Indian Sports and Entertainment Industry

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 27 Jan 2011 02:24

I wasn't aware Paes and Bhupathi have paired up again - they're in the Australian Open men's doubles semifinals now, playing 2nd seeded Mirnyi/Nestor as the third seeds. If they win, they'll probably run into the Bryan brothers.

Edit: they're now through to the final, playing the Bryans.

Vasu · Post by **Vasu** » 27 Jan 2011 17:23

Wow, a classic showdown. This is as good as men's doubles tennis can get.

negi · Post by **negi** » 27 Jan 2011 18:14

^ All their matches were top notch , specially Paes ; he played what one would call as 'exhibition tennis'.

Stan_Savljevic · Post by **Stan_Savljevic** » 06 Feb 2011 16:17

Op. Dismantling Pak-e-satan
http://www.sportstaronnet.com/stories/2 ... 900300.htm

Tanaji · Post by **Tanaji** » 07 Feb 2011 01:51

Stan saab,

How do you find time to keep track of all sporting events? You seem to have the pulse on all of them! Thanks for sharing...

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 07 Feb 2011 02:13

not to mention an in depth up to date understanding of affairs in our on paki neighbours AND naxalism. he is one of the handful of folk on BR who truly make me envious.

Abhijit · Post by **Abhijit** » 08 Feb 2011 03:24

Folks, I just saw a film called 'unthinkable' - carrie ann moss and samuel l jackson. This movie is a concept copy of the Hindi movie 'a wednesday'.
I am inordinately happy that we have reached a stage where bolly movies are being copied into holly movies, reversing a trend.

Vasu · Post by **Vasu** » 17 Feb 2011 13:55

The 34th National Games are on in Jharkhand, and Manipur continues to be a national powerhouse. The tiny state is sitting atop the medals tally. Bravo.

Manipur topples MP on top

Boys and girls from many states are making a splash in the pool, with many national records broken. Seems like Indian swimming is finally breaking out. Amen!

chackojoseph · Post by **chackojoseph** » 18 Feb 2011 08:21

Sachin Tendulkar, Priyanka Chopra to promote Census 2011

saip · Post by **saip** » 23 Feb 2011 07:45

How come a tiny state like Manipur scores so high in the national games?

National Games: Services lead medal tally

http://www.samachar.com/National-Games- ... cbbfh.html

Stan_Savljevic · Post by **Stan_Savljevic** » 25 Feb 2011 02:56

Punjab vs. Jharkhand in hickey finals. The semis between JHK and Maharashtra seems to have been fought with some bad crowd-induced blood. Some positives can be taken if crowd is despo about hickey.

ManjaM · Post by **ManjaM** » 25 Feb 2011 05:01

Abhijit wrote:Folks, I just saw a film called 'unthinkable' - carrie ann moss and samuel l jackson. This movie is a concept copy of the Hindi movie 'a wednesday'.
I am inordinately happy that we have reached a stage where bolly movies are being copied into holly movies, reversing a trend.

"Unthinkable" is unbearably bad. samuel jackson is grimacing and screaming through it as always.

Stan_Savljevic · Post by **Stan_Savljevic** » 26 Feb 2011 03:03

Did nt realize that the JHK-Mah semifinals was Eden Garden 96 redux and played over two days. Says many things about the JHK crowd.

In any case, Punjab has won the finals 2-zip, Ravi Pal and Sarwanjit scoring the goals. Punjab had earlier beaten Services in the other semis.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 26 Feb 2011 04:00

saip wrote:How come a tiny state like Manipur scores so high in the national games?

National Games: Services lead medal tally

http://www.samachar.com/National-Games- ... cbbfh.html

sports is one of the few outlets to get ahead in life. and due to some initial success the sporting culture has taken deep roots.

Stan_Savljevic · Post by **Stan_Savljevic** » 01 Mar 2011 01:28

Now that our rashtryia khel are katm, unk bhai will return soon with his golden droppings.

