Laxman - the 5th day Man!

Today was special. Special because you saw someone who is Very-Very Special swear - in front of the nation. He had a bloody good reason to swear mind you! He is a very kind and gentle person but today he let his heart rip out. The lucky guy was Ojhi who appeared to be dancing down the pitch collectin' the dimes - to borrow the expression from Hindi.

So already frustrated by the antics of his other illustrious team mates, Lax gave him a mouthful. And he wasn't exactly saying 'Ah baby those are such great shoes', I can assure you that. Finally ably assisted by the beanpole Sharma, Lax on half-a-leg was able to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Laxman has quite been like his counterpart in Ramayana, always under the shadow of Ram. People are busy fighting over Lord Ram but I guess its time for a Laxman Janmbhoomi now.

Hats off to you Laxman - there will be Tendulkars, Dravids and Sehwags but there is no 5-th day man like you!

Diego Forlan is in India!

I am writing this post just to express my pleasure absolute delight at the news that my favorite player at the recently concluded World Cup - Diego Forlan is in India :D

He is in Kolkata to participate in a Football reality show. He said that he "had no idea about Indian Football" but "knew that cricket is very popular here". He also said that he "was loving India" and is "overwhelmed to see the enthusiasm here".

He believed his best goal at the WC was the one against Germany in the 3rd place playoff. He also defended his teammate Suarez's action of saving a certain goal with his hand.



Forlan is the Golden Ball Winner at the WC 2010 and is being approached by the top European Clubs to play for them. While in Kolkata he will join two Brasilians - Romario and Branco for the last episode of "The Match" - a football reality show. He might participate in an exhibition match against Mohun Bagan on Sunday. He is also scheduled to visit Mother Teresa's home.

Belly Button - key to sports success

Close your eyes. Imagine a sprinter. What do you see?

African origin, dark coloured, long legs and robust, vigorous muscles.

Ok. Another one. Imagine a swimmer. What do you see?

Essentially Caucasian, well streamlined physique.

Ever wondered why some athletes dominate on track while others in the swimming pool? Apparently, scientists have unravelled this mystery. It's the belly button stupid!


According to the study, the factor that influences the perfomance is the location of belly button, body's centre of gravity. Among West African-origin runners, the center of gravity is 3 cm higher than whites. This gives them a 'hidden height' advantage on the track.


"Locomotion is essentially a continual process of falling forward, and mass that falls from a higher altitude, falls faster" according to Prof. Andre Bejan who led the study at Duke University.

However, in the pool whites have the advantage because of 'longer torsos'. "The swimmer who makes the bigger wave is the faster swimmer, and a longer torso makes a bigger wave. Europeans have a three-percent longer torso than West Africans, which gives them a 1.5 percent speed advantage in the pool" he said.

Image Credits: Wikipedia

Indian Football

With the soccer season upon us I recently wrote about the 2010 World Cup on my Hindi blog. After having finished the piece, I experienced a moment of sadness and frustration on our country's soccer prowess (or the lack of it). With the second largest pool of people in the world can't we produce a decent team that does well at least at Asian level (considering most of the top ranking countries are from Europe, Latin America and Africa). All we hear about is India drubbing hapless Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka, if not getting a whack from them.

India was fourth placed at the Melbourne Olympics in 1956. It was the runners-up at Asian Nations cup in 1964.So what went wrong? Is it that others progressed while we just sat on our bums?


For the 2010 qualifications, India lost in the first round to Lebanon. India's current FIFA ranking is 133 (as of May 1010); its lowest ever ranking was 165 (March 2007) and highest was 94 (Feb 96). Nobody can say for sure what's wrong with the Indian football but the apex body that runs football in this country has to take majority of the blame.

Glory of Indian Football
I am not the one to cry over split milk and don't want to bore you with stories of babudom and bureaucracy crippling Indian Football. Instead, lets look at some of the finer moments of Indian Football.

Mohun Bagan Athletic Club or simply Mohun Bagan AC is one the oldest Football clubs in Asia. It has been chosen among the top 11 clubs, alongside Bayern Munich, River Plate and Manchester United, by FIFA to form an Elite Task Force for club football. Some interesting facts on MB (source Wikipedia):

• MB was the first Indian team to defeat a European team (East Yorkshire Regiment at 1911 IFA Shield).
• When Maradona visited Kolkata in 1998, the only club he visited was Mohun Bagan.
• Pele, one of the legends of the game played against MB for his club New York Cosmos in 1977. The match was drawn 2-2 with Pele scoring in a penalty kick.
• Bayern Munich played a friendly against MB in May 2008 during their Asia tour.
• MB played against and defeated Manchester City 1-0.
• MB are the third club (after Barcelona and Manchester United) in world to have launched a co-branded credit card in their name (ICICI Bank Mohun Bagan Credit Card).
• MB have a postage stamp issued after them to celebrate their 1911 victory (only club to have this honour).

You can read about Mohun Bagan's exploits in detail here.

Royalty free image source: 123rf.com

The Enigma of Pakistan Cricket

Pakistan Cricket is not stranger to controversies - from Woolmer's mysterious death to the terrorist attack on Lankan team bus, from ball tampering to drug tests, from Afridi's ball eating adventure to the fiasco on Australian tour - its a never ending story for the talented yet ill-disciplined team.

Now former Pakistan cricket coach Intikhab Alam has called the national players 'mentally retarded'. An inquiry comittee was set up by PCB to investigate the reasons behind the disastrous tour of Australia where they failed to win even a single match. Intikhab was the coach of the Pakistan team on that tour. While Younis and Yousuf were banned for life, others like Shoaib Malik and Naved-Ul-Hasan were banned for a year. These bans, according to Wasim Akram had made a laughing stock of Pakistan (as if it wasn't already).


