What A Week Its Been!!!

As write this post as I would have completed one whole month of blogging. I have spent enough time in writing posts on various articles. It has been gratifying to see people world over reading articles. By now I can claim to have had at least one reader from all the six continents. And now back to the topic…

Ohh!!! What an awesome week it has been for the entire Indian sports fraternity. The Aussies have been beaten most comprehensively in the last decade and Vishy has taken a massive lead over Vladimir Karmnik in the World Championships. And the second season of the Indian Cricket League is also underway.
.
.
“Look at the scoreboard. Maybe you won't be able to see that again happening to Australia”
.
.

The Indian test team tamed the World Champions in Mohali by a record margin. The team was captained by Dhoni because of Kumble’s injury. The Aussies were outdone by something that they have regularly displayed against the opposition, that’s aggression form the word go. One could clearly see what impact Sehwag has on the test. Even if he plays for half a session as in the case of 1st innings, he has a tremendous impact on the innings ands sets a good tempo for the entire innings. Finally, the “Fab Four” other than Laxman scored runs and contributed to the victory after a long time. Sachin crossed the Lara’s record and also crossed the 12,000 runs. And now that he has crossed that record, one can expect him announce his retirement anytime from the longer form of the game. Even though Dravid had good starts but he could not build a long innings. Anyway, a marathon innings is due from him for a long time. Suddenly, Ganguly seems to have started playing really well. The irony is that he has started doing this after announcing his retirement. Nevertheless, he is in good touch and I hope he would leave the cricketing arena after a great test series.

Disap”Ponting” show

.

And Aussies never looked like a champion side. Ponting had a defensive field and his bowler could not live up to his expectation. Probably he is finding it tough to play without the likes of McGrath, Shane Warne and Gilchrist. This is one difference between a good captain and a great one like Steve Waugh. Steve built a champion side out of crisis and took them to great heights. Till now Ponting’s captaincy was looking good only because of these great players and his weaknesses are starting to get reflected as he starts playing without these .

“World Champion in making”

.

Next great thing to happen for Indians was Vishy taking lead in world championships held in Bonn. He is up against a great player who is carrying the Russian legacy of supremacy in those 64 squares. His performance has come on top of his dip in his form recently. He has played 6 games out of 12 games. The score lines stands at 4.5-1.5. Only thing that Vishy has to do is to ensure that he does not let his complacency to get the better of him. He is a veteran in the game and highly sensible to be outdone by complacency, especially for the title of World Champion.

A Cradle of Talent
.
The second season of the rebel league on its way and there have been lot of improvements in the format. The tournament was timed along with the India-Australia series. In spite of this more than 20,000 people turned up as audience for the first match held in Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium in Hyderabad. The quality of cricket that these players play is really good, at times better than those matches of IPL. IPL was able to achieve better TRPs due to star players in the format. ICL has been able to offset that difference by introducing national teams from Pakistan and Bangladesh. The overseas players have shown impressive commitment. They have thrown themselves around on the field, encouraged the local cricketers, and taken their mentorship role very seriously. It’s a question of time before BCCI sheds its ego and revokes the ban on ICL players.

What a week it’s been for Indian sporting fraternity. One might not see such good things happening with in a span of week for long time to come.