It had drama, suspense, excitement, brilliance, perseverance and emotions. Rafa led Roger 2 sets to love, and had taken the fifth set to a tie breaker after a rain delay. It seemed divine intervention as far as Roger was concerned. Rafa had 2 championship points in the 4th set tie break leading 5-2 and serving for the match. Federer incredibly managed to save them both and took the match to a final set decider. With the last set at 2-2 and deuce, rain again came down on Centre Court, and the players took another break. Would this be a divine intervention again for Federer or for Nadal, who got agonizingly close to winning the coveted crown ?

The time was ticking past 9:00 in the late evening at Wimbledon, but the 2 champions fought on, until Nadal broke Federer in the 15th game of the final set. Nadal, the champion that he is, closed out the match at 9-7 in the final set, dropping to the floor, emotions still running high. An unbelievable match, which is truly a tribute to the relentless shot making and athleticism of Nadal, against the grace and genius of Federer.

Rafa has been snapping at Federer’s heels for more than a year now. Federer has had a moderate year so far in 2008, and the aura of invincibility seemed to be disappearing after a straight sets loss to World No. 3 Novak Djokovic at the Australian Open semi finals. Federer has only won 2 events this year. For someone who is used to winning 2 Grand Slams before the second half of a year, Federer is empty handed this year, with only the U.S. Open to play for. At 26 Federer is not getting any younger, and Nadal is ready to take the mantle of the best player from Federer.

Any gifted player would have felt proud to have played in an amazing 16 grand slam finals, which included all the 4 major slams. But with Federer, he is expected to win all of them, atleast the non-clay ones. That is what he had been doing, whenever he got to any of the Grand Slam Finals except for the Nadal owned Rolland Garros. Federer had never lost a Grand Slam final on any surface against any player other than French Open. With this loss at Wimbledon, Nadal certainly has dented that record. The funniest part is, Federer is so good, he would still make it to the finals of all the Grand Slams. But does he have the mental strength to overcome the relentless Rafa ?

There have been champions and Grand Slam winners who have hated the grass court tournaments and called them as good only for cows. Marcelo Rios, Ivan Lendl and lately Marat Safin. Though there was always a question mark as to whether a clay court specialist and winner (Nadal at Rolland Garros) can in a span of 2 weeks win a grass court title at Wimbledon, the spirit of the young 22 year old Nadal came through eventually. Never did Nadal complain of the grass court not being his favourite surface. In fact he always dreamt of winning the Wimbledon as a kid, and that kept him motivated to win the crown.

Rafa now leads Federer 12-6 (as on 7th June 2008) in their head to head and Federer has many others waiting to clip his wings, as he fights off opponents younger, more spirited than him. Alfred Tsonga, Djokovic and Nadal are definitely the select few in that club. With only 555 points separating Nadal from Federer for the No. 1 spot, things could change by the end of this year.

But Federer, the champion that he is, will always challenge the best, as long as he is fit. Nadal has done so much of running around courts, through sheer will and stamina, he may not be able to withstand this level of performance for very long. Compare this to the grace of Federer, who is elegance personified, and seems to hit winners off impossible angles, one would think Federer would last atleast 4 more years. Nadal doesn’t have a great service which comes to his rescue in times of crisis in a match. Federer can hit aces, at times at will. But with Federer, there is always a susceptibility of losses in concentration, which never happens with Rafa. Especially when Rafa plays Federer, he is at the peak of his game, knowing fully well, that a blip in concentration is the only chance that Rafa has in winning against Federer.

The great rivalry of the 2 champions, whose styles of play are poles apart can only create more tennis followers and inspire children to take up the game. It would be tough to emulate Roger Federer’s game, for his is a game of sheer genius. But one can always emulate and be like Rafa, for the hard working, relentless athlete that he is. To conclude, all one can say is, to defeat a Federer one needs to be a Nadal. But to defeat Nadal, you need not be a Federer.

First it was this and then it was the 2^nd match between Kolkotta Knight Riders vs. (what’s that) Hyderabad team, where Bollywood’s so called Badshah was seen pimping for his (feed an entire African nation worth) team. And joining him in this charade, who’s who of the Hindi Film Industry were also seen shaking a leg.

By the way – what’s with the Gandhi Son-in-law aka. Mr. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra? The pace at which he was hopping, I am guessing an item number in SRK’s next home production is definitely on the cards.

Even though I think of Shah Rukh as nothing more than an average actor turned premium marketing whore – I do agree, the man is gifted with Midas’s touch. Kolkotta Knight Riders have won two matches in a row.

However looking at SRK’s history of buying film awards, I wouldn’t be surprised if dal mein kuch kala was here too.

