World Cup Soccer 2006 : Did it live up to our expectations?

It's Written in the SandIndian sand artist Sudarshan Patnaik adds the finishing touches to his sand sculptures of Italian captain Fabio Cannavaro (R) and French captain, Zinedine Zidane at the Golden beach in Puri, east of the Indian city of Orissa, July 8, 2006.

World Cup will finish tonight. There were some spectacular goals scored in the tournament. But all in all this World Cup will have fewer memorable moments than its previous editions. Records were created, though mostly on negative note. Apart from goals scored from maximum no. of passes (Argentina did it first & then it was improved upon by Brazil) the other things which I can remember about this cup are...

• A player hyped as best in the game miserably fails to stamp his authority on the World Cup.
• A team crashed out in last 16 stage without conceding a goal in the tournament.
• A match in which record nos. of red & yellow cards were showered by the referee.
• A team now on verge of winning the World Cup got a controversial penalty in its favour against Aussies in dying seconds of the match.

If that was not enough, Asian teams especially Korea & Japan performed below par. With their elimination in earlier rounds thise time, one can conclude that home advantage in World Cup means assistance from referee. With so many controversies happening in every world cup why can't FIFA use Ultra slow motions to decide off-sides & infringement inside the penalty area to start with?

The only bright side was good showing by African countries such as Ghana & Ivory Coast. Hope with experience they can challenge hegemony of European & Latin American countries in years to come.

As for the question where our own country stands viz to viz qualification for the World Cup, I have this post लो जी मन्ने कर दिया गोल ! to offer which I wrote on my Hindi Blog.

With love to M S Dhoni !

Its a day of pride for every Ranchite.:) more so for people of Shyamli where he grew up. Today my blog salutes Mahendra Singh Dhoni not only because the way he has played for his country in past few months but for fighting the odds heavily loaded against him.
Imagine a guy coming from a lower middle class family...
residing in a state which even finds difficult to beat cricket minnows like Assam...
becomes the top player in the world international cricket ranking by playing just 50 odd one day matches a feat even not acheived by the great Sachin Tendulkar !

Some info about MS Dhoni

Starting his sports career as a goalkeeper in school, the Ranchi lad's keeping skills between the posts had prompted the coach to ask him to don the keeping gloves of cricket and the rest is history. What was soccer's loss turned out to be cricket's gain?
"He was a good football goalkeeper during school days. In one of the cricket matches he was asked to keep the wickets. He allowed only four byes," cricket coach Chanchal Bhattacharya said.
Agreeing with Bhattacharya, Dhoni's father Pan Singh said: "My son used to play as a goalkeeper in colony football matches. He switched over to cricket after he was asked by the coach."
The 23-year-old Dhoni's exulting stroke play reminds the old-timers of another wicketkeeper-opener of Bihar Daljit Singh, who had displayed free stroke making in 1960-70.
Dhoni, the first international cricketer from Jharkhand is also the latest from the undivided Bihar which has produced players like Saba Karim, another wicketkeeper, Subroto Banerjee, Ramesh Sexana and Randhir Singh.
A student of DAV School and now in the Gosnar College, Dhoni, who had set ablaze the Visakhapatnam stadium with a scintillating 123-ball 148, is a good student too. RE Singh, the former principal of DAV Shyamali where Dhoni was a student, said right from the school days, he was sincere and hard working. Dhoni's father said he has always encouraged his son and never interfered in his goals.
Bhattacharya said Dhoni's fireworks had started in the first class cricket a couple of years ago, mesmerising the likes of pacemen Venkatesh Prasad, Doda Ganesh and spinner Sunil Joshi of Karnataka who were in Ranchi to play Ranji Trophy match.

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Wish u all the best Dhoni. I hope u will remain the humble person and play sensible cricket unfazed by the hype that is going to surround u in a cricket crazy nation like India.

A Memorable Win...

It was just like any other ordinary Sunday. Woke up & went online to find my Hindi blog vanished from the net. Though somehow it got restored in the afternoon not before giving me some anxious moments. Anyway chatted for a while, made a call to my net pal and then proceeded to play this match.

