PRG's Thoughts

Friday's 5 random thoughts with no real focus. Indian football, Shiny Shiney, other Indian sports, rain, and other stuff. Enjoy Indian Football- Disgusted is not the word on reading the tirade by India's football coach Bob Houghton in today's TOI. Get this- the Indian football team is going to Dubai for training because there is not a single location in the country where they can train. Our facilities are so bad that we have to fly to another country. We are an embarrassment. I know there are far more important issues in the country like poverty, power, clean water, health care etc etc. but this is about sports and we are pathetic. Would keep rambling on but honestly, there is not much to say. MS Gill probably doesn't care and frankly after today's article in the paper, there probably wont be a follow up article till some other controversy comes up a few months later. No point in me getting high blood pressure over it. Other Indian Sports- While I know that no int...

The disgust at India's exit from the T20 is keeping me up blogging at 1:30 in the morning instead of getting a good nights sleep. We were terrible. Every time we lose a match people throw out questions. Here are 5 that cropped up in my mind. They are brief, confusing and frankly, don't have any answers from my end. Please help me answer them because I am struggling. Firstly, hats of to England. I think Naseer Hussein put it best when he said that England were tactically beating India. They studied our eternal weakness of the short ball and exploited it beyond belief. Now for the questions 1) Why drop Irfan Pathan and keep Ishant Sharma? In the match against the West Indies Irfan went for 4.5 runs per over in his two overs and took one wicket. Ishant on the other hand went at 10.33 in his 3 overs with no wickets. Plus this gives you an extra batsman. Ishant went for a nice 9 runs an over today against England. It just seems that Ishant has not come to terms with this form of...

Another post filled with random thoughts with no real focus. Australia (Cricket not violence), Roger, Tiger, Lakers, Leander etc. Enjoy Saw about 200 status updates from friends on FB rejoicing in the early Aussie departure from the T20 cup. I love the Australian Cricket Team. I have loved them since the Alan Border's days and are my second favorite team, after India of course. They are aggressive, talented, play hard (I don't have issues with sledging) and are winners. Fine Fine, I will agree they have lost their invincibility for sometime now but they are still the team every other team wants to beat. Choosing between them and say an Ireland in the Super 8's, no question, I would want Australia. Even if you hate them you have to admit, the matches they would have been involved in make for more interesting entertainment than Ireland's matches. No disrespect to the Irish of course.  Anyway, let the comments attacking me for liking the Aussie Team begin. Oh and please d...

I always thought MS Dhoni was a good captain. He is ice cool, leads from the front by being pretty consistent with the bat, inspires his younger players, can be a risk taker and takes every win or loss within his stride. But after what he did in the press conference in England to display team unity, I think he might be the greatest captain India has ever had.  For those of you who have been unaware, there have been articles and rumors that there is a rift between Dhoni and Sehwag . To have a cold war between the captain and vice captain of a team right before the start of a major tournament is never good news. The press of course lapped this story up with joy. In fact the day the story was published I had 6 different conversations with cricket fans about the rift. The alleged cold war was slowly growing in to a full blown battle. That was before Dhoni stepped in. The press conference on Friday can only be described as a stroke of guts, grit and genius. Instead of having the usual p...

Some stuff going on in the news. Saeed, T20, Federer, Xbox. Real random thoughts with no real focus... Lahore High Court lets Saeed Out . Can someone please explain to me why we are playing a warm up match with Pakistan today? Yes Yes I know it is not the players fault and all that nonsense. But we banned South Africa from cricket for 21 years for apartheid and 60 countries boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics because of the USSR's insurgence in to Afghanistan. The Olympics which is an event that comes every four year and a once in a lifetime chance for most athletes that participate was boycotted. Those countries took a stand. I think if we are taking a stand we should take a firm one. We should not even play them in the world cup if we have to. We should boycott the match in protest. If that effects our chances to win it then so be it. If we really want to get the message across we should take bold steps. That's just my view but I am sure you have plenty of opposing ones. Yuvra...

So, Nadal is out of the French Open in the 4th round. I think we all are shocked to say the least. You have to hand it to Soderling, he played phenomenally. Anyway, this post is not about the match, I hardly have the qualifications to analyze what went wrong with the world # 1. This post is about the chatter of the tennis world for the last year on how Roger Federer has "lost it" and the maddening analysis of Roger's demise from # 1 all the way down to # 2, a huge drop. I have had my views on this for some time now but never written about it. Something about Rafa's loss (on clay) today inspired me to sit and type it out. Firstly, let me say that this is probably the only great rivalry where I have not hated one of people involved. I am a die hard Roger Federer fan but can't help liking Nadal as well. His game, movement on the court and some of the shots he hits leave you stunned in amazement. The best part about him is his attitude and the respect he shows every p...

I read a friends status update on Facebook that said that he doesn't follow football but still hates Manchester United, and he didn't know why. Where does that hatred come from? Why do certain teams or sportsman create that level of hatred among sports fans even when they don't follow that particular sport? There is no clear cut explanation but I am going to try to offer my view on it, please comment and offer your own. The first point that I can think of is the Dynasty Factor . Sports fans either hate dynasties or love them. Teams that have historically won, been champions repeatedly, and basically always dominated manage to build a brand of hatred. Take the New York Yankees or the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, people love to hate these teams. Why? Because irrespective of how these teams seasons are going, they will be more in the news than your own team. Fans of other teams whine, "Who cares about Notre Dame, they suck this year." It doesn't matter guys, they w...