Stan_Savljevic · Post by **Stan_Savljevic** » 04 Mar 2011 03:31

FIDE updates show that Harika is climbing steadily, in the mid-2500s now. And in the top 10 for the first time. Sowmya Swaminathan is also climbing, but in the 2300s. Take away that and what we have is Tania Sachdev and Koneru Humpy flattening out/fighting hard to stay on. As expected the title win has given Hou Yifan a jump to cross 2600 for the first time. But we will see how this ends. Chessbase that goes ga-ga over every minute Carlsen jump took a sweet 4 days to update their shite (now please dont accuse me of being uncivil).

Same pattern for Sasikiran and Harikrishna. That massive loss in Jan 2009 will still rankle Sasikiran as it has killed many of his chances for participating. At Wijk B group, he was nt invited again (he was nt invited even last year) and that spot (which is like Anand's choice) went to SS Ganguly (Anand's second or was it third at K-man fest and Top-fest). Ganguly, as expected of desis, went right ahead and shed more rating points. Being a second is a thankless job (I know!). And the 2011 Wijk Aan Zee has been the worst on record for Indians, just one in Gp B and one more (Tania) in Gp C. What with Corus becoming Tata Steel etc., might be some Indic diffidence to act more neutral/generous to the world at large, I can guess. And this country wants to be a supa-power without knowing how to wield the power bat. Oh Gawd, please help us again (no double or triple puns intended).

Meanwhile, Hesh and Lee are MIA for the DC match against Serbia, the WG first round match. I can posit a conspiracy and say it is voluntary retirement to hand it over to Somdev and Rohan, esp given the old-age of the warriors. Simultaneous injuries around the DC time is a bit of a coincidence and will add more veracity to the conspiracy. But as we know, these are all too common these days (as we are told). Lets see if we end up having to pull off a Madras again (as with Brazil) or if Somdev and Rohan will continue where the warriors left off. Time to blood Yuki Bhambri I guess. He still has eons to go before trying to replace Rohan. Again Gawd only knows, even here (again, I dont have to finish my statement, you know).

negi · Post by **negi** » 04 Mar 2011 08:49

Djokovic is not there in the Serbian squad, it seems like Federer he too has decided to concentrate on the singles ATP circuit and the GSs. Serbia at this time of the year is pretty chilly so our boys will not have the luxury of playing in home conditions. I am looking forward to Devvarman vs Tipsarevic match for both have similar playing styles and moreover recently he did take the Serb all the way to the tiebreaker in Los Angeles.

negi · Post by **negi** » 04 Mar 2011 23:54

Dammn Bopanna lost in 5 sets, I have to admit I was not expecting Bopanna to take Troicki to the 5th set some of his forehand exchanges with Troicki were indeed a pleasure to watch. He should definitely play more singles in a given calendar year.

negi · Post by **negi** » 05 Mar 2011 00:36

Houghton makes quiet entry into Goa

Houghton's future has been in doubt ever since the executive committee of the AIFF decided to seek legal opinion over his criticism of the available infrastructure in India during the Asian Cup 2011 and his alleged racist comments against referee Dinesh Nair during a friendly in Pune. The coach has since released a detailed statement, dismissing all the allegations as "nonsensical".

The AIFF has neither served a show-cause notice on Houghton nor sought an explanation for "bringing the federation into disrepute". The only report that was asked — and promptly given — concerned India's showing at the Asian Cup where, participating for the first time, India conceded 13 goals and lost all three matches.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 05 Mar 2011 05:08

Devvarman beats Tipsarevic in straight sets, to make it 1-1 on day 1.

Stan_Savljevic · Post by **Stan_Savljevic** » 05 Mar 2011 05:37

The women's chess world is buzzing with a last minute melodrama. So basically the issue is this.

Hou Yifan won the WC last time, so for the next world championship she gets a direct bye (what a crock of shit, but anyway). The challenger has to come from a series of six tournaments which form the women's Grand Prix. With five done, and the sixth in its last round, the stage is set as follows. Nana Dzagnidze is leading the Grand Prix standings, but Humpy can still go past Nana and become the challenger. For Humpy to get to be the challenger, she needs to win the event solely or in a 2-way tie (at best). One more round to go: Humpy is at 7 points in the second place tied with Marie Sebag of France. At the first (7 1/2) is a no-name person who followed Topalov (in some sense) winning her first five games and then coasting along with 2 losses in the next five. Her name is Elina Danielian.