Every year all the SAIL units in Ranchi organise a cricket tournament . The players involved are in the age group of 25-50. So to keep the participation level high it is played with the tennis ball:). This time our team has not done well as we could win only 2 of the 4 matches in our group. Our batting has failed miserably and yours truly is also one of the culprits. So even after qualifying for the second round we started with carry over of two losses.

And today with three of our key players missing from the side it was an uphill task for us. To make the matter worse only 10 players reached the ground at scheduled time. The 11 th player was contacted and it was found that he is having his lunch in a nearby restaurent :). And as we feared we lost the toss and were asked to field. Anyway 11th player reached the venue in nick of time saving us the blushes.

We have some good bowlers but our fielders let them down. as many as 8 boundaries were hit after the ball went thru fielder's legs. So with the help of these extra freebies at the end of 20 overs our opponent team scored 149 for 5 .

So far this much of a total was not chased in the tournament and with the state of our batting line up it sure looked a daunting task.

But then today was another day. Our openers did a grt job and we scored 104 runs for 2 wkts in first 15 overs. By 17 th over it was around 125 for 4 with me and my fren Trivedi at the crease.

The next two overs we converted four singles into two and for the last couple I lost my stamina and my legs totally went numb in the middle of the pitch but then with a full length forward despo dive a la Kaif I landed on the crease in nick of time. So it was 146 for 4 after 19th with Trivedi was on strike.

So no pressure on me all i told him to try singles and we will be through. But as the luck would have it my fren was bowled on first ball of the over. Still 4 runs and 5 balls to go. Next delivery was wide & on next we ran a single. So 4 balls and just 2 runs with all fielders closing in.

I pulled the next ball only to find the diving hands of shot square leg fielder. Next delivery was again pitched on leg & middle & this time I managed to sweep the ball past close in fielders to score two runs. We have won with 2 balls to spare!

And my god the team was delighted with players rushing to congratulate us with open arms. It was one of the cherished moment of joy for me! More so because I was able to play my little part by giving my 100%.

We have still to win many more matches to move in last 4 stage but at least the hope & self belief is restored among the team members after this win & thats where half the battle has been won.:)

Well Done Kaif & Sania!

Hurrah ! great day for indian sports :)
Sania brushed aside her opponent 7-6, 6-4 even with 50 unforced errors to reach pre quaters of US Open! Oh gosh!

Well done Sania u r proving beyond doubt that u r not just hype but a real talent!
I hope u will be more consistent with ur service & try to reduce the no of avoidable loose shots u made today. Becoz with these type of errors u will be in difficult position against Maria Sharopova! All the Best for next round!

And at last our coveted batting order came to some kind of form against depleted Kiwi attack!
today I saw one of the best innings from Kaif. Yes he was the star of the day!
Waisey humare Dhoni ne bhi achche hath dikhaye ant mein :)

Sania Mirza and Parineeta

No no Sania Mirza has nothing to do with Parineeta hee hee :) but they made two of my evenings in the last week memorable.
Firstly Sania played an exciting game against world no. 5 Svetlana Kuznetsowa & matched her stroke for stroke playing some great tennis on Wimbledon center court. Last time an Indian featured on center court in singles event was the great Vijay Amritraj who defeated French star Yanik Noah in the thrilling encounter in 1985. Infact I was privileged to listen the radio commentary of the match on BBC World.
And on Wednesday it was Sania..
Though Sania lost the game 4-6, 7-6, 4-6, she managed to win million of hearts with her gritty ground strokes. She proved beyond doubt that she has that something extra to be counted among the best. All she needs is to improve her service, net play & athleticism to reach the top bracket. Wish u all the best Sania! Hope to see u as a better player next time in Wimbledon.

Coming to Parineeta I was planning to see the movie for past few weeks but somehow things didn’t make out. When I went thru my blog fren Puneet’s review of the film I immediately decided that the coming Saturday will be the day.
The movie which is set on Calcutta of 1962 is really refreshing. Saif is maturing fast as an actor & Vidya Balan who is a rank newcomer has done a wonderful job.
Songs are really sweet specially Dil ki ji batein hain dil mein hi rakhna piya & Raat Humari To on which I have dedicated one complete post on my Hindi blog.
So do see this movie frens u will not be disappointed!