PRG's Thoughts

The year in sports is pretty much done- Here is what to look forward to in 2011 Roger- Rafa- The Final Year It may just be my gut feeling but I think this will be the final year of the Roger-Rafa rivalry. I don’t think either will retire after 2011 but after this year the two-man show will slowly die out. Having said that, this could be a year filled with tension and stress for tennis fans. As a Roger fan the season ending win gave me a lot to look forward to. Rafa fans probably looked at it as an anomaly in an all round great year. On January 17 th the battle begins in Melbourne. My Take - Rafa wins 2 slams, Roger wins one, and someone else wins one. Year-end 2011 Rafa #1, Roger # 2. Cricket World Cup Don’t let the recent drop in viewership of ODI’s fool you. The world cup is different. It is still the tournament where legends are made and destroyed. Kapil’s catch, Tendulkar’s innings after his father passed, Klusener’s heroics followed by a moment of anguish, Waugh’s sle...

Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I’d pick him. He is such a random choice simply because he has been around for so long. When I thought about this post I went through every Indian sportsperson who had achieved something this past year his name was impossible to ignore. Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar is an odd choice for Indian Sportsperson of the Year. His career is so storied and the bar he sets himself is so high that he would really have to do something spectacular to even be considered. For Sachin to ‘wow’ us at this stage in his career, or set new marks and personal bests is unlikely right? Think again. Most runs in test cricket in 2010: Sachin Tendulkar (1396 runs) Most centuries in test cricket in 2010: Sachin Tendulkar (6) Both these records are personal bests. He has scored five 50s and six 100s in 19 innings. When a sportsman who is already considered one of the greatest of all time has a personal best year, can anyone else have a shot at Sportsperson of the year? If ...

How many of you know Samaresh Jung? He was nicknamed Goldfinger for his 5 gold, 1 silver and 1 bronze wins in the 2006 Commonwealth Games. But two years after this spectacular performance Samaresh, an Indian shooter and Arjuna Award winner, failed to reach either of the finals of the two events he participated in at the Beijing Olympics. India’s 38 gold medal and 101 total medal tally in the 2010 Commonwealth Games is a great achievement. It is fantastic to see sports personalities other than cricketers receive love and attention from the media and public. It is well deserved. But will this achievement be the first step of a platform on which future Indian sportsmen and women will succeed or will it be another lonely moment of Indian glory we will talk about for years? Are we destined to be like England, still talking about their 1966 football World Cup win? The impact of India’s recent success depends on how we build on this momentum and confidence at the 2012 Olympics in London. Two...

The games are starting. It's time to forget the roofs, the bridges and the crap - whether it's coming from dogs or the organizing committee. Indian sports fans can probably tell you Sachin Tendulkar’s birthday, hobbies and favorite music. But ask fans to name more than 5 people who are representing India at the Commonwealth Games and they will struggle. We all know Saina Nehwal and Lee-Hesh. Here are a few more that you may not know. Sharath Kamal (Table Tennis) - The 2006 Commonwealth Games gold medal winner seems to be in a good position to bring home another gold. He's been in good form this year and has displayed the maturity and confidence that all winners possess. Let's also not forget he has been Indian number one for the past seven years. Pictured right . Ananya Panigrahi (Swimming) - She is not old enough to drive a car or even had her sweet 16 th birthday for that matter, but this 14 year old will be the youngest athlete representing India in this years game...

About three weeks ago I saw Sachin Tendulkar at Koh, the new Thai restaurant at the Mumbai Inter-Continental, having dinner with his wife and some friends – one of whom was Siddharth Mallya. As a Mumbai Indians fan it didn’t sit well with me. Then I realized that the IPL is not yet the NFL or English Premier League. So I relaxed and enjoyed my meal. But it did make me think. What if Steven Gerrard was seen having dinner with Sir Alex Fergusson a month before new rules on player transfers was to be announced? The English press would have been in uproar. In India, Sachin’s dinner was covered in the society pages. Sure, it’s not yet a fair comparison. The IPL doesn’t have the club loyalty that exists in leagues like the NBA, EPL and NFL. It’s only three years old and so that’s understandable, but as a sports fan I can’t wait for IPL to build that fervour. For it to get there, we need three things to happen. Firstly, there need to be bitter rivalries between certain teams. The league needs...

Yes, the match-fixing scandal has tainted cricket. Fans will start questioning a strange run-out, a dropped catch at a crucial moment and many may even stop watching for a while. But there is a silver lining that could be a huge positive for the game. Throughout the past week cricket journalists who go on tours have been saying that rumors of fixing have been rampant for years. Every now and then even an ordinary fan hears that his friend knows someone who had good reason to believe a particular match was fixed. Most fans don’t want to believe that fixing is still part of the game, but recent evidence has made their worst fears come true. Here is the opportunity. We have caught some players, arrested a fixer and the news media is interviewing bookies who claim they’ve rigged matches. If I were the ICC anti-corruption team I would be licking my chops. Here is a chance to clean this mess up once and for all. The ICC needs to put all their resources behind the investigation and start aski...

For those who don’t follow the great game of golf, the fact that Arjun Atwal achieved what no man has done on the PGA tour since 1986 should tell you that his win was something special. The story gets even better with the fact that through the week Atwal received encouraging text messages from a certain Tiger Woods. It hasn't been an easy ride for Atwal, though, after losing his PGA tour card earlier this year, recovering from a car accident in 2007 and dealing with injuries too. But his toughest test is yet to come: coping with the love and attention of the Indian media. Many promising talents who have faced this beast have seen their careers disappear into oblivion, while others have gone on to achieve much greater things. Mr. Atwal, welcome to the major leagues. There are two ways a successful Indian sportsman can go once the eyes of the Indian media are upon them: The Sania way or the Saina way. The Sania way means building up endorsements, fame and recognition even as your car...