The stage is set for an explosion on Saturday in Doha:
Humpy takes on Zhu Chen (former WC, married to Al Modiahki of Qatar and now a Qatari citizen)
Elina takes on Antoaneta Stefanova (another former WC)
Marie takes on a no-name Mongolian
What should happen: Humpy has to win, Elina has to do no better than a draw and Marie has to lose/draw. All three opponents have a poor record in this event, so there you go.

Now for the crock of shit part. For all these years, the women's championship had been played around a tournament in a knockout fashion. So this change of rules circa 2009 was bullshit esp given that women's chess is even more competitive than men's. But those are the ways of the Kalmykia clique that runs the show. Humpy has always had her hands burned with the women's WC despite being the next in line after Judit. So if things go effed up, as it could, that would be par for the course.

PS: Btw, Humpy drew a game that she was 2 pawns up after a 106 move "focus also on your end-game" fiesta. Her opponent was Xu Yuhua. Hope it does nt come back to bite her.

Stan_Savljevic · Post by **Stan_Savljevic** » 05 Mar 2011 22:43

Humpy pulls it off, shares the tournament. Marie Sebag lost the final match. Elina drew and Humpy won hers, as was needed. She will gain 6 ELO points as well (will go to 2613, far cry from her maximum of 2642 or so) with the joint first at Doha. So its Hou Yifan vs. Humpy at the WC 2011. That still does nt mean that a direct bye is not a crock of shit, esp when such a precedent has not been in place for a loooong time.

PS: Seems like Hou may have qualified via the Grand Prix onlee, so then no crock of shit onlee.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 05 Mar 2011 22:51

interesting thanks stan.

saip · Post by **saip** » 05 Mar 2011 23:25

Serbia must be missing Djokovic and India sure as hell must be missing Paes & Bhupathi! I guess that evens the contest.

Too bad. The Serbs won the doubles

4-6 6-3 6-4 7-6(10)

against Bopanna & Devvarman

Stan_Savljevic · Post by **Stan_Savljevic** » 08 Mar 2011 01:38

Last month when Dipika Pallika touched 24, Dipika had the distinction of becoming the best-ever ranked Indian woman, bettering Misha Grewal's 27 achieved in 1995. Her latest ranking makes this Chennai player the highest ranked Indian currently. She was earlier level with Saurav Ghosal who too was on 24. Ghosal remains at the same level in the March men's PSA ranking.

Dont have a clue why Joshna Chinnappa has been left behind. The men's ranks are empty after Saurav. Sid Suchde is far behind.

That said, the WSF-World Cup starts in Madras soon. Team event (2 men's games and a women's game for best of 3). Something like the Sudirman Cup, but not quite rich a tradition like Sudirman. In fact, the whole show was derailed till Ramachandran (who now fights in the world body) and Maj. Maniam brought the show to Madras. Pakis are absconding, the official reason is that the pakis dont have a woman player of mucho calibre to compete here, the added unofficial reason is the visa issue. Thanks for banning the pakis, officially or unofficially. I should take some new year resolution to donate 100$ to some needed kid in India everytime by karma or kismet, someone bans the pakis from India. That should be a double IED then.
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For Humpy's last minute rally, note that she put on 5.5 points in last six rounds. These days when someone says Topalov-esque (may be no more after the whooping handed out by Anand I guess), it stands for coasting after a major opening, esp against mid- to low-ranked players and one or two highly touted ones (perhaps aided by some crookery of some kind that can be justified only by Silvio Danailov

). If I added, like iit-ians of today, then it will warm the cockles of some bait-purush's heart. If you say Carlsen-esque, it stands for coming from behind after falling to the smart cookies early on, esp by whooping the mid- to low-ranked FIDE fed fatcats that run around the 2700 mark for no rhyme or reason. Coming back to Humpy, her performance was against a generally mid- to end-2400 crowd of players, nothing exceptionally brilliant given that she has a rating gap of 100+ (which means she is expected to whoop on them). The problem is Humpy seems to have peaked and needs some special effort to climb further. Something like if Harika starts breathing down on her neck like Dipika did to Joshna, perhaps.

