Bharat Rakshak

I could have helped India qualify for Olympics: Sandeep
Monday, 05.26.2008, 12:21am (GMT-7)

NEW DELHI: Having emerged as the highest scorer at the Sultan Azlan Shah Hockey tournament in Malaysia, comeback man Sandeep Singh lashed out at the previous hockey management for not utilizing his skills in Olympic qualifiers which resulted in the team's failure to book a berth for Beijing.

"If I could have played in the qualifying rounds for the Beijing Olympics, the result could have changed. India would have booked the Olympics berth," Sandeep said. "The management didn't realize my value. They didn't utilize my talent also," he told PTI.

The Indian hockey team recently failed to qualify for the Olympic Games for the first time in 80 years in Santiago, Chile. Despite being slammed by the experts, former coach Joaquim Carvalho had dropped Sandeep claiming that he was injured.

The player's name was not even considered for the national pre-Olympic squad. "They didn't know how to utilize a player for the team. That's why the team failed to perform well. India is known for hockey all over the world. I really feel bad to see India missing the upcoming Beijing Games," he said.

Sandeep scored nine goals during India's silver medal winning run in the tournament, beating four teams on the trot, before going down narrowly to Argentina in the final.

German football team in Calcutta
By Rahul Tandon
BBC News, Calcutta

German football legend Oliver Kahn plays in Calcutta
This will be German legend Oliver Kahn's final match

The German football team Bayern Munich will become the first major European club to play a match in India when they play in Calcutta in a few hours.

Organisers say 120,000 spectators will watch them take on local side Mohan Bagan at the Salt Lake Stadium.

Their visit comes at a time when the sport is becoming increasingly popular in a country which is cricket crazy.

The friendly will also be the farewell game for German football legend Oliver Kahn, who retires after 22 years.

Cricket boring?

Bayern Munich arrived at the Calcutta Cricket and Football club to pass on some tips to some promising youngsters.

The visit of the German Champions comes at a time when more and more Indian youngsters - particularly from the middle classes - are watching and playing the beautiful game.

Children hold up a welcome poster in India during the visit of Bayern Munich players
Football has been steadily gaining in popularity in India

Drive around Calcutta at the moment and instead of seeing posters of the Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan, you will find yourself looking up at billboards of goalkeeper Oliver Kahn.

Ramjit and Sanjoy will be in the crowd that will watch the match on Wednesday.

I ask them if they think that football can ever rival cricket in India.

"If Bayern Munich can come down here why can football not compete with cricket? It is just a slow ongoing process. There are kids who like watching football, they prefer it to cricket as cricket is getting boring," says Ramjit.

"It [football] is not as big as it once was. Every sport in this country is secondary to cricket. But it is again picking up and with Bayern Munich coming to India and Calcutta on a regular basis, it is making an impact," said Sanjoy.

Teams from Bayern have visited before, but this is the first time the senior squad are playing in India.

The reason they have is money.

This is one of the fastest growing football markets in the world.

Walk around any of the big cities in India and you will see youngsters wearing Manchester United and Chelsea jerseys.

So expect other clubs from Europe to be playing here in India soon.

Indians are less inclined to watch their own football league and whilst many youngsters play the game, a proper infrastructure needs to be put in place to nurture talent.

This match will be also an emotional one - it is the last ever match that Bayern legend Oliver Kahn will play for the club.

It may be the end of an era for him, but for India this game could mark a new chapter in its football history.

seems our IPL commisioner was accused of drug dealing and abduction
in duke univ where he studied sports management. this per article in
latest Time mag.

is there a website where all US cases are searchable?

Cuddapah: From cleaning lorries to getting a berth on the Indian Premier League (IPL) Hyderabad team, P Vijaykumar has come a long way from his remote village in Cuddapah district in Andhra Pradesh.

A resident of Paidikaalva village of Cuddapah district, the 21-year-old Vijaykumar is an unlikely star.

But over the last two years, he has carved out a dream for himself - playing Ranji Trophy and now he is set to hit the national scene with an IPL berth that's left him clean bowled.

"I didn't even know what IPL was when I got selected. Just a few days ago, my seniors explained to me what IPL is all about. I didn't even tell anyone at home that I got selected. When I was playing for Ranji, my only goal was to play well and get maximum wickets," says Vijaykumar.

Vijaykumar studied up to the ninth standard in the local government school, where he also doubled up as the cook who made the mid-day meals.

After school, it was time to indulge in his love for cricket and the pace bowler drew a lot of flak from home for it.

His father, David, a construction labourer and mother Sarawathi, a small time vegetable vendor, would yell at him to pull up his socks.

"When my son used to play cricket I used to scold him saying, how will you survive if you keep playing games? How will we eat if you just go to school and play cricket and cook in the school? I used to ask him all this," Saraswathi says.

But with Rs 60 lakh in his kitty and a three-year contract with the IPL, the family's fortunes seem set to change because of Vijaykumar's hard work and passion.

"He's done not just our village, but the entire district proud," Saraswathi says.

