Monday , June 02, 2008
After 44 days of hype, glamour, glitter and non-stop cricketing action it's time to figure out what kind of footprints the DLF-IPL will leave. Look
at it any way, it was a hit - full stadiums, soaring TRP's and the odd controversies that helped this new version of cricket take rapid strides in
its very first year. Just by the sheer magnitude of interest it has become the flagship tournament of Indian domestic cricket. But is it good
news or bad news? The answer lies with the BCCI.
We have heard the positives of the IPL and how it can change the dynamics of Indian cricket. Not many critics and commentators have
chosen to look at the flip side. No matter how good the medicine may be, there are always some side effects. Ignore them and you are inviting
....
Friday , January 18, 2008
Dear BCCI,
This is addressed to each and everyone of you. Knowing how busy you must be with your new baby, the IPL, I considered it best not to address individuals as it might miss the target.
Having read all the newspapers this morning and having watched most of the news channels, I notice that none of you - including Board president Sharad Pawar, media savvy secretary Niranjan Shah and the ever ready vice president Rajeev Shukla - had the time to release a statement to congratulate Anil Kumble on achieving 600 Test wickets.
It seems impossible - most of you are ready to give sound bites or reactions to any and everything, including the presence of Shahrukh Khan at a cricket venue, but what happens when the gentle giant of Indian cricket reaches a monumental landmark...? Total silence. No congratulatory messages, no promises of grand....
Monday , January 07, 2008
Whenever Aussies complained about some has said something to them or sledged them, my first reaction is look who's talking. Yes Aussies are World Champions, yes they have taken their game to new level and the gulf between them and other teams is increasing by the day. But on the other side of the coin their reputation on and off the field is in tatters.
This is the side which has tried best to get official approval from the world for sledging or to say it in Steve Waugh's language, mental disintegration. This is the side which won't spare Mother Teresa if she is padded-up and got some runs against them. Just go back to recent history and you will find incidences of Glenn McGrath telling Sanath Jayasuriya 'black monkey' or fighting boorishly with Ramnaresh Sarwan.
They know how to win but after that they don't....
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
The cricket series has reached Faisalabad, the third largest city of Pakistan also called the Manchester of Pak and famous for its textile industry. The Late Nusarat Fateh Ali Khan belonged to this city, Pakistan hockey legend Shahbaz Ahmed calls it home and Cricket great Kapil Dev started his Test journey from here. Sachin Tendulkar got his first 50 on these grounds in 1989. MS Dhoni got his first Test hundred here. And you know what? That new boy RP Singh made his Test debut in this city too.
Have I missed anything? Sorry, if I have.
I am looking for reasons to live in this city. The city has a dusty look with crowded markets and our hotel can challenge any shady hotel in Paharganj. Just for your information, our hotel, the Sandal Bar Inn, is the second best place in town. The best is....
Thursday , January 19, 2006
- It's a battle between Pakistani bowlers and Indian batsmen!
- The battle's between Sachin and Shoaib!
- The battle is between Dravid and Kaneria!
These were just some of the headlines before the series began, but five days of play in Lahore has robbed the series of all its excitement. Bad weather and a dead pitch have also not helped the cause of cricket at all.
Cricket is at its best when bowling and batting are balanced equally but the Lahore pitch was totally in favour of the batsmen; the bowlers toiled away needlessly and got thumped all around the park.
Sitting in the press box for five days was tough as I saw world-class bowlers like Kumble, Harbhajan, Pathan, Shoaib and Kaneria at the mercy of batsmen like Afridi and Sehwag.
I feel the reason for this kind of pitch is really simple. Pakistan doesn't want....
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Thirteen-year-old Huma is lying in her bed in Imran Khan's cancer hospital in Lahore. Having just gotten through the third stage of chemotherapy, she is completely bald; her eyebrows have fallen off too. Lying listlessly in bed, she seems to have no life left in her, no will to live and then a smiling 5'5 inch man , from across the border walks into her room and her face lights up, like it hasnt done in quite a while.
This man is none other than Sachin Tendulkar, who along with the entire cricket team has visited Imran's super-speciality cancer hospital to cheer up some patients on the occasion of Id. The Indian team looked pleased to be there and the patients, on their part were overjoyed, because the Pakistani's, not unlike us Indians are very passionate about the game. And when it comes to Sachin, words like LOC don't....
Monday , January 09, 2006
I'm back in Pakistan and this time the hospitality started right before we took off on our Delhi-Lahore flight. Surprised? Well, its true, thanks mainly to our super-efficient CNN-IBN Pak Bureau Chief, Mohsin Naqvi, who we were fortunate to have on the flight with us.
After formal introductions were over, everything else went smooth- really smooth especially the customs and immigration routine when we landed in Lahore. Imagine an Indian TV crew (with loads of equipment ) not being subjected to a gruelling secutity check.! Amazing but true. I'm impressed, Mr Naqvi.
Life is now back to normal, excepting the controversy over Dungarpur's statement on Ganguly. It was enough for my office to make sure I didn't get any sleep the first night. I think Dungarpur made a big mistake by calling Ganguly "lazy" and then doing a volte face and denying it the next day -....
Friday , January 06, 2006
When I was asked to go to Pak to cover the Indo-Pak tests in 2004, I admit I was a tad apprehensive. Nothing very serious, just the usual pangs of anxiety due to the legendary enmity between the two countries. But the moment I landed in Pak, everything flipped over and I fell completely in love with this land that was once what my ancestors called home. To say that the people of Pakistan are warm, generous and helpful is to state the obvious. Not only me, almost every Indian who arrived for the matches went back to India raving about the hospitality of Pakistani's who did their best to make it a great experience for everyone.
India won the One-Dayers and the series were very well fought. Since my roots are in Pakistan, I spent a lot of time after the matches soaking in nostalgic moments and even....
Thursday , December 22, 2005
Finally the end of a long day, which finished at 11:55 pm, predictably with a call from Rajdeep. It was exactly how it had begun.
At 7 that morning, when I was still snoozing in my quilt, my phone had beeped with a text message. It was the boss. "Sourav coming to Delhi. Follow it." Bloody hell, does this man sleep?
Indian cricket's biggest enigma was going to landed in Delhi to meet the new board president Sharad Pawar and attempt to salvage his career. I tried to get confirmation of the same by making calls within Delhi and to Calcutta, the former capital of Indian cricket. As usual, the signals were confusing. With Ganguly, you don't expect anything else and I decide it was time to begin climbing Moutn Everest: as in trying to reach Sourav.
Otherwise accessible, Sourav can be unreachable when you....