All that said, if are a Bayesian like me

and you have to pick two players a priori to play the WC, that would have to be Humpy and Yifan. There is such a gap in terms of style, play, performance and poise. But Humpy needs to watch out and actively move ahead. Some sorta mid-career crisis as I can see.

Q to Anand: How would you describe the significance of what Humpy has achieved?

A: It's a fantastic win. She has been missing out a lot of these events. She came close in knockout format twice but couldn't finish it off. I was following the GP from the beginning and things were not going well for her initially. Once Danielian Elina (Armenia) started doing well, it became worse for Humpy. She had to depend not only on her result but also on other results. But full credit to her for fighting it out, especially in the last two games.
...
Q: Any comments on the problems between Humpy and AICF (Humpy had skipped the Olympiad and Asian Games recently)?

A: I would advice Humpy to forget everything. Just concentrate on the game.

Time for punk bhai to return soon, may be. Punk bhai thrives on reminiscing his poorva janam spent amidst morons, neanderthals and criminals-at-heart (that is not meant to be shortened to MNCs, kapiche. Just say va va vare-va before someone administers a swift swoosh).

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 08 Mar 2011 02:38

Anand is back as FIDE #1 ranked player with 2817 pts, two more than the great white hope. It would be great to have Humpy beat Hou, so we have the undisputed world champ in both men's and women's categories. When is the women's world championship ?

Stan_Savljevic · Post by **Stan_Savljevic** » 08 Mar 2011 02:50

Around august or september. Will be clear when the clique comprising the Kalmykia/Elista folks, Ali Nihat Yazici, etc crowd around to do some naach-gaana. One never knows if the old Russkie boy club will bring in Karpov before that. The bids are yet to arrive, but will be one of the usual Central Asian suspects minus Turkey (as Antalya just now ran the previous round). Or the chinis could do a soft bid and underwrite the event, after all their girl is running for retaining the stuff hain.

Did you know that Londonistan shamelessly withdrew its bid to run the men's championship once Carlsen withdrew from this round citing excuses that ranged from deranged to random? While I can understand the money is the king argument, where are these oiseaules when they preach modesty for the world at large? One should read the demands of the Londonistan organizers to FIDE, looked like INC demands to DMK

. Bring it on in Stockholm or Reykjavik or Helsinki, sinking the lion at its den seems to be the thing to do these days.

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 08 Mar 2011 02:52

Stan saar: Wow, how can you keep track of all these sports? Astounding. Hats off to you.

Here is Anand's take in ToI: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/spor ... 650317.cms

She has managed to keep her high rating comfortably. But that big breakthrough was not happening. Now she gets an opportunity. India-China rivalry is good for chess. Having said that, Hou is a ridiculously talented girl.

Stan_Savljevic · Post by **Stan_Savljevic** » 08 Mar 2011 03:42

Boss, one line answer is why fear when ggl is here?, but that will be blasphemy to the Hindu pantheon of gods. May be even godbhai will have to hook up to ggl to write the karma kaandam of his creations. Anyway, I use ggl, blogs, biased rubbish from more informed and intelligent people etc. to form my own biased rubbish, unfortunately with no new intelligence added

.

In any case, India-China rivalry in chess is like this. The person on the top is from India and the ones crowding from beneath are the chinis. There is a reason for this. In the late 80s to early 90s, with the emergence of Brand Anand over the warm-spirited days of Manuel Aaron, FIDE had considered India to be the next biggest market to break open and steal from. Like what ICC tries to do and what FIH is doing. There is a reason why FIFA wants to "invest" in Indian football. You know more about stock markets, business and goras than I do, there is no investor without a sense of greed and what is in it for me. All this blissful, "we are investing in Yindia" is a euphemism for "we are capitalist oiseaules with a degree of finesse over language, so we wont be blatant at stealing from you, but we will."