For a person who didn't even dream of playing beyond the Ranji, Vijaykumar will now rub shoulders with international stars like Andrew Symonds, Adam Gilchrist and Chaminda Vaas.

And a place in the Indian team, too, doesn't seem too far away.

legendary oliver kahn is playing mohan bagan today.
(I'm a east bengal supporter)

going to watch it at the stadium.

"I have a wife and three kids back in Melbourne and they are not impressed with the part of the world I am in" are the words of Darren Berry the assistant coach of the Rajasthan Royals after the bomb blasts that shook the pink city a few days back. One can understand the anxiety and concern of families who are miles away from India about their loved ones. Australia is indeed fortunate not to have the spectre of terrorism in their country and one can sympathize with them when they find themselves in a situation like the one in Jaipur.

But while sympathizing with Darren about the predicament he and the other Australians are facing, there is immense disappointment and not a little annoyance at the choice of words to describe India, "not impressed with the part of the world I am in." There were bomb blasts in India before too, so the situation in this part of the world is pretty well known and still Darren and his family did not think twice about it when the Dollar signs were flashed in front of their face to come down for the DLF IPL.

The solution is pretty simple as our common friend, the late doctor Jain would have said to Darren and that is for him to pack his bags and go home which presumably is an impressive part of the world. Never mind that it is where young Indian students, trying to earn an extra buck by driving cabs after university hours, get set upon by drunks when it comes to paying the fare or just for the heck of it. We are told that these attacks on Indian students are the result of the frustration that Australians feel about their jobs being taken by Indians. Just imagine if the cricketing fraternity in India were to look at it in the same way at the support staff of the various franchisees in the DLF Indian Premier League. Would that be justified?

The manner in which some people bad mouth India all the time but are the first on the plane to India when it is a question of making some easy money is well known and because we in India are a lot more tolerant than others it is being taken advantage of. Whenever there is an interview to be given to the papers back home it is invariably with a dig at India and Indians.

Why there are several who refer to India as "thats f-----g India for you" and still have the shamelessness to stay on and earn money here because they are pretty much unemployable back home:lol: . Indian cricket is like a river of gold and there are many who are dipping their hands in it with no loyalty whatsoever to India but only to their bank managers back home. There are some who are being paid six figure amounts in dollars but making occasional trips to India and not staying on for the duration of the tournament and will be the first to escape if the teams don't do well and the first to take credit if the team wins. What these guys don't understand is that the franchisees are not stupid. They haven't got into the prominent positions in their businesses and industry by fluke and they are all well aware of what's happening. This is the first year and so they are being a bit indulgent and watching it unfold and by the time the second year starts don't be surprised at the trimming of the personnel that will take place. They will want results and if they don't get them there will be wholesale sackings and not just of Indians as is the case at the moment. So enjoy it guys but just make sure you show some respect to the country that is putting more food on your table and allowing the family to buy designer stuff than the ones in the car boot sale.

36-Twenty20-36
Barkha Dutt is Managing Editor, NDTV 24x7

carrying on from ^^^^.

The crowd was BIG !!

1 lakh twenty thousand !!
Yuva Bharati krirangan is the world's second largest football stadium by capacity and it was packed, well almost.

Still less than the 1 lakh 35 thousand world record crowd for a east bengal mohan bagan derby in 1997.

Some observations :
Physical presence of the german team was a big factor but inspite of what media reports MB played quiet well . What I liked was our boys didn't get cowed down by the goras.

The difference was in confidence and finishing. bayern got only three chances but they converted all three while MB also got 3 good scoring opportunities (a hit to the cross bar that could have gone anywhere and two open nets) plus two free kicks very close to the box.

Other thing lacking in MB was gameplan, the one they followed was flawed
(coach to blame). Individually many players played quiet well and MB certainly didn't look outplayed.
The difference wasn't that much. Admittedly bayern played a bit loosely in the first half but in second half they played to their fullest abilities.

You have to remember that Bayern is bundesliga champion this year and this was there A team and MB played with a vastly depleted team with their main strikers, baichung and barreto not playing. Many of the players were kids just passed out of Tata Football Academy.

So it seems all these guys need is exposure and good training facilities.
If a country wants to be known across the globe quickly, it has to do well in football !!

dont be so sure...beneath the 'academic facade' some of the DU/JNU babes are quite 'warm'. but they have fallen into bad jholawallah company and regressed.

lucky you Rahul. Wish they would have come next month when I will be in Kolkata!

Why weren't Bhai and Barreto playing?

avinash r, this is not the nukkad thread !

Should we discuss barkha dutt's looks in the sports thread at all ??

In fact, does it matter how she looks ?? Should we at all discuss her looks on BRF ??

Joishy are you the same person from many years ago ? I remember a
user by that name when folks like nayak were in primary school

barreto is home on vacation and bhaichung wasn't allowed to play citing some national team obligations. I'm really a bit unsure on what exactly this means since I hadn't followed the papers for some time.

Indian men's archery team in World Cup final

Kolkata (PTI): The Indian men's recurve team got past Chinese Taipei to move into the final of the third Meteksan World Cup archery meet at Antalya (Turkey) on Friday.