Intikhab was quoted as saying,"I felt that they are mentally retarded people....There is a mental problem with our players. They don't know how to wear their clothes and how to talk in a civilized manner."

He revealed that six to seven players had taken an oath on the Quran that they will remain united against their captain Younis Khan.

Shoaib Malik, meanwhile has been practicing at the Gymkhana ground,Hyderabad with his Indian wife since he is not being allowed to do so at Pakistan. While not fetching tennis balls for his Indian tennis player wife, he along with Rana Naved have also been busy belting gully-cricket bowlers at Bangladesh.

Image Credits: Wikipedia

The perfect swing?

“Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an even smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose.” - Winston Churchill

I must admit myself as a golf illiterate, having been routinely bamboozled by the birdies, putts,flops, bogeys, eagles, albatross and vultures ( what is it about the birds?). All I know about the sport is that you have got to put the ball into the hole with the help of a stick in the minimum number of attempts. I am also aware that a certain Tiger Woods has been running around with the dough for quite some time now.


United States scores over rest of the world with nearly half of the world's total 32,000 golf courses. But according to this article, golfing has seen a decline over the past several years in the US. The number of people who play the sport has declined from 30 million to 26 million since 2000. The golf boosters (number of people who play 25 times or more a year) declined from 6.9 million in 2005 to 4.6 million in 2000.

This is a part of the broader decline in the outdoor sports like tennis,swimming and hiking among others. The reasons vary from the ravaging hurricanes to family commitments to popular electronic games to the long duration of the game and related etiquette rules (like not using their cell phones on course).

So the game about which Wodehouse famously wrote, "Golf, like the measles, should be caught young, for, if postponed to riper years, the results may be serious." in danger of losing its charm?

Hockey and MBA?

Indian hockey isn't going through the best of phases these days.. clearly in contrast with the glories of the past. However realms of paper have been wasted on this and I am not the first or the last person to put my 50 cents worth into it. But what caught my attention was the recent news about the Indian midfielder Viren Rasquinha not being able to attend the national hockey training camp as he wanted to concentrate on his MBA exams ??




Now let me talk straight..I am not infringing on Viren's right to pursue education he can have all the degrees he wants to... But for a catch..he's not a wide eyed rookie or a regular bench warmer. He has been a formidable force in the Indian midfield for sometime now having played over 200 internationals,in fact he has been the Captain of the Indian Hockey team. Imagine Rahul Dravid (or for that matter any member of Indian cricket team) leaving behind cricket to pursue a mere MBA degree (where they are already rollin' in the Benjamins or the Lincolns or the Gandhis)

Viren has had a troubled relation with the hockey establishment in India as he had been dropped in the past leading him to raise questions about his exclusion. But whatever has happened now is a sad commentary on the state of Indian Hockey.

Team India gets new outfit, but...

Indian Cricket Team's official apparel sponsor, NIKE unveiled a new "inspirational" outfit for the team for the upcoming World Cup in the Carribeans.



"Advanced Nike patented technologies have been incorporated into the cricket apparel to ensure zero distraction, superior comfort levels and enhanced performance", Nike said.

The jersey is made from Dri-FIT fabric, a Nike patented technology, which reduces cling and enables the skin to breathe better. The fabric is designed to wick sweat, which leads to better moisture management and is extremely light so that the player does not carry additional weight that may affect his performance.

Captain Rahul Dravid, Vice-Captain Sachin Tendulkar, former skipper Sourav Ganguly, Zaheer Khan, Sreesanth, Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Dinesh Karthik donned the new outfit at the press release.

Twist in the tail!

But to add a twist to the tale, just 24 hrs. later the International Cricket Council (ICC) informed the Indian board that only uniforms approved and supplied by the sport's world governing body can be worn at the World Cup in the Caribbean!



So why were the stars paraded in those outfits? Obvious Nike had an eye on the coming World Cup and Indian market with its fanatical support for anything that relates with cricket.

Although the new outfit is already available on major online store like Amazon it appears that the Indian team can sport the new clothings only after the World Cup.

This comes after Nike won a $ 27.12 million ( Rs. 199.96 crores) deal in Dec 2006, to sponsor the Indian cricket team's clothes for the next five years. To put it in perspective, this is more than shirt deals struck by Juventus, Chelsea, Real Madrid and Man U!

While other sports are neglected...

Amid all this razzmatazz, other sports in India get a step-brotherly treatment. Read this story about a man, who once was the best player at the National Kho-Kho games in 1987, but now works as a daily labor.

David Beckham : The Brand

David Beckham knows how to stay in news. He made news waves recently by announcing a move from Real Madrid to MLS Team LA Galaxy on a five year contract beginning on July 2007. The deal evoked strong sentiments from the Real coach Fabio Capello who flayed Beckham by saying that he would not play for the club again. However he retracted later.



Although being booed by Real ,David has had a grand welcome from across atlantics with even the Tiger backing him . This deal is being advertised as a promotion for American football and indeed it is generating a lot of interest in that part of the world.Although I am sceptical about his ability as a footballer , I guess he's going there as a BRAND name.

David has been more than a mundane footballer though. He has been in news for reasons other than Soccer. His metrosexual icon image (whatever that may mean !), his hairstyle ( ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous) ,his friendship with stars like Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes,his perfumes ,his tatoo his sunglasses and all the brands he promotes,his swirling free kicks that earned him the highest glory, his red card against Argentina in the '98 World cup that led to England's elimination and subsequent criticism and abuse against him, his subsequent revenge by scoring a goal against the same opponents are all part of history now..

What remains to be seen is whether David can bend it now?

Updated 16 Feb,2007 -##-

I found this article on "The Brand Beckham". Read it here.