. Their game has surely improved after they played hours and hours of first class cricket.
But our Gods, would rather play only the Ranji finals and that too as captain. Otherwise, who cares about it. Unfortunately, even the others in the team emulate the "great one" in this aspect. They don't play for their state or zone until they are dropped from the Indian team. But two or three decent performances later, they get back in through the quota system and then that's it.
I don't want to write up anymore on this. All I want to say is that I feel very sorry for the average Indian Cricket fan who is now burning effigies. Its not his fault that he feels let down. The cricketers and to a very large extent, the electronic media, make the most trivial series sound like its the World Cup. They kick up the passions of the fans. They make Gods out of mere mortals. And when things are going fine, nobody objects to this deification. No cricketer has the guts to say that this is wrong. Nobody appeals to the fans to remain calm and not celebrate an ordinary victory over Kenya like you've won the championship. No sponsor requests the Indian fan to keep calm. No critic worth his salt says anything bad major chinks in the armor. Why don't all of you ask the average fan to remain steady. Why don't you tell him that "its only a game".
But a loss to a low team at a big stage like a World Cup, should be treated by the average fan "as part of the game"? Why should he? You have told him that Sachin is the world's greatest batsman. You've told him that on the Off side, there is God and then Sourav. You only said that The Wall is always there. You said the Nawab of Najafgarh will belt the bowlers all over the park. You said that Yuvi is the coolest dude. You said that Dhoni makes the 'anhoni' (impossible) a 'honi' (possible). You said so many other things and asked the average fan to believe you.
Why do you say the other things now?
The media, the critics, the experts - all of you are one sick bunch of bums who will talk where the money is. Just shut the bleep up and go home.
Its time the average Indian fan said goodbye to Indian Cricket. May it rest in peace.
To me that was the last straw. The whole match fixing allegations were making a sceptic out of me and when Kapil was accused, I basically lost it. I totally got away from cricket. Hated the players, the administrators and all the media folks who were trying to milk maximum coverage out of this scandal.
I practically gave up on cricket. The guys around me used to follow games on the internet. At odd hours too. Some of them were even planning to install dish antenna and subscribe to Indian channels. But I never did.
Even after I returned to India, my interest never reached the levels of say, 1999. I was probably indifferent to the whole thing. But being in the country, meant that one cant really escape the sport. It was telecast on most channels. Newspapers dedicated lots of newsprint to the most mundane of series. Ads were created with every Indian cricketer for many many products.
My interest did revive, but not I still didn't try to work my schedules around the matches. I caught up with the games only if I was done with other things in a day.
But this World Cup, somehow made me want to follow the games. But the debacle in the opening game itself - that was a shock reminder for me. It proved very clearly that this Indian team is a tiger on paper and not even a mouse in reality.
One thing though, that's always been the case with all Indian teams. So many of them have some of the best individual records. But none of these have actually translated into victories for the team.
We Indians are big suckers for romantic touches in sport. So we devote lot of time and space to all these batsmen who are best when:
1. The ball reaches them at an ideal speed of 120 Kph.
2. The ball does not move in any direction after pitching.
3. The ball does not raise above the knee level.
Being a great business house, the BCCI has ensured that we somehow get the worst possible teams to visit us. The Tendulkars and Gangulys maul these poor bowlers and the next day we hail them as the "World's greatest batsman" or "The Prince of Kolkatta". Probably, the only player worth his sobriquet is Dravid "The Wall".
All these guys have records worth killing for. But look at the BCCI's trophy cupboard. Its absolutely barren. Not the case with its coffers, but unfortunately that's where the BCCI's interests lie.
But its not that the BCCI is the only culprit. There are many others. I am not going to enter into any discussion about Dravid's captaincy or Chappell's coaching. Those are too technical for me and ultimately, I only feel its a matter of perception.
For me, the entire blame lies on the senior players in the team. Primarily Sachin. We have been deifying him for many many years now. Like I mentioned in an earlier posting, he is a spent force. Was a great player, no doubt, but less than a mere mortal these days.
Even in his heydays, I think you can easily count the number of critical matches where he has performed well. I am talking about matches like semi-finals or finals or elimination games. Invariably he IS A FAILURE. I don't care about how many gazillion runs you scored in your life. My father tells me that I once scored 705 runs against him, when I was only 7 years old, so am I better than him. If you cant perform when it matters, just shut the bleep up and pack your bags.
Next Sourav. Everyone went ballistic when he was dropped. The guy couldn't even score against Kenya for crying out loud. Once again, he was an exciting prospect, but not so in the last couple of years of his captaincy. He crossed the point of being aggressive and practically became arrogant. Its a fine line and he crossed it quite quickly.
He did make a good comeback. I don't deny that. I even admire his patience and guts and determination in wanting to come back and actually coming back. Its a different deal that his replacements were no better, but during the time he was away, he did have a few decent performances and so his re-selection was not an issue. But look at the insane number of balls he was facing to score his runs. Horrendous strike rate which definitely caused some concern to his team, but no one dare talk about it.
