PRG's Thoughts

The college football (American Football) season kicks off in full swing this Saturday. For most of you that means nothing at all. But for those of you who went to one of the big sports schools in the US, it is the beginning of the best four months of the year. The excitement of the season for us college football fans is as much as what we feel for the world cup or any big sporting event. I love my Texas Longhorns as much as the Indian Cricket team or Roger Federer or Tiger Woods. Now, if you are wondering why am I writing about a sport that only three people in India really care about, it is because India can learn a lot from the American system of talent and sports development. After the recent series in England the lack of depth in our sports teams is pretty evident. The system in American Sports is very clear. It is applicable for all American sports but to make it easier I will use football as an example. Right from the 10 th and 11 th grade in high school a talented fo

Somewhere in a hotel room in England, 11 Indian cricketers and a Zimbabwean coach gather around in a dark room. The mood is serious. Player 1: “I’ve called this meeting today in urgent circumstances. So far we have blamed our horrific performance on the BCCI and their planning. While they’re usually an easy target I think we may be passed the expiration date on this particular blame game.” Player 2: “Why? Just blame it on them. Always works and right now the media is supporting us.” Player 1: “Look, we’ve played two tests and two side games. The public realizes that we should have gotten used to the conditions by now. It just won’t fly. Plus we had this stupid number one ranking on our heads. Thank god that’s over.” Player 3: “Chill out, ya. Just blame it on injuries. Can’t argue with that.” Player 4: “Player 3, you’re a Moron, only ONE player is injured. You can’t count the two boys from Punjab. One hasn’t taken a wicket since before Chayageet aired on DD and the other is not even

Ian Bell was out and MS Dhoni should not have withdrawn his appeal. The law of the game is clear, as was established by the umpire’s decision to give him out. There is no argument there. So now the debate goes to the spirit of the game. I see nothing against the spirit of the game in letting the umpire’s decision stand. There are questions to be asked, though. Was Bell attempting a run? Or was he just careless in the way he handled himself? Like most of you, I watched that replay over a dozen times. It was clear to me that Ian Bell was not jogging off the field but rather was trying to get a fourth run in. As he jogged half way down the pitch he noticed Eion Morgan well grounded in his crease. Instead of running back and grounding his bat, Bell stopped jogging and continued to walk toward the bowlers end. There are two possible things that went through Bell’s mind. If he thought it was a four (I don’t think he did) then he violated cricket 101 by assuming it was a boundary. If on the

While selecting my dream eleven, I took the approach of having the best side rather than just listing the best players. Thus the focus became the balance of the side. A decision to take Steve Waugh over Brian Lara was one such call.With the 2000 th Test almost upon us, there are dream Test teams being created by cricket fans and experts. I also felt it was also important to see how players would fare in a particular position in the lineup. The elimination of Sir Viv Richards from the starting 11 was because of this reason. There obviously is no correct combination, as it is all based on personal opinion, but here is my dream 11: in order of batting position. Let the debating begin. Sunil Gavaskar: Probably the greatest opening Test batsman of all time. His technique was flawless and his patience unmatched. Consistently dominating the greatest bowling attack of all time in hostile conditions differentiates him from everyone else. He was the best. Virender Sehwag: This was a tough ca

The Wimbledon finals no one predicted Sports What a great Wimbledon. As usual the lawns of SW19 kept us riveted for two weeks. The Rafa injury scare, the Williams sisters' early exit and of course the hope that the top four men's seeds would be in the semi finals again. The Men's Final- It was one of the most shocking things I have seen in sports in a long time. Not that Djokovic won, he has beaten Nadal enough times this year for that to be a surprise. But I never thought I would see Rafa Nadal outclassed on a tennis court. The tennis that Novak Djokovic played was simply sublime. No one has dominated Nadal as Novak did on Sunday. He did to Nadal what Nadal does to everyone else. Chasing down every ball he forced Rafa to play two extra shots a point. That is Nadal's thing, it's what makes Nadal so hard to beat. Well Rafa's patent on that skill expired and Djokovic executed like a man on a mission. Sure, in the third set we saw signs of the Rafa we know and lo

I hate Roger Federer. He raises my blood pressure, causes stress, the occasional sleepless night and makes Sunday evenings horrible. I’m just recovering from the French Open and here comes Wimbledon. Just before the final at Roland Garros started I said, “I can’t hack a 5 set match. I hope it doesn’t go there.” I got berated by a friend, “What do you mean you can’t hack it? If you don’t want to watch it, don’t.” Then there were others who said, “I hope it’s a close one. Will be fun.” Will be fun ? Getting an ulcer is fun ? Heart skipping beats is fun ? There were those who before the tournament even started said another Roger-Rafa final “would be amazing.” I felt like knocking them on the head with a club. Sorry, I can’t take it anymore. The surgeon general needs to show a warning to Roger fans that watching his matches will cut a couple of months off your life expectancy. Roger is a tease and an emotional roller coaster that few can handle. He goes up 5-2 and then loses the set. He wi

