On 08/08/08, the Olympics begin in Beijing. They like that number and consider it auspicious. Lucky even. The Olympics are, of course, more than just that.
Take a look at this piece by Rohit Brijnath carried over the weekend in the Straits Times.
Its called :
Natalie is courage, she is self-belief.
Often in sport, we speak of it, [...]
This is the best of times. That was the worst of times.
Indian cricket had let the nerves get the better of them. Pragmatically, winning the World Cup had been a fanciful dream - but a shock first round exit was an unjust blow. As those seniors sat looking into the distance, disconsolate and depressed, tied [...]
The finals of the CB series had to be between these two teams. There was a fatalistic predictability that it would be. Anything else would have been inadequate. Thats where the predictability ended.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s side is the new India. When they were chosen and others sidestepped, the justifiable feeling among many was that the [...]
The Million Dollar Question - Is it just me getting old fashioned or is sports really changing too fast ?
Is the modern day sportsperson chasing that dream so hard that its becoming difficult to make him the role model ? At some stage we are inherently uncomfortable with the concept of watching a sportsperson competing [...]
And so, the chequered flag on a largely checkered F1 season.
But if its a page turner that you were looking for, if you had any doubts about F1’s viewership after Michael Schumacher drove away into the sunset, if box-office was Bernie Ecclestone’s mantra, then it really could not have gotten much better than this.
It all [...]
There’s no point in getting into arguments about who India’s greatest Sportsman is. Those kind are just interesting talking points and blog posts. But Vishwanathan Anand’s sponsors’ NIIT call him India’s Mind Champion. Anyone feel like arguing ?
Many years ago , Anand recalls … “once I was on this train in India . [...]
Knock Knock
Who’s There ?
Misba
Misba Who ?
Misba 5 runs .
Just for a brief while yesterday, surely, an old nightmare came back to haunt a few people. A young man named Sharma ran in to bowl to a determined, possessed Pakistan batsman . Thats when the comparisons ended. That was 21 years ago. I was older [...]
Last night, fast asleep at 0130, I got a phone call.
It had been a stressful couple of days at work. Sleep was desirable if not essential. There was no way it would be anything but toss and turn though. The caller knew it.
But I wish you could have heard the excitement in the voice. [...]
When you join the growing list of Novak Jokovic’s fans and search Youtube for his many videos, you will find that he does a few brilliantly funny ones of Maria Sharapova (”just friends”), Andy Roddick, Goran Ivanisevic, Lleyton Hewitt and Rafael Nadal. They’re complete with mannerisms and all. He does not even stop at Rafa’s [...]
There was a particular beauty to yesterday’s contest which underscores the times we live in. Everything is lightning quick. Everything is under the scanner and must be right. Every mistake is analysed. The run fest at the Oval showed that not all of that is bad.
A number of mistakes were made by a host of [...]
“At a dinner in Leeds on Friday night, Sachin Tendulkar talked about playing under pressure. Nobody is better qualified to do so. He said the only way to cope with the extraordinary expectation that has followed his career was to see pressure as [...]
Sometimes it isn’t meant to be. The eventual winners just find that something special that nothing you can do is good enough. Last night, Stuart Broad and Ravi Bopara got England from 114-7 to their 213 target in difficult conditions. They have a combined age of 43.
We’ve had similar moments. Yuvraj and Kaif getting India [...]
Growing up, all kinds of things shape you. In different doses. People do it without realizing the impact.
Sportswriters were obviously an important part of the ones that shaped me and I consider myself fortunate that a large period of when I was most impressionable coincided with when Indian sports writers were at their most celebratory.
This [...]
Well done India. For all the BCCI baiters and slow-on-the-coach-bandwagon red rag wavers, this was a truly independent Indian performance. It does not matter that it was 1-0 and could have been 2-0 and it does not matter either that we got out of jail at Lords. All that matters is that we won. Fair [...]
Luck with the toss and day one conditions notwithstanding (England had the same advantage at Lords), India were comprehensively the better side at Trent Bridge.
Whats worrisome for England is that the weak links from Lords - Bell, Prior and the lower batting order - have stayed weak and a few others have been exposed. The [...]
Out on a sunny Centre Court enter two men that are different. As different as red clay is to green grass. So different you’d think they were from different planets or at least different eras. And yet both here chase similar dreams - Emulate Bjorn Borg.
Roger Federer, white pants, white vest and white monogrammed [...]
Its in every newspaper I guess, but loved the photograph so here it is.
Sam Alexis Woods.
12 Majors. 79 Professional wins in all.
As the line in the movie goes :
I’m so excited, I think I’ll brush all my teeth today!
This day in 1983.
Indian Cricket changed forever.
And I know what you’re thinking. There are better photographs that capture the moment. Here’s the thing though. There are a few guys missing from this picture.
One of them - Kapil Dev - was the captain of the team. Another - Sandeep Patil, played an important role right through. This week, [...]
“When we did the first walk from John O’Groats to Land’s End in 1985,” says his Beefiness, “there was a 20 percent survival-rate for people with leukaemia. Now that’s up to 80 percent and I won’t stop walking until it’s 100 percent. If we can beat one form of cancer, who knows what doors that’ll [...]
Its tennis season. Things go kind of crazy. Earlier this month somebody spent 19 days (and $1.63 m) to prepare a court which was half grass-half clay. And then matched Federer and Nadal in an exhibition game on it. Nadal won.
Now though, for the real thing. Yesterday, through a bit of rain we started off [...]
Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France seven consecutive times.
He’d earlier won against cancer in 1996.
Lance Armstrong knew about winning. This, though, is a bit about his first year while defending what he’d won. Its not the same thing. Like he said “I started the 2000 tour with a bull’s eye on my back. [...]
This may surprise a few of my friends. (Its possible to have opinions and friends).But Steve Waugh is amongst my favourite cricketers. To the point of being amongst my favourite men.
It doesn’t matter that his brother was by far the more graceful bat. To the point that there were jokes about Afghanistan. (yeah, “the forgotten [...]
I think the reason that I look at Cricket the way I do is because it symbolised a lot. And so a lot of excellence that one sees, one likes to equate with cricket. And so, even tho I might say this is a cricket blog, I’ll pretty shamelessly write here, (probably increasingly) about anything [...]
One of my favourite photographs.
They’d written him off. Stripped him off his captaincy. The rest is history.
This is Ian Botham reflecting on his match changing innings for England against Australia in the Third test at Headingly, July 1981.
Adrian Murrell / AllSport
For so long he hadn’t needed any of it; not the support of the fans, not the presence of family,not the on-court histrionics.Pete Sampras did not scream, “That’s what I’m talking about!” after winning a set in his prime,half a decade ago, and he didn’t take motivation from words lovingly scribbled on a piece of [...]
Sfx, actually Bush plans to bring bug spray for himself when he watches the crickets play.
Sfx, I once tried to play cricket on my back lawn but couldn’t get white uniforms to fit the little critters.
I was off today and missed the fireworks, which seemed like deja vu after similar move on Wednesday. This [...]
