Two things I don’t support…

1. Matthew Hayden blaming his team’s 2-0 defeat on petty issues like people taking too long to move out of the way of sightscreens .

2. People going overboard and singing praises of India’s economic might to justify the claim that India is not a third world country. Pune Mirror today just took the cake. In an article titled ” Shut up, you third world loser” , they said that India wasn’t a third world country because it had 34 companies in the Forbes Global 2000 ranking for 2008 , the biggest rail network in the world, Infosys hires 1000 locals in Australia, Taj Hotels has a huge office in Sydney , Tata Steel has a presence in Brisbane , Oswal Group is constructing  an ammonia plant in Western  Australia , Sterlite Industries has acquired two copper mines in Tasmania (and this apparently makes a big difference because it’s Ricky Ponting’s home state) and here’s the killer blow (quoting straight from the article) : ” Remember , Sachin Tendulkar’s bat sticker contract can buy out your house ” !

By that logic every country Indian companies have a presence in almost every country in the world. Does that mean every country is inferior to us? And what about all the foreign investment in Inda (BMW , Volkswagen , Skoda , Walmart  just to name a few) ?

 

CYG

Considering that there is no infrastructure in place and the fact that Suresh Kalmadi is in Charge , it doesn’t take  rocket science to figure out that this years Commonwealth Youth Games are going to be a disaster.

Some suggestions to avoid the huge embarrassment that awaits us:

1.Pay the Government of Australia a huge sum of money and get them to rename Bendigo as Pune.

2. Insist that the athletes are in the wrong country .

3. Cancel all the Athletes’ visas on account of terrorist suspicions.

4. Don’t do anything more in Pune and say the we had fixed up everything , that damned Indian Mujahideen broke all our roads .

5. Change Pune’s name and insist that no such place exists. They should go back home and check their sources. These stupid foreigners know nothing about this part of the world.

6. Throw all athletes out on concocted charges of racism.

7. Give them all complimentary drinks with Performance enhancing drugs in them. Take the drug test immediately , blast them for having defiled the sanctity of sport and make them fix all the roads.

All these things are too complex and require planning  and subtlety which our leaders have shown they are utterly incapable of. So the simplest option is :

Tell Raj Thackeray that none of the Athletes can speak marathi .

 

Michael Phelps

Got this pic in an email today and loved the inherent ‘fastest swimmer’ pun. Here it is.

 

What’s wrong with you , Roger?

As everyone knows by now Roger Federer has lost his No 1 position to Rafael Nadal. While I agree that Nadal is playing the best tennis I’ve seen him play yet , I have to say that Federer has lost his place more than Nadal has won it. Nadal has not become better than Federer , Federer’s game has dropped.

A lot of people wrote volumes about how this years Wimbledon final was the best ever. But it cannot be denied that Roger was clearly not playing at his best. He made just one of his 13 break points and made unforced errors on shots he would have got winners off in his sleep last year. Inspite of playing the worst he’s ever played the match still went into 5 sets and carried on for close to five hours.

And just yesterday he won a five setter against Igor Andreev . Once again , Andreev didn’t really play amazing tennis or anything , Roger made 60 unforced errors. 60 !!

That’s why I’m not quite so sure I want to accept Rafa as the best player in the world right now. Roger is still the best. Its just a lull in form . He’ll be back.

to reiterate the oldest of sports cliches ‘ Form is temporary , class is permanent’