Lesser said about Viru the better. Not withstanding his 100 against Bermuda, he needs to be dropped. It was fun when he batted well, but he needs to spend some solid time at the nets.
Rahul - Has started showing some inconsistencies of late. But my money is still on him making a 50 than anyone else in this team.
Not gonna say much about the bowling, because I think that was one area where we performed decently. But, I must add that Harbajan is no longer the threat he used to be.
One thing that all the experts kept saying. The experiments by the coach and captain caused too much confusion. Say what? Did they ask Zaheer Khan to stop bowling and open the batting? Did they ask Yuvraj to open the bowling and operate at speeds in excess of 140 Kph?
No. The expectation was a slight modification to what they normally do. Pathan's batting was good. So they asked him to move up the order. He performed. If he "lost" his bowling, what do you mean by that? Did he stop bowling at the nets and did only batting? Then Sachin. He cant play at #4 is it? Isn't that where he plays while batting? But in one-dayers, he cant come there? Why? If the field is spread out, he cant hit 4s is it? Then why call him God?
If after years and years of playing cricket, you cannot make such subtle adjustments to your game, then get the bloody hell out.
Why don't these cricketers spend more time playing domestic tournaments? Why cant they play more county cricket? Just look at Zaheer and Sourav. Their game has surely improved after they played hours and hours of first class cricket.
But our Gods, would rather play only the Ranji finals and that too as captain. Otherwise, who cares about it. Unfortunately, even the others in the team emulate the "great one" in this aspect. They don't play for their state or zone until they are dropped from the Indian team. But two or three decent performances later, they get back in through the quota system and then that's it.
I don't want to write up anymore on this. All I want to say is that I feel very sorry for the average Indian Cricket fan who is now burning effigies. Its not his fault that he feels let down. The cricketers and to a very large extent, the electronic media, make the most trivial series sound like its the World Cup. They kick up the passions of the fans. They make Gods out of mere mortals. And when things are going fine, nobody objects to this deification. No cricketer has the guts to say that this is wrong. Nobody appeals to the fans to remain calm and not celebrate an ordinary victory over Kenya like you've won the championship. No sponsor requests the Indian fan to keep calm. No critic worth his salt says anything bad major chinks in the armor. Why don't all of you ask the average fan to remain steady. Why don't you tell him that "its only a game".
But a loss to a low team at a big stage like a World Cup, should be treated by the average fan "as part of the game"? Why should he? You have told him that Sachin is the world's greatest batsman. You've told him that on the Off side, there is God and then Sourav. You only said that The Wall is always there. You said the Nawab of Najafgarh will belt the bowlers all over the park. You said that Yuvi is the coolest dude. You said that Dhoni makes the 'anhoni' (impossible) a 'honi' (possible). You said so many other things and asked the average fan to believe you.
Why do you say the other things now?
The media, the critics, the experts - all of you are one sick bunch of bums who will talk where the money is. Just shut the bleep up and go home.
Its time the average Indian fan said goodbye to Indian Cricket. May it rest in peace.
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Partial bulbs to my posts
2 weeks back, I had posted this article about the True Indian Sportsperson.
I said some good things about that lady and also bad things about the Indian cricket team.
Then the girl's medal is withdrawn on technical grounds.
And the Indian cricket team scores its first Test win in South Africa.
Though it wasnt really a foot in the mouth moment, I think this was quite close. In any case, I feel sad for Shanthi. I think its the fault of the Indian Olympics Association to have made her participate in Doha, knowing the history. I truly hope they do something that could help correct this imbalance in her and let her participate in future competitions without any hassle.
And the win in cricket, I like it a lot. It was a real team effort. And Sreesanth sure gave us a lot of moments to cheer and smile.
I said some good things about that lady and also bad things about the Indian cricket team.
Then the girl's medal is withdrawn on technical grounds.
And the Indian cricket team scores its first Test win in South Africa.
Though it wasnt really a foot in the mouth moment, I think this was quite close. In any case, I feel sad for Shanthi. I think its the fault of the Indian Olympics Association to have made her participate in Doha, knowing the history. I truly hope they do something that could help correct this imbalance in her and let her participate in future competitions without any hassle.
And the win in cricket, I like it a lot. It was a real team effort. And Sreesanth sure gave us a lot of moments to cheer and smile.
Monday, December 11, 2006
True Indian Sportsperson
Was having a chat with Neeluking on Sunday evening when he commented on numerous aunts and grammas commenting about cricket. His objections, quite rightfully so, were towards their attitude to comment on anything and everything that they perceived were against India. He was upset that an exquisite shot from Lara was condemned whereas, a french-cut from Dhoni was eulogised.
I agree totally with him. We as a country have always been obsessed with cricket. Probably its the only sport where we have at least a chance of being the best, at least on paper.
Lets face it. The Indian cricket team has always been a bunch of over-hyped occasional performers. There are some exceptions, but then they are just that - exceptions.
And in this day and age, with the media coverage being what it is, I simply cannot accept people's blind acceptance of one person by name Sachin Tendulkar.
