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...

The Greatest of All Time (GOAT) debate is part of every sport. It is senseless in a lot of ways because you can never reach a conclusion. Yet every sport has lists, rankings and articles on who is the GOAT. Tennis has a new member in this debate, welcome to the party Rafael Nadal. When debating the GOAT in tennis here are the criterion that I looked at. 1) Has the player won a number of major tournaments (grand slams and ATP Masters) 2) Test of Time- has the player won consistently and dominated the competition over a significant period of time 3) Has the player won against top competition 4) Has the player won under different conditions Nadal has won 9 grand slam titles on all surfaces and holds the record for the most ATP Masters titles. He has beaten the best and holds a comfortable win-loss ratio against Roger Federer, his biggest rival. Finally, he is the greatest clay court player of all time. He has a check mark next to all the criteria. Well all, except for num...

Yes, I am writing a blog. It has been more than two months and I don't have an excuse on why I haven't written, at least not a good one. But with so much sports going on, I finally decided that I am writing again. So here is my take on Roger Federer and the sports event that has had me glued- the World Series of Poker. I haven't written on the World Cup because we are well in to the tournament. May be I will write when it is all over. Here goes... Roger- I have heard so many random theories on Roger Federer's early departure from Roland Garros and The Championships that I figure why not share mine. I am a die hard Roger Federer fan and it pains me to say this, but it is time we stop expecting him to win or reach the final of every grand slam he enters. That period is done. He is the greatest player to ever play the game but even he must lose eventually. Do I think Roger has a couple of more slams in him? Yes. I think he will win a few more, may be even this years U....

As quickly as it came, it went. IPL III is over and like all great sporting events it left us with joy, sadness, anger, controversy and uniquely for this event, it left us with the question, will IPL survive? Here is my take on IPL III. Let me start with the final. SRT has been a god for years. There is no debate on what he can do with the bat, but I doubt the mans ability to lead an all star team against the Harris Shield champions. Fine, I know Raina was dropped twice, and yes Chennai did put up a good score, but sending Pollard in at # 8 is a sign that the captain had no clue what he was doing. That decision alone could have changed last nights outcome. Some men thrive in leadership when they are under pressure. Our hero is not one of them. At the toss when MS Dhoni was asked about pressure, he said the most pressure he had felt regarding the final was the pressure from friends who were hounding him for tickets. While I am sure that was exaggerated, he just demonstrated how cool and...

When the lead story in the Economic Times is about the IPL spat and not about the RBI's credit policy it is safe to say that things have become a little bit cuckoo. But that is what cricket does to us and the truth is, this entire fiasco has a lot more to with economics than with cricket. After waiting a few days to let things unravel. Here is my take on the latest controversy to hit the IPL. If you don't know what is happening in this saga then either you have been away on an island or haven't picked up a newspaper in the past week. This has been nothing short of chaos. I could have written on a number of things related to this mela, but I chose these three. Lets get right in to it. Bye Bye Shashi Tharoor This man didn't know what hit him. He took on the king and got clobbered. Here is my issue with him. Fine, he did what he did. But why is he still talking about how his conscience is clear and claiming innocence? I mean seriously, give me a break. His girlfriend was ...

I am sitting at Delhi Airport waiting to board my flight and barely have time to write but I wanted to get this out before Jack and Arnold tee off at Augusta. I can't remember a sports event that I have looked forward to more than "The Return". If you haven't been asleep for the past six months you know what I mean and who I am talking about. If you don't, then please don't read on. This return is one of the most anticipated in sports history for reasons too obvious to list. Not only is the man in question one of the greatest athletes of all time, his global presence and power may have eclipsed even Michael Jordan (may be). His absence from the sport was not an injury, a drug problem or premature retirement, which are more often the cases for a return. His absence was something personal, which makes things even more exciting. In these past 6 months he has become a cocktail joke, the basis for many email forwards and sms's across the globe. People who haven...