The Indian team, comprising Rahul Banerjee, Mangal Singh Champia and Jayanta Talukdar got the better of Chinese Taipei at 218-210 in the pre-summit round and will now play Malaysia for the gold medal.

Indian athletes to train in UK

New Delhi (PTI): A 19-member Indian team of middle and long distance runners on Friday left for London for a six-week training-cum-competition tour in the European circuit.

Dinesh Kumar was out-punched 8-24 by reigning World champion Abbos Atoeve in the second round of the 81kg category leaving middle-weight pugilist Vijender the lone Indian challenger in the inaugural AIBA President’s Cup in Sinjhuang City, Taipei.

Was nt there a conditioning camp for the SAF football tournament. Dave Houghton was also on record saying that all these local tournaments like Federation cup, Santosh trophy etc should not have national team players,

http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/3natbdesh/content/story/352924.html Squad Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt & wk), Yuvraj Singh, Robin Uthappa, Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina, Yusuf Pathan, Irfan Pathan, Sreesanth, Ishant Sharma, Praveen Kumar, RP Singh, Piyush Chawla, Pragyan Ojha.

Was nt there a conditioning camp for the SAF football tournament. Dave Houghton was also on record saying that all these local tournaments like Federation cup, Santosh trophy etc should not have national team players, as they get real tired when it comes to the real matches that matter in FIFA points scale. He wants India to get up to <100 asap.

The former world No.1 pair have decided to play the grass court event at s’-Hertogenbosch before Wimbledon. The €350,000 Ordina Open in the Netherlands is scheduled for the week of June 15.

The second tournament for them together would be the $525,000 event at Indianapolis starting on July 14. Otherwise, the two will be with their regular partners Mark Knowles and Lukas Dlouhy on the Tour in the Masters Series events at Toronto and Cincinnati, apart from Wimbledon.

Fairly certain of making the cut are the big four -- Chicago; Madrid, Spain; Tokyo; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Expected to be eliminated are Prague, Czech Republic, and Baku, Azerbaijan.

The main issue {for Bakis} is whether Doha, Qatar, will advance to the final stage.

As the Mani Shankar Aiyar sabotaged olympics organization fiasco moves on, here is a news item about where Delhi 2016 could have been!
Clicky

That is the one reason I am grateful to Mani Shankar for.. In fact the only sensible thing he has ever done in all his life I am sure.

Hasn't Dilli sucked taxes out of the rest of India long enough? ..Don't you hear the giant sucking sound of Dilli and i's billis vacuuming up taxes from the rest of India ?.. Do you want that sucking sound to get louder , so that Dilli would have "infrastructure" of "world class standards" so that the chi-chi olympic crowd can have their "first world" experience for their one month jamboree? Thank goodness for MS Aiyer for a change I say.

{Bimal Lakra} He also expressed disappointment over the fact that only his family members were present at the airport to receive him last month after he returned from Malayasia with the silver medal.

"I thought there would be some people at the airport to welcome me, but I felt sad when I found none. This will only discourage the players," rued Lakra.

Vijender gets India`s lone medal in Presidents Cup

Indian challenge at the inaugural AIBA President's Cup ended on Friday with middleweight pugilist Vijender clinching the lone medal for the country -- a bronze -- after bowing out in a controversial semifinal bout in Sinjhuang City, Taipei.

Vijender went down 10-14 to Thailand's Angkhan Chomphuphu, an unexpected loss for the Doha Asiad bronze medalist who had beaten Olympic champion Bakhtiyar Artyev in the quarterfinals.

A disappointed Indian team complained about the "unfair" tactics of the Thai, who got two warnings during the bout for constant blocking and evasion.

The team complained to AIBA President Ching-Kuo Wu, in whose honour the tournament is being held.

A dejected coach Gurbax Singh Sandhu said Vijender was the better of the two boxers and did not deserve to lose.

Indian Amateur Boxing Federation Secretary General Col PKM Raja also said he was left shocked by the result.

"The team is not particulary happy with the way things went. The result was not expected," Col Raja said.

The closely contested bout had Vijender trailing by a point for two rounds before the gap widened in the last couple of rounds.

The President's Cup is being contested by Olympic qualified boxers and the four other Indian pugilists in fray had crashed out by the second round.

I have good reasons to believe that Dilli/Any Injun city 20xx is NOT a bad idea. Makes good economic sense. Have you done a cost of gains/losses in hosting an OG/AG/CWG event? And worrying about sucking resources is all hogwash given that the infra is already in place by the time 2010 Delhi CWG will be in place.

And guess what. MSA wanted a panchayati raj mela in Dilli for heads of 1 million villages. Guess where the cash for that was coming from, the same sucking taxes phenomenon. Please check the history of this doofus before you take his side. And dont let your hatred for Dilli billis cloud the crux of the argument for Dilli 2016.

This is what happened to Vijender in boxing
Clicky

I got very excited on hearing the news that he had beaten the olympics champion and thought he would win the gold medal.I was equally shocked when I learned that he was beaten in the semi-finals.

But, I'm hopeful that he would bring us medal in the olympics.