So to the bottomline, FIDE's hope was not materialized in a broad measure due to multiple reasons. (If I write more on these reasons, I will get an Ignoble award for wasting time on things that dont pay, that are no fun, that will show Indics the true India, that will not get me a honoris causa degree apart from brf.) That despite, FIDE doing tons to ensure that newly minted GMs, IMs, FMs from India would crowd around. Then there was chaos with PCA forming over FIDE, Anand being sucked in to an anti-FIDE vortex without his realizing it, the WTC 101st floor Dragons, etc. to not help sustain this agreement of sorts. FIDE started looking elsewhere and china with its top-to-bottom system seemed like the bestest hope/bet. Phillipines or Viet Nam just became detours in this saga. The FIDE opening up of china is the untold story of the king dong diplomacy in the chess world. May not trump over Rajnikanth's Sivaji, but will do quite close in terms of melodrama and entertainment for the ones with popcorn in hand.

That is why, china has gained immensely in the FIDE rating inflation melee. It is some serious shit that people have to read a thousand and one bunkum theories to understand. Understanding the reasons behind rating inflation, the methods adopted of which the art of propaganduh-101 aka chessbase is not too far from my head, the complicated trade-offs in ensuring some semblance of truthfulness in the whole show is like trying to understand adharma fight dharma and the modus operandi therein. You cant define adharma, but you know it well-enough when you see it. There are no succession lines in India and I see none, especially with AICF and D.V.Sundar being megalomaniacal at best. The FIDE has plenty of rot on its own, it is a tree that is infested with white ants. All it needs is one capricious Topalov and a villainous Danailov or a strange Kamsky/Kramnik or madcap Fischers and Kasparovs. At some point, the only thing dharmic is to laugh when a system destroys itself, which is like Murphy's laws. Any system, left to itself, will fck itself N times over

. So with this background, make money till you can is the next best hope. But AICF cannot by fiat mint any new *Ms, cannot conduct any big-ticker events, so it is left to folks such as Corus/Tata Steel to do a Force India on chess. And Anandbhai (god bless his longevity)'s days are a-numbered. So it will be funny to watch how the unretirables of Indian sport will fck up yet another sport. I even wonder if any unretirable has un-fcked any sport in India, nothing comes to my head as I write.

IOW: Rivalry is hope, hope against hope (a simple term for that kinda metaphor is a-Indic, but our Indic defenders will have me cop out an apologia a la Hardybhai and go through a le-educashun campaign by being voice-crowded), and a needless one at that when the need is to milch the cow as long as it exists. I dont blame Anandbhai for hoping for he has got the good end of the carrot while others have been left with the bad end of the stick.

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 08 Mar 2011 03:44

Stan_Savljevic wrote:Boss, one line answer is why fear when ggl is here?, but that will be blasphemy to the Hindu pantheon of gods. May be even godbhai will have to hook up to ggl to write the karma kaandam of his creations. Anyway, I use ggl, blogs, biased rubbish from more informed and intelligent people etc. to form my own biased rubbish, unfortunately with no new intelligence added .

A serious question is about connecting the dots and remembering the details. Would you remember these details say next week or month? Boss accept the kudos graciously now

Granted there is more than meets the eye, a player cannot get the rating unless she or he performs well and is consistently beating others, no?

Stan_Savljevic · Post by **Stan_Savljevic** » 08 Mar 2011 03:58

SwamyG wrote: Granted there is more than meets the eye, a player cannot get the rating unless she or he performs well and is consistently beating others, no?

The question is what marks do you give your student for doing well on an exam that is pichla easy, but that has been hyped up. Consistently doing well on pichla exams dont make a great reward system. Any good system should be self-correcting of errors/aberrations to various degrees. Sometimes, error correction needs a human involvement, which is why there is so much tinker tailor soldier spy everywhere else. Sure, there cannot be a perfect system, but a system with not much self-correction built in, yet continues for ages due to a lack of consensus has a brother in the form of Fed Reserve

.