With over a quarter of the games of this seasons IPL done, here is my update. Bowlers dominating, best players, new teams worth 1700 crore. Here are the top 5 things so far (in no particular order) 1) Who said it is a batsman's game? I mean we all know that this format is tailor made for the batsmen but what is interesting this year is that the teams that are topping the points table are the ones with good all round bowling attacks. Bangalore with Steyn, Kallis, Kumble, and Praveen Kumar. Mumbai with Malinga, Zaheer and Bhajji. Deccan with Vaas , Symonds (who has bowled well), and RP Singh. On the other side of the table you have Punjab who has Sreesanth (struggling and inconsistent) and Irfaan Pathan who is suffering from a major crisis of confidence. Sure, the top teams have batsmen that are in great nick, but if you have bowlers who can pick up good wickets or bowl some really tight overs at crucial points, then the entire unit becomes that much stronger. 2) New Teams - When La...

Hi, I am a Tiger. Yup, one of the 1411 that are left in India. Normally, I would not make such a bold move of writing on a blog but frankly I am pissed with you humans. I am not pissed with you guys because my race is dying, because lets be honest, you humans haven't done anything for us in a while, so why should we expect it now? I AM however pissed that there are several of you useless humans who actually think you are doing something but in reality you aren't helping at all. That my friends is something that I will not tolerate. Everyday I read some nonsense in the paper about what a great effort you guys are taking. All this news and hype is rubbish. Here is why. Let me start of by saying that I have watched the "saveourtigers.com" commercials on TV. You guys have put one of your heroes MS Dhoni in the ad to get some attention. Oh great people, you got attention, thanks a ton (note the sarcastic roar in that). I went to the website. IT HAD NOTHING. Nothing for you...

IPL is back baby!!! And I love it!! You know, test cricket is the best form of the game and one day cricket has its moments, but IPL T20 has a different charm altogether. Season 1, Rajasthan Royals are the cheapest team with a bunch of no names and they win it all. Season 2, the Deccan Chargers who were the worst team in season 1 come back to win it all. The best part about this tournament so far has been that no one knows who is going to win. Could the Knight Riders pull off a Deccan Chargers? Will the Mumbai Indians finally make it to the semis? Will Delhi play well through the season and then crash again before the big game? Will Gilly be Gilly again? Will Bangalore go as far this year? The frenzy has caught on so much that a buddy of mine who takes any opportunity he gets to "bitch out" T20 called me this morning to find out if I will be at the match tomorrow. You can't escape it, IPL is back baby!!! And I love it!! Here are 10 things I want to see this year (in no ...

I was going to write a blog on this, but it made me so sick that I just didn't bother. It speaks for itself. http://www.nowpublic.com/sports/indian-winter-olympic-team-team-india-fundraiser-vancouver-2010-2573673.html

Whew, major relief guys, my mother managed to get her residency for Maharashtra. You see, she was born in Calcutta (now known as Kolkata) but she and my grandparents had moved to Mumbai ( then known as Bombay) when she was around eight years old. Since she is not Maharashtrian and wasn't born in the state either, we were afraid that some political party might just kick her out of the state. You see there are a couple of politicos out there that have lost the plot, so we wanted to make sure we didn't have to ship my mom back to Bengal. Luckily, she is safe. Sorry, I haven't blogged in a while, I have been swamped with my Marathi classes and I just haven't had the time. In fact, my next blog will be in Marathi. I apologize to you people who read my blog but don't understand Marathi. It is just too bad for you. I mean, the fact is that I have grown up in Mumbai and so there is no reason why I should blog in English. So be prepared for Marathi posts henceforth. Another...

I was told that I need to move beyond sports and politics, so here is my feeble attempt. I take on Bollywood in this one, India's other obsession. It is award show season people, both here and abroad. From now till March almost every week there will be some award show somewhere in the world. I love watching award shows. They are entertaining, fun and some of them even mean something. The Bollywood award shows are similar. They are entertaining, fun but mean absolutely nothing. Here is why. It starts with what we award our artists for. It is confusing as hell. In the recently completed annual Star Screen Awards there was an award called Best Actor (Male) which Mr. Amitabh Bachchan won for Paa . Sound familiar right? Most award shows have such a category. But then there was an award, Best Actor in Popular Category which Shahid Kapoor won for Kaminey. In popular category? What in Gods name does that even mean? Sorry Mr. Bachchan you won Best Actor but not popular best actor? Similarl...