PRG's Thoughts

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 ...