Anyhoo, the man continues to produce crap and we, the desi junta, keep lapping it up.

20-20 is here.And thank god some sensible Cricket Presentation is here. The forgetful days of the morose presentation from Set Max of ICC events, the days of Dravid’s and Chappel’s fanatic experiments, and most importantly India loosing are over, for sometime atleast.

More than 20-20 , the format, the so called future of Cricket, its the better presentation quality which has brought me and people alike all over back to our national interest. Harsha Bhogle’s cricketing innocence, Sunil Gavaskar’s sharp comments and Ravi Shastri’s evergreen presence is more likable than ever before.

Maybe Max thinks they created a revolution of sorts by bringing Mandira up, but as far as cricketing quality is concerned Kass Naidoo from South Africa and Donna Symonds from Windies. Leave that they were unlucky enough for showing up India’s worst ever World Cup campaign club with that the controversies surrounding their LEAD presenter.

If Yuvi’s knock against England is anything to go by, its a nightmare for bowlers, although people seeing it on tele, its great. But 20-20 is a delight for TV junta, sixes, fours, crackers, dance, music. Although all that doesn’t matter to an Indian cricket fan, maybe it does to the countries where Cricket is not that popular. Makes it both tele friendly and easy to digest with just 3 hours of action.

Even if we don’t win this one, atleast the TRP’s are back to where they were, more than the sense of belonging to cricket is back. People forget the mistakes, its time to sit back and enjoy. We Indians are so nice and forgetful. And its back to prayers again,

May India win this one!!!

On the other side was a ManUtd-Milan Champion’s league encounter, though a big-time football fan, I have stayed away from football somehow this year. But Football has caught on with people for sure. I still remember the first Premiership match I saw, a ManUtd-Arsenal encounter in 1999-00 season with ManUtd winning 6-1 (Dwight Yorke scoring the hatrick). That was quite a start and after then I was quite hooked up with the beautiful game. People didn’t discuss football at the time, it was cricket all over and sometimes wondered what profit does ESPNSTAR make in showing such a not so popular game (in Indian context atleast).

What’s nice is that people have started taking Football seriously nowadays, and what’s shocking is that they have taken it more seriously than our National Time Pass Cricket. The effort put in by Sports Channels has been great, with the amount of advertising and complete Football package offerings (matches, reviews,shows) made by them. Couple of weeks back I went for a trek with a few college students and these people not really look up to Sachin or Dravid or Yuvi anymore, they have found new heroes in Messi, Ronaldo and Rooney.

Football for sure is game made for Television audiences, quickfast 90 minute wrap-up, great arenas and crowd add to the viewing pleasure. Then there are always the stars to lookup to. Though India is ranked some 150+ in the game and the players are not really known figures. Poor infrastructure and a pool of second grade African and South American footballers constitute our league and also the Television impetus given to it has failed miserably.

What’s important is that the growing generation of Football frenzied junta gets some Role Models in India itself whom they can look up to. Although Televised Football is popular throughout the World a good support infrastructure and a good National Team helps to build the popularity further more. Sepp Blatter’s recent visit to India was a positive intent from FIFA to build upon this popularity but our local administrators were found caught on the wrong foot again.

It’s not that we are not so great in football, we have a great history surrounding it, but players and fans and concentrated in just few pockets. Popularity of European leagues has meant the not so football friendly areas getting into the loop of Football development. Cricket is on an all time low and this is the perhaps best time for other Sports to capture the Television market. Football already has a huge piece of it, just hoping that it helps the Indian Football scene overall along with boosting it’s TRP’s.

I was a watching a Pranoy Roy show just before the World Cup started involving Imran Khan and Tony Greig, when they recollected how Packer first thought about Flood Lights. As a result the White Ball was invented and so were the Coloured clothes. The prize money is quite huge and also the initial fund earmarked from Subhash Chandra‘s side is around 100 Crores. This is another attempt by him to take a bite in the Indian Cricket market after launching Zee Sports in an attempt to get the BCCI contract for broadcasting Indian Cricket which he lost out on. Kerry Packer too went ahead with alternative to Test Cricket after loosing out on the Cricket TV broadcast rights in 1976 from Australian Cricket Board. It will be interesting to see the future developments, the main roadblocks being,

• BCCI? If they don’t provide the infrastructure and stop the players.
• If the players themselves don’t join in. The last time Packer did this times were different. Cricket was not such a money spinner as it is today and player wages were quite low as compared to that offered by Packer. It will interesting to see if Subhash Chandra hikes player fees to bring more stars to his matches.
• The main roadblock is,

  Jab Ek Cricket hi nahi sambhal raha to alternate Cricket kya khak sambhlega

Whatever happens it makes up for an interesting battle between players, BCCI and Chandra and with India’s present form this may get just that extra appreciation from fans too.