Wimbledon is just another tournament,” said a friend, as we debated the best sporting events of the year. Just another tournament? Really? The game at the Championships is not what it used to be, there’s no question about it; and the authorities at SW19 have made some dramatic changes in the past few years. In the late Eighties and Nineties, the Wimbledon game was dominated by serve and volley. Baseliners weren’t thought to have a shot at victory – barring the random win by Agassi in 1992. A big serve and a decent game were what you needed to be a contender. It was in complete contrast to the games on the clay courts of the French Open, which concludes just two weeks prior to Wimbledon. At the French, the sluggers from the baseline continued to win titles, then struggled in England a fortnight later. The complaints started in the late Nineties and early Noughties. There were very few rallies. Players like Ivaniševic would bang out 200 aces in the tournament, keeping average points on h

Zaheer Khan’s turning point Congratulations on the World Cup win. For most Indians it was one of the best days of our lives. Have you recovered? It was the best day for us too. More than anything else it was the journey that was special. Playing in India there was the added pressure but at the same time we knew that it was going to be equally special if we were able to pull it off. The belief was always in the team, we always talked about gaining momentum at the right time and kept thinking that we can do it. Everyone wanted it badly and that kind of showed in the whole approach. You bowled in the World Cup final in 2003 and then suffered some setbacks with injuries. Then came the season at Worcestershire where you bowled incredibly. Was that the turning point of your career? Yeah, in many ways it was. It was really important for me to play at the highest level, and to get back in to the Indian side. I always knew I had the potential to perform but somehow I was not able to deliver. Th

The ball is tossed from right hand to left by a flick of the wrist as he waits to start his run up. The eyes focused, the mind thinking faster than most. You knowa plan is in progress. He begins his walk to the crease in his patented style and the ball is released with a grunt. Twenty-two yards away a confused batsman is standing nervously not knowing what to expect. But then again who could? It might be a zooter, the wrong’un, a slider, a drifter, a classic leggie or my personal favorite, the flipper. The ball pitches and does exactly what he wants it to. The result was either the sound of timber or a catch. The legend had just pulled of another one. Shane Warne will be remembered for a number of things, but he will be remembered most for being the greatest. Warne has always been my favorite cricketer, more than even Sachin Tendulkar. No bowler has captured the imagination of the cricketing world more than him. His presence on the field and his ability to do things with a cricket ball

It’s the worst moment for any sports fan. It feels like a stab in the heart. You know that eventually you will have to experience it but when it actually hits you your eyes fill up. It is the day you realize that the player you love the most in the entire sport has lost his ability to win at his former level. Roger Federer, I’ve dreaded this day for a while, but it is upon us. As a fan you go through a number of stages with a player. The Fun Stages The Spotting - This is the stage where you first spot your guy. For me it was 2004. I was living in New York and when Wimbledon started I was reading an article by John McEnroe where he said that Roger could be come the greatest of all time. I knew who Roger Federer was of course but had never really watched him seriously because I had been a bit off tennis for a year or so. The Sunday of the final I woke up early to watch him beat Roddick. I was hooked. The Winning/Losing- As a fan nothing gives you more joy when your team or pla

Winston Churchill said "The Price of Greatness is Responsibility." Never were these words more true than last evening in Mumbai. With the ultimate prize on the line the leader of eleven men walked out in to the middle to take on a challenge that most people believed he could not handle. With his customary swagger he rose to the occasion and embraced the God's of destiny like he was born to do. MS Dhoni joined the party late in this tournament, but once he arrived, he stole the show. The tournament has not been easy for the captain. Being second guessed at every step is never easy for any leader let alone someone who has 1.2 billion people voicing their opinions. Yet this man was supposed to deliver with a team where only two bowlers were definite choices in the eleven. The other two being coin flips. That is hardly the make up of world cup champs. Yet, they had to win. After every match, win or lose, he was analyzed by every one of us. Why did he bowl Nehra in the last ov

It is an old debate and its back- Should a batsman walk if he knows he is out versus waiting for the umpire to give him out? The debate is so old and boring that it pains me to write about it. But since Tendulkar’s walk and Ponting’s wait the topic has heated up again. Here are my thoughts, and they are unlikely to change. I know a few of you out there are going to rip in to me. But I guess that is the point :-) I don't think a batsman should walk. If I was a cricketer, I wouldn't. Umpire decisions can go either way. Forget the review system for a moment, we have all realized that it hasn't been perfected yet. Assume there is no review. An umpire sometimes gives you out when you are not and sometimes give you not out when you are in fact gone. How often have we seen batsmen stare down the umpire or look completely shocked when they are given out? It happens. We have seen replays in slow motion that clearly show bat before pad or the ball hitting the thigh pad and making a

A few days ago I woke up and as usual reached for the newspaper. There was the front page. Prime Minister Singh was talking about how corruption is impacting our country, there was an article about Adarsh, a piece about the 2G scam and finally a small snippet about the CWG. Exhausted at the thought of reading any of these stories I turned to the sports section only to read about the Pakistan players and match fixing and whether Eden gardens would be ready in time. I put the paper down. Its been one of the most tiring few months that I can remember. CWG, Adarsh, 2G and lord knows how many more. Most people probably assumed that there are scams like this going on but when you see it unveil itself and understand the magnitude of the scams it hits you hard. An estimated $38 billion was stolen from the country in the 2G scam. $38 billion. Sorry just had to type that twice. In terms of what happened with the CWG no one really knows the hidden truth, because once the games started the story c