Why do we need jadeja?

It seems NDTV have no qualms in employing services of Ajay Jadeja for commentating on cricket in their channel. Even though Delhi high court has lifted his 5 years ban imposed by BCCI after their internal inquiry, it is apparent from the CBI report that jadeja had close relations with bookies. Though, his guilt was not proven due to the nature of the inquiry but he is controversial, since azharuddin himself has mentioned jadeja's involvement during his questioning by CBI. Why would NDTV wish to have such a controversial figure to comment on cricket on their channel? Perhaps because of his royal blood? or is it due to NDTV not adhering to ethics?. It is becoming disgusting just to watch him comment on cricket, specially when he speculated bookie's angle in Bob woolmer's death!.

Winning is all that eventually matters!

Last year, Sania Mirza and Shahar Peer of Israel had teamed-up for the doubles tournament in Bangkok and reached up to quarter-finals. They wished to continue their pair in Bangalore's doubles tournament in February 2006 but subsequent protests from Indian Muslims had forced Sania to announced that she would not play with Israeli:

"Mirza initially agreed to play with Pe’er in Bangalore, but later retracted, telling Pe’er “It’s best that we don’t play together this time to prevent protests against my cooperation with an Israeli. There is no reason to arouse their ire (Muslims)."

I was saddened and disappointed for the manner in which she was intimidated to change her doubles partner and also for imposing muslim's essential hatred towards Israel on a sport. For a moment, i forgot the fact that Sania's display of arrogance is due to her vanity and not for being self-respecting and courageous.

This year, Sania had performed pathetically in various tournaments and her ranking plunged from being 31st at the end of 2005 to current 45th position. In doubles too she did not had worth mentioning success and in view of this, again she wants to partner with Shahar in doubles tournament, despite the criticism and ignoring the apprehension which she had expressed just last month and also it made her to realize that:

"You shouldn't mix up sports with anything else," the 19-year-old told Reuters at the March 8-19 tournament in Indian Wells.

and she goes further to add:

"If I had to follow the stereotype of what a woman athlete should be in India, then I wouldn't be playing tennis because there aren't many girls who pick up rackets when they are six. If you believe it's right, if your loved ones believe it's right, then it's right."

Then just a month ago, where did this reasoning & resolve gone?. By the way, When talking about women athletes in India, She should remember that tennis players like Sanaa or Ankita or Shikha Uberoi or Rushmi Chakravarthi have not faced any ire over their outfits or on any other issue from anyone, So she should not make generalize statement over women athletes in India to describe her problems with muslim community. Perhaps she doesn't want to face another angry protest from muslims!.

Is Sania opportunistic in desiring to team up with Shahar again in wake of her dismal performances and especially after her last month's apprehension?, i'm not sure.. But in the end, winning is all that eventually matters!.

Random Thoughts

When i don't blog even for a day, i have this emptiness but sadly as i said in my earlier post, i have limited time for blogs, in which i have to manage & keep pace with other blogs in my blogroll and if time permits, then writing for my own blog. In addition to this, These days i feel guilty for not contributing anything for Focus-India, a new group blog initiative with majority of the contributors being either socialist or outright leftist(i'm neither) but sadly this initiative seems to be dead even before it begun, i hoped that this blog will reflect diverse views. Hopefully after a month or two, i will have much time to blog.

It is amazing to observe congress ignoring the ruckus over major issues in 82nd Congress plenary and maintaining focus on Rahul Gandhi's nomination to the Congress Working Committee. Congress men and women believe that he is a crowd puller, particularly youth. Well to be honest, my young friends consider him bane to the nation! (if he becomes PM or a Cabinet Minister) to which i concur, there i go, perhaps i revealed my prejudice!.

After spending hours watching the relay of Anand's corus tournament game, I'm very much disappointed that he lost to Kamsky, Now he is sharing his number one position in the tourney with Topalov, However Humpy is doing well with respective to her rating. Anyway still 7 rounds to go. Here is the 6th round games in PGN format, you can watch them using any PGN viewer software like Winboard.

Can we learn from South Africans?