For example, it is simple to maintain high ELO ratings: just refuse to play anymore. That memory in the system is funny, take any other event and show me where people can sit on the Himalayas by sitting in their pakistans. Boss, Carlsen is talented for sure, but his 2800+ floating is like Obama's Nobel Prize. The wait is endless, the mahdi or no-mahdi is not the question. May be I can show my versatility by designing a I love Carlsen t-shirt

.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 08 Mar 2011 04:03

This is news to me. Why did Carlsen withdraw from the 2012 challenger cycle ? Weren't everyone on Chessbase etc claiming it as a fait accompli that Carlsen would steamroll everyone in the current grand prix cycle and of course easily overwhelm the tired old SDRE seat warmer currently clinging onto the title ? He could have done a Kasparov and sucked it up, gone through the whole process and won it, and then pushed for change. I hope throwing the toys out and walking away earns him all the deserved bad karma for the future.

Thanks once again to Stan for keeping us all updated on non-kirket sports. There have been so many times when we did something

in sports and I didn't realize until I read him write about it.

Stan_Savljevic · Post by **Stan_Savljevic** » 08 Mar 2011 05:38

Carlsen claimed he did nt like the format or some such thing. Many whines: the defending Champion gets a bye, conduct a tournament instead of Candidates matchup, five year cycle, etc. etc. etc. You can see the full laundry list here: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=6789
There is a reason why he likes a 8 player tournament. He can draw people such as Anand and beat up the rating-inflators such as Nakamura, Wang Yue, Karjakin, etc. Ivanchuk often goes below 2750 and comes back with a detonation of the worst kind, that is the vagaries of this current system. Aronian is ok, but not as high as his rating suggests. Kramnik is playing against Kasparov when he headbutts Carlsen, revenge in the air. Topalov is mentally destructed after his knockout punch. And the rest of the also-rans and new darlings run around like ceaseless wonders.

Meanwhile, Saina will start her All England campaign. Lets see if she brings home the Cup, that will be fun.

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 08 Mar 2011 05:52

Not playing to keep the rating is the norm. I know players even at the USCF level who refuse to play often for the fear of losing their ratings. But when it comes to the rivalry between China and India. If Indians are good then they play (pun intended) the system to derive the mileage and get the FIDE ratings.

Exceptional players will always rise above any system. But if one needs a steady crop of players at the international level, then the country has to put in sheer hard work. My son's chess coach, who hails from Belarus, talks about how chess was promoted in USSR. The kids came for chess lessons every day for at least 2 hours (chess hours, which translates to about 1.5 hrs) at the minimum. Chess, was not expensive, for both the players and the government.

We all are proud of our players, who have risen in-spite of the system; and shone brightly.

ps: Now if only someone will insert some danda in our kirkit STARS's musharaaf and ask them to field and bowl properly.

Stan_Savljevic · Post by **Stan_Savljevic** » 10 Mar 2011 01:58

India scored a last-gasp equaliser to eke out a 1-1 draw against Myanmar in the return leg of the 2012 Olympic football qualifiers and advanced to the second round of the competition. The Indian under-23 side, which had beaten Myanmar 2-1 in their home leg match in Pune 2-1 on February 23, won the first round tie on a 3-2 aggregate.

Meanwhile, the squash team lost 3-zip to both England and Asstralia in the WSF World Cup in Madras. Saurav Ghosal came this close to pulling off a dramatic victory. I am sure that he will rise further in the rankings till old age will kick in. It was a bit of a coup to see Joshna Chinnappa play the women's singles match against England. In the match against Asstralia, Dipika was brought back. Complicated are the ways of the management led by Cyrus Poncha.
------------------
Punk time: Finally, finally, I have something interesting (yet irritating) to talk about: hickey. All these days, I had to drop myself head first on to the floor in my arse-yet-uncompleted efforts to speak like a trublue chini. One day, I will and all ye happy sports dhaaga-ists will wonder wtf happened. If you thought I was uncibil, imagine uncibil with chini characteristics. Even Ropin Williams on cokebhai cant beat punkbhai on a roll. But yea, nevertheless, the coach for the women's team will be C.R. Kumar. Takes over from M.K. Kaushik and the period of a no-coach (following the "alleged" alleged sex scandal). Btw, the sex scandal report has been handed over to MSYA, and none of the mosquitoes that work at the toilet paper could care less to fish for it. And to top off CRK's* appointment, the Matas of Dilli (that is the feminist nazi brigade that yakkitaks with their posteriors first and pushes out a moan next) have ensured that CRK will be assisted by a woman/women deputy coach/es. But it is not clear who the one is. Some say, it will be Pritam Rani Siwach (the player-cum-coach!!). Some say, it will be Sanggai Chanu and Sumrai Tete (another player-cum-coach combo). Whoever it is, life is a-complicated onlee.