He WAS one of India's finest batsmen. He WAS the world's greatest batsman for a year or max two. He HAS had some great innings in the PAST.
But very clearly he is a thing of the PAST. Has he had a decent series in the last 2-3 years? The supporters will immediately jump in to say that he scored a century after he returned from a major injury. I don't deny it. But after that? NOTHING.
If you compare his stats against, say even Ganguly, he doesn't appear any better. But while Ganguly lost out due to lack of a Godfather, that problem never came up for Mr.Tendulkar. He has so many Godfathers in the BCCI basically by virtue of being a Mumbaikar, that he might as well not play for 2 years (like he has been doing for the past few years) and he will still be revered.
Just imagine. If you paint the true picture of Sachin, people will start baying for his blood. Then what happens to all the crores and crores of money that Pepsi, Boost, MRF and many many more Corporates have paid him to endorse their products? To save their big investment, these people pay quacks like Sunil G, Ravi S, Harsha B and countless others to air their expert opinion in all forms of media.
For all his recent failures (and by recent, I mean to say 2-3 years; that's recent enough in terms of the number of years for which this third rock from the sun has been in existence) these experts have either of these two things to say: "He has been carrying a big injury" or the ubiquitous "Form is temporary, Class is permanent".
I will tell you what? Bring back all the people who played for India. Their form today will be quite bad, but their class is great.
But NO. We will continue to idolise ST. Reel off stats on how many centuries he has scored. The total number of runs he has hit. What his contribution to an Indian victory is. No sir. That we will never talk.
When the Indian Govt condemned the inappropriate usage of the Indian Flag and brought regulation, so many people raised a big hue and cry. Oh, Sachin will no longer be able to wear the flag on his helmet. What a true national, but still he cant display it. BS.
What do these idiots know about playing for the country? All this pride that they want to exhibit, its only because they have to mask the true reason why they play. Money. Fame. Not country's pride.
Against all this, I want to bring to your attention the below two links. These are from the Doha Asiad that's going on now. Please visit the site and read about what being a True Indian Sportsperson is all about.
You think we will talk about her after a year or so. No. She will fade away into oblivion. She doesn't play cricket. Nor is she photogenic. Unfortunately, those are bad things to have on your resume, if you are trying to make it big in Indian sports.
Link 1
Link 2
I agree totally with him. We as a country have always been obsessed with cricket. Probably its the only sport where we have at least a chance of being the best, at least on paper.
Lets face it. The Indian cricket team has always been a bunch of over-hyped occasional performers. There are some exceptions, but then they are just that - exceptions.
And in this day and age, with the media coverage being what it is, I simply cannot accept people's blind acceptance of one person by name Sachin Tendulkar.
He WAS one of India's finest batsmen. He WAS the world's greatest batsman for a year or max two. He HAS had some great innings in the PAST.
But very clearly he is a thing of the PAST. Has he had a decent series in the last 2-3 years? The supporters will immediately jump in to say that he scored a century after he returned from a major injury. I don't deny it. But after that? NOTHING.
If you compare his stats against, say even Ganguly, he doesn't appear any better. But while Ganguly lost out due to lack of a Godfather, that problem never came up for Mr.Tendulkar. He has so many Godfathers in the BCCI basically by virtue of being a Mumbaikar, that he might as well not play for 2 years (like he has been doing for the past few years) and he will still be revered.
Just imagine. If you paint the true picture of Sachin, people will start baying for his blood. Then what happens to all the crores and crores of money that Pepsi, Boost, MRF and many many more Corporates have paid him to endorse their products? To save their big investment, these people pay quacks like Sunil G, Ravi S, Harsha B and countless others to air their expert opinion in all forms of media.
For all his recent failures (and by recent, I mean to say 2-3 years; that's recent enough in terms of the number of years for which this third rock from the sun has been in existence) these experts have either of these two things to say: "He has been carrying a big injury" or the ubiquitous "Form is temporary, Class is permanent".
I will tell you what? Bring back all the people who played for India. Their form today will be quite bad, but their class is great.
But NO. We will continue to idolise ST. Reel off stats on how many centuries he has scored. The total number of runs he has hit. What his contribution to an Indian victory is. No sir. That we will never talk.
When the Indian Govt condemned the inappropriate usage of the Indian Flag and brought regulation, so many people raised a big hue and cry. Oh, Sachin will no longer be able to wear the flag on his helmet. What a true national, but still he cant display it. BS.
What do these idiots know about playing for the country? All this pride that they want to exhibit, its only because they have to mask the true reason why they play. Money. Fame. Not country's pride.
Against all this, I want to bring to your attention the below two links. These are from the Doha Asiad that's going on now. Please visit the site and read about what being a True Indian Sportsperson is all about.
You think we will talk about her after a year or so. No. She will fade away into oblivion. She doesn't play cricket. Nor is she photogenic. Unfortunately, those are bad things to have on your resume, if you are trying to make it big in Indian sports.
Link 1
Link 2
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)