"Indian cricket team lacks discipline & attitude" this remark is not made by Rahul Dravid with regards to number of extras conceded in the Hyderabad game against South Africa but the observation made by people who are responsible for the team's arrangements. To these people, It took just few days to unearthed deeper malaise in the Indian team. These are the reasons for above deduction, which were reported in Thursday's issue of Deccan.com

• South African team had regular meetings between 6pm and 7pm. Indian team members went to attend their respective sponsor programs.


• South Africans moved together and ate together but Indian players sat in groups, while having their food. On the match-eve, South Africans had an exclusive team only dinner on the lawns and paid bill themselves.


• South Africans went to bed by 9pm on all days, despite being accompanied by their wifes and girl friends on this tour.

In Friday's newspaper it was reported, that Indians, on reaching Bangalore most of them preferred to take rest and just two players ventured out for practice. All these symptoms show indolent attitude and lack of cohesiveness in their approach. For a team which has been embroiled in controversies, group politics and personal loyalties, it is difficult to overcome them in a night but they should make a beginning, first they need to realize importance of small gestures in nurturing team spirit & discipline, specially when our players come from diverse regions.

No matter who wins this series, Indian players need to learn lot from South Africans. Meticulous routines, team work and devotion towards the game will only bring us close to realizing the world cup dream and not individual talent or fame.

Humpy vs Sania

I've been following Sania Mirza's modest success in tennis with some interest, she has certainly done country proud, specially when she won against Svetlana Kuznetsova in Dubai Open in march this year. At the same time, i'm perplexed at the publicity she receives, as it is not proportionate to her success and how media makes anything trivial about her as news (particularly in Deccan Chronicle, where a day doesn't go by without news item on her) and overstating her chances of success in a game. This makes me wonder, whether we don't know how to handle success which we achieve once in a while, so that we exaggerate things? or we don't have enough sports stars to write about or cheer for (other than cricketers)?. When i ask myself a basic question that why our people prefer tennis in the first place, as many of us give damn for our national sport kabadi! or for that matter any other sport (except cricket)?.

I think answers for these questions lies in the role of media and glamour of Sania in attracting masses to this game. Our yearning media has found someone, who is marketable with her glamour( also other factors) and who has modest success under her belt. Generally for a person to take interest in a new game, either the game should be appealing to him/her or they should have interest in someone, who participates in the game and for our people its the later case, since many people just follow only sania's games due to glamour and patriotism and doesn't have much interest in other tennis players or bother about news relating to the tennis world, for that matter most doesn't even know rules of the game. If one thinks that the glamour has nothing to do with her publicity & popularity, then they are wrong, we have many athletics and chess players who have achieved greater heights than sania in their respective sport, but there are in oblivion.

Media has created inflated image of her which will overshadow other deserving players as Koneru Humpy. Sania's world tennis ranking is 34 and Koneru Humpy is a women grand master with world ranking of 6 (in 2004 she was placed in 3rd place) and she has distinction of being first indian woman to achieve the Men's GM Title at age of 15 years, 1 Month, which in itself is a world record for Youngest-Ever Women to achieve the Men's GM Title. With so much talent she is starved of resources. Both the players are from the Andhra Pradesh state, Recently Humpy has made a appeal to the State government of Andhra Pradesh for their financial assistance, which she desperately needed to be trained for the world chess championships coming up early next year. But shockingly, state government has rejected her request and allocated 20 lakhs to Sania for her performance in the US Open and also decided to sponsor her visits abroad to participate in tournaments and her traveling coach John Farrington, where as already in last 3 months she had received total about 60 lakhs and housing plot from the state. Sania has corporate sponsor and earns lot of money through her endorsements and more over she has declared that she wouldn't be needing any financial support anymore. Let us suppose, if something of this kind is done to Sania would our media and public remain quite? perhaps no. People may view chess as a game where 2 persons push pieces of wood on 64 squares, this perspective could be changed, if our media promotes sports instead of individuals and stop exaggerating significance of reaching 4th round of a particular grand slam.

It is not the public who takes interest but it is the media who creates interest!.