Commentators all over the world are boring. I used to think that the case with tennis was different than that with cricket. This year's ESPN coverage of the Aussie open has changed that notion.

Meanwhile I have been sitting on my ass too much of late. Starting with my return journey back to the U.S. For instance, I could do well to shut off the dumb tennis match between Verdasco and Berdych right now and take a little walk around the house.

Sena vs SRK

I simply don't care about this issue anymore. I frankly feel Pak cricketers are way overrated and would not have been great assets to their IPL teams anyway. This has been proven in the past editions. While there has been the odd-success-story of Sohail Tanvir there have been several disappointments - Mohd Asif, Shahid Afridi, Shoaib Akhtar, Shoaib Malik to name a few.

Shiv Sena is a fairly irrelevant political entity. Their recent ramblings against Tendulkar should prove beyond a doubt that they have completely lost it. So there is no reason to make a big deal about them targeting SRK.

Both parties are interested in gaining mileage out of this fracas. Sena is trying to get one up on the MNS via this issue. SRK is making sure his film will be a super-hit thanks to this publicity.

What is even more stupid is the way respected journalists are giving importance to this fairly irrelevant issue.

Blog Defunct

Don't really know why. Anyway almost done for the day - will probably twitter away.

Let's Clean Our Own House First

Amid all the finger-pointing and Pakistan bashing (which I am in no way judging) it is important to ensure we get our house in order first. It was "great" to see the public - and self-proclaimed saviors of the public - the media houses get to work and getting the politicians first to apologize and then to resign. Big victory eh ?

But what about the security officials ? Why isn't their role being questioned ? It sounds unfathomable, unpardonable, impossible to me that a ship that had surely required several hours to travel purportedly from Karachi to Mumbai could not be spotted and identified as hostile.

The Navy has gone and on about disconnects between intelligence, lack of written intelligence (WTF ?) and lack of specificity. So is the Navy completely free of blame. What about the Coast Guards ? Why are these people not being made to pay ? Or is it that just because we saw the Marcos (Marine Commandos) on TV talk about their "heroic" rescue act that their mistakes that are probably the single most important cause of the loss of 200 lives forgotten and forgiven ?

Moving beyond having these people pay, what measures are being taken to make sure the Coast Guard does not make these gaffes again ? Are they being armed with better surveillance equipment ? It can be understood if these actions are not mentioned in the public domain for security concerns but shouldn't we at least be given a notification that "some" action is being taken ? That the people concerned are concerned about this problem ?

I believe India's response in the first few days after 26/11 was reasonable and understandable. The need to stand up and be counted, be vigilant, alert citizens was emphasized. But within two weeks that positive note seems to have been lost. The sole focus now seems to have shifted to getting Pakistan to act and mounting pressure on them - thinking of ways to tackle Pakistan - while it is more important to figure ways of tackling ourselves all the time. Do the media stars feel they have done their job by getting politicians to resign and apologize ? Why are all their efforts now directed to getting them to answer about what is the response to Pakistan ? Why is no one bothered about bringing to justice the men who let us down in our security ? Why is the loss of focus from ourselves ?

On Site View: IPL Rocks Chennai!!!

This post was originally posted on Outside Edge

The IPL Party finally arrived at Chennai yesterday – the last of its eight stops all around the country. I had returned to Chennai only the day before and presumed that I was too late to join in. Tickets, it seemed, had sold like hot cakes and I had resigned myself to watching the game on the TV in the hostel room.

With the match scheduled to start at 8 pm, I set out with some vague plan after 5. I had been told by sources that the best chance of picking up tickets at this late hour would be at one of the Landmark bookstores in the city. I tried and failed. Faced with the choice of returning home and taking a chance at the stadium, most likely on a black ticket, I opted for the latter without much hope.

Even before getting off from the train at the Chepauk station, the floodlights from the stadium stared right into my eyes. It was an awe-inspiring sight. I had seen the same light towers day in and day out when I was there for the test match, but at night, the towers are a completely different spectacle. By the time I detrained, and joined in the thronging crowds I was welcomed by the loud music that was doing the rounds inside. The ticket counter was surprisingly still open. Anxiously, I asked for the ticket and I could scarcely believe my luck as the old man calmly told me to hand over Rs. 1000 and tore out one. For the second time in a month, completely unexpectedly, and hence unprepared, I found myself walking through the gates of the Cognizant stand and into the Chidambaram stadium. I had done the right thing by taking the chance.

Though there was still more than a hour and a half to go for the game, the players were already on the field doing their warm-ups, the crowd was already sizeable and the entertainment show was on full blast. This was my first time at any live sport event played at night and the spectacle is awesome! The lush green outfield blends beautifully with the blue of the Mumbai Indians and of course, the yellow of the Chennai Super Kings. Once I was in my seat I tried to figure out who the performer was. Luckily the stage was right opposite to our stand; yet it was too far away to identify the people. Then I vaguely remembered reading somewhere that it was Hariharan who was supposed to be the artist today. Later of course they showed him on the big screen. I haven’t been following that guy’s music too closely but it seems he is projecting himself as more than a musician, more like some sort of a rock-star and he did some dance moves that appeared a bit scary, to be polite. His music was good though and he mixed Tamil numbers with Hindi ones – notable among those I remembered were “Kay Zala?” and “Krishna”.