It’s a game, for crying out loud. One that should be enjoyed first and analyzed later. Which is why the depressed attitude of the commentators was disappointing to watch.

Cozier, in fact, was so shocked by the defeat that he looked like a dazed man during the post-match wrap up. “I really don’t know what can be done” he opined about West Indian cricket. Poor Ian Bishop had to gently remind him to talk about the good cricket played by Sri Lanka. Which Cozier grudgingly did for a bit before laying into the West Indian team again. Bishop positively struggled all along to not let the dystopian outlook overwhelm the telecast and then finally gave up.

Even Holding, so laid back a person, seemed to look ticked off.

On the field, Brian Lara looked perennially harassed. I barely saw him crack a smile. Every West Indian player looked tense and stiff. No team has epitomized the joy of the game, the free flowing delight of cricket more than the West Indies. It’s the last team on earth you want bogged down by associating victory alone with success.

Michael Atherton recently said something about Tendulkar that applies well here. If you are not good enough or not enjoying the game, it’s time to quit he suggested. The same applies to entire teams – cricket or commentary. If you aren’t having fun, neither are the fans. And that is bad for cricket.

Guys, can all of you please get back to entertaining us like you are paid to do?

Movie is a distant thing though, right now the hours of Cricket meant to be unleashed on TV have become irrelevant. I mean being Cricket Lovers doesn’t mean that we as Indians can overcome such a big tragedy so soon.

The night match finished everyone was quite heavy with emotions. Some stupidity on Television followed. Mandira Bedi was so emotional as it she was about to breakdown any moment. It’s ok to be Indian and feel for the game, but as a presenter I feel you should be professional enough to run through the show. Somehow Charu Sharma carried the show well.

We should do something to the news channels though, at night a nice looking reporter from Aaj Tak caught on with a bunch of Engineers after the defeat who were shouting and swearing at everything. even a drunk person could have made out that the bunch of people were heavily drunk. Similarly on Star News were Atul Wassan appeared as the “expert” was answering questions of viewers on the telephone half of which came from quite Drunk people. I mean we know you ought to show us everything but thoda decency mangta hai.

The next day I shutdown the TV for the whole day because I knew even the television set can’t witness all the reactions shown by the news channels throughout the day. I know we all angry but the way these channels put these up makes us, our team and everyone involved look as villains.

So no more of Cricket for most of us, some entertainment will come (as it happened in the South Africa-Australia encounter) but still we will miss India.

Given that India-Pakistan match is already out of question we are going to miss one helluva battle. If India rolls out too then we all know what a bore it will become. Most of the sponsors you come across are primarily Indian brands and the money they pay to broadcasters will be slashed down considerably to adjust for the loss. People loose interest and so do the advertisers.

And the revenue losses affect not only the Indian Broadcasters but broadcasters worldwide, with the NRI market world over being a stronghold of Indian Cricket. With SETMAX already moving out next ICC tournaments and Nimbus in a soup with Doordarshan Cricket broadcasting seems to be a high investment low returns business nowadays.

The format doesnt make it quite great either with such a long campaign, which may end most of the fan’s enthusiasm somewhere between the World Cup. ICC has grown silly in the past in organisng tournaments atleast from the last year Champion’s trophy in India.

All this will be not relevant I think as India will not only go to Super-8′s but even win the cup. A little optimistic but an Indian nonetheless.

Wright has a fuzzy, encouraging style of commentary. He analyzes the mind and the game rather than the delivery or the stroke. He is constantly trying to figure out what the run of play is. What is the captain thinking? What is he trying to do? What does he need to do? He is not particularly chatty. Nor is he very animated. He speaks on an even keel mostly. But he is the master of small insights.

The observations that come from him are significant because he was coach to Team India for several years – most of them during the Ganguly era. He knows the Indian players inside out. And a lot of them who were in operation during his tenure are still playing.

We all hear enough about technique, run rates, manhattans and wagon wheels. So it’s highly absorbing when Wright starts dissecting the mind and psyche of the players. Most importantly, his commentary is full of grace, just like his personality.

Herschelle Gibbs smashed his way into World Cup history when he hit six sixes in one over in a Group A match against the Netherlands on Friday.

The South African batsman became only the third man ever to achieve the feat in first class cricket and the first in the World Cup. India’s Ravi Shastri and West Indian Garfield Sobers are the only other players to have hit six sixes in an over in first class cricket.

source- cricclips.com