Coming to the men's side, there are four oiseaules (not the coaches, but the unretirables) in the block. HI wants Harendra Singh (the retiring showman), with Jugraj Singh and Mohammad Riaz as his deputies. IHF wants (nice try!) V. Bhaskaran (wont he ever retire?!) with Jude Felix and Gundeep Singh as deputies. SAI has Mukesh Kumar, Mohammad Riaz and Baljit Singh Saini as known contenders along with a huge segment of unknown contenders somuchso that the coach's pitch ran for two sessions, with one being a Punjab special

. And then the biggest oiseaule on the block is the MSYA with one unretirable surprisingly retired (MS Gill) and a new unretirable (Ajay Maken) in his place. Gone are the days when I would wake up with yet-another-cock-up from Gill saheb. I am sorely gonna miss those "Who are you Guru Satpal, who are you Pullela Gopichand, who are you this that" bloopers for sure. Last known address for those who are that despo: 10 Janpath.

That brings me to a heated question someone asked me some days back. If you see the pattern to coaches, some of the best and the worst have been those who have been players once. RicC (what an oiseaule), GregC (ditto), Harendra, Bhaskaran, Jude, SP Misra, Agarkar god's papa Ajit Wadekar, you name it. Some go as commentators: Barkley, Maanjakar, my caste-mate Ravi Shastri, Gavaskar, Bhogle (at least he sucked as a player and compensated that with better commentating), boo-boo Kambli =)). The new breed like Srinath and Kumble goes to muck (politics). Dudes, you two have aanjaneyaring degrees to boot, did you two forget that? It begs the question: are these guys so jobless at home, yet unable to do much else but be associated with the one sport they know? Or is it that they cant be like Kapil and find a different sport? Heated, as I said. I like heat. I also like Salma Hayek.

Anyway, the probables camp meant for the men's team has gone cancelled because the three oiseaules who matter could nt converge on anyone for the coaching spot. Ah well, wake me up when Maken-ji makes another makku** mistake. I can say this much: if there is a majority of the three with a ji-huzoor to the biggest oiseaule of the lot, the third unretirable will come around, trust me. Or if the SC janaab goes pro-active like it did with the Thomas Crown affair and dumps a Pota on every unretirable lota and his spoon, every Maken and his dada will come around with a ji-huzoor. Like I said elsewhere, the only thing every lota (including the puh-lees) in this country fears is the Court, not cos they cant fck around otherwise, but cos the big-daddy can swat and can arrest even the puh-lees. I know you did nt know that the Court can arrest the puh-lees, that is why we need an Indian law issues thread. I told ya.

PS: * Reads as kirukku (nutjob) in tamil. Unfortunately ForSecN Rao could call a jest-shot at being read as forsaken rao, but kirukku Kumar (reads like one of those Gilli movie lines -- Kadaa Kumar, Dumeel Kuppam Vavvalu for those who care to know) may not be that much nicer 2 me. He is going to swat unk with his hickey stick.
** In tamil, means stupid.

Vasu · Post by **Vasu** » 10 Mar 2011 15:03

Meanwhile, Saina's entered the second round of All England Open Badminton.

Asit P · Post by **Asit P** » 13 Mar 2011 04:44

Saina lost her quarter final match

.

negi · Post by **negi** » 13 Mar 2011 20:43

Paes was indeed right when he said 'He is the real deal' about Somdev; he has now made it to third round of Indiana Wells tournament defeating Marcos Baghdatis (ranked#22) in straight sets 7-5,6-0.

Stan_Savljevic · Post by **Stan_Savljevic** » 14 Mar 2011 00:59

And Baghdatis skipped the CWG for some skimpy reason.

negi · Post by **negi** » 15 Mar 2011 11:34

Now now Devvarman knocks out Malisse and will met Nadal n the pre-quarters/4th round.