The crowd was understandably, quite different from the test match crowd a month ago. It was very young, very vibrant crowd, mainly of teenagers and people in their early twenties. And it was a completely festive atmosphere with everyone partying their hearts out, dancing and singing. There was ample amount of cheering and applause for players from both teams as well as for the entertainers. And in the middle of it all suddenly everyone went crazy and I couldn’t understand why – and later realized it was Vijay, the super star of South India and the Star Ambassador of the Super Kings who did the rounds of the ground.

Once Hariharan was done with his show some time before the toss, Sivamani, the famous Tamil percussionist took over with his drums. He was great – throughout the Chennai innings he stirred up the crowds with his beats and moved all around the perimeter of the ground so that all sections got a chance to soak him in. Dance and music was the theme of the night and for once, a purist like me, did not crib about cricket being only a part of the whole. If you have been watching IPL on TV thinking it is big, you haven’t seen anything yet. You have just got to go out there in the stadium to feel what passion, what heat this thing has generated all over young India.

As the game began and Chennai Super Kings batted each boundary was greeted with a new piece of music from Sivamani and others, and the crowds rose to his beats and tunes. There were cheerleaders, yes, of both camps; and the poor gals and guys of the Mumbai Indians got very few chances to cheer during the Chennai innings. But we loved their anthem and some of their numbers. In fact I could relate more to some of the Mumbai numbers because naturally I was unaware of some of the super-hit Tamil numbers that had the rest jumping from their seats and me a bit confused. The weird part though was that the cheerleaders were fully clad in trousers perhaps bearing in mind the relatively conservative culture of Chennai. I mean what next? Cheerleading with sweaters on in this heat?

Coming to the cricket, I can now appreciate how difficult it is to catch those high catches under lights. Several times looking straight up into the lights I completely lost the ball. Yet several wonderful catches were taken – notably by Bravo, Joginder, Raina and Badrinath. We cheered Hayden as one of our own yet he didn’t really show much appreciation after reaching his 50. The strokeplay on either side was spectacular – Raina for Chennai and Bravo, Jayasuruiya, Utthappa, Nayyar and Bhajji from Mumbai. The new fast bowler Gony from Chennai was most impressive. He was bowling away from us and I could feel the weight his ball generated troubling the top players like Jayasuriya. I also noticed Harbhajan completely lost as a captain and towards the end of the innings Jayasuriya was taking the lead helping him out adjusting the field and swapping fielders.

As the match reached a climax, the crowd tensed up just a little bit. It was an open game with three balls to go but somehow with Dhoni on our side I never believed we could lose. It was oh so similar to the T20 World Cup final with Joginder messing up at the start before holding his nerve to win. It was a massive roar and a collective sigh of relief that followed the win. It had been an amazing game and an astonishing spectacle of cricket and one grand party. To make it even more special the presentation lasted beyond midnight which meant it was Sachin Tendulkar’s birthday. There were several attempts to attract attention to this fact and that we remembered it by the crowd, unfortunately Tony Cozier during his presentation didn’t quite lap it up and I don’t know if Sachin received our wishes. Of course, he was cheered everytime he made an appearance on the big screen.

The Indian Premier League like a superhit Bollywood (or Kollywood) movie has enjoyed a grand opening. I hope it can sustain this success because it is just great. It has managed to harness the passion and energy of a whole generation of Indians. There is no reason to believe why it can’t go on to match the Premier Leagues of football in Europe. I want to be there again when Chennai take on Kolkata on Saturday. I want to be part of the phenomenon of this cricket revolution. The party has only begun. There are going to be many more such wild and glorious nights to follow. Cheers!

A Miracle ?

First you come up with reservations. Then you say they can't be permanent. You say they need to be reviewed after 5 or 10 years ! In effect what you are saying that this reservation policy is such a brilliant policy that it has the ability to overturn in a period of 5-10 years the effects of the past 2000 years ! WOW ! Please ! Give me a break !

Since when have reservations existed in India ? For the past 6 decades or so ? If it has done nothing to better society, by your own admission what makes you feel that the next 5-10 years would witness a drastic miracle ?

Funny, all this.

Oh by the way, Arjun Singh has supported Rahul Gandhi for PM. Just to let you know, Arjun, he is not a so-called "OBC".

Sampras vs. Federer

So would Federer vs. Sampras have been the great rivalry that everyone fantasizes about? After following the current exhibition series between the two great champions, my hunch is “No”. This may surprise and disappoint a lot of people – a lot of others would completely ignore my hypothesis and write me off as a know-nothing without much thought. However, personally I believe that it would not have been as great a rivalry as Sampras-Agassi or even Federer-Nadal for that matter. This is because their games do not complement each other. They compete with each other. They are very similar in so many respects – the actual similarities though interesting, in their own right, are irrelevant to the discussion here – what is important is the idea that the game of tennis at its best is more than a sport – it is a spectacle, it is a piece of art that requires the two players or artists (note, artists, not opponents) to co-operate to make it a masterpiece while competing at the same time - In a manner in which Federer’s precision blends with Nadal’s power, Sampras’ serve blends with Agassi’s return.

I am not saying that either one of the players would have dominated the other had Federer and Sampras played in the same era. They would have probably won roughly an equal number of games. It is merely that their games might not have been the classics that Sampras-Agassi games were (ref. Wimbledon 1999 to name just one) or Nadal-Federer games are (ref Wimbledon 2007).