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Venky’s chicken takes over Blackburn Rovers: New Product Ideas (Satire)
The news that Indian poultry giant Venkateshwara Hatcheries (VH) affectionately known to all as Venky’s chicken, struck a deal to take over BlackBurn Rovers , an English Premier League (EPL) team has come like a thunderbolt out of the blue.
This is a wonderful time for Indian companies making their presence felt across the international sporting arena.
The Indian Premier League is the second most expensive league in the world.
Force India is Vijay Mallya’s acquisition in the Formula 1.
And now Blackburn Rovers joins the stable of notable sporting buyouts.
Well, if you can’t beat them, let’s buy them is a mantra that is easy to follow!
The acquisition of Blackburn Rovers and the sizeable Asian population there leads Venky’s strategic marketing advisors to look for synergies between the historic footballing franchise and the poultry giant.
IPL: Kochi franchisee in ICU , issued a thirty day termination notice
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If the BCCI bigwigs were in a tearing, unholy hurry to terminate the Lalit Modi-associated franchisees — Rajasthan Royals and Kings XI Punjab — they are now dragging their feet and going by the book in their dealings with the Kochi consortium.
The IPL governing council met this morning , October 27, 2010 . After due deliberations they issued a thirty day termination notice to the alliance partners.
Shashank Manohar — a lawyer by profession — pronounced that the Kochi franchise’s case is quite different from the other two expelled franchisees. Since there were no new partners added to the shareholding structure , it is considered a ‘remedial breach’ of the agreement. The Kochi franchisee lives on for another thirty days.
"The Governing Council has invoked clause 12 (1) and given them a 30 days notice that in case they don’t remedy these disputes in the 30 days, the franchise would stand cancelled on the 31st day," he said.
The infractions by the other two franchisees have been termed ‘intermediary breaches’.
IPL: Sunny Gavaskar’s ‘revolving door’ is greeted with disdain in the Indian media
Doubts still linger about Sunny Gavaskar’s role in the Kochi franchise bid.
Was he just being helpful when he informed the Kochi consortium members about how the bidding process worked?
Should not the Kochi franchisee members have approached the BCCI for clarifications rather than a sitting member of the IPL Governing Council?
The question of propriety is yet to be answered comprehensively by the master batsman.
If the Kochi proposal is accepted by the BCCI and Sunny Gavaskar handles the newly formed team’s cricketing operations, would this not be a case of a ‘revolving door’ where Sunny has moved from a governing body to being part of a governed body?
IPL: Sunny Gavaskar hits the headlines, Kochi decision on Wednesday
Sunny Gavaskar hits the deadlines once more; this time it is his links with the Kochi franchise that have drawn flak from all quarters.
The Indian batting legend , the first cricketer to score 10,000 runs and surpass Don Bradman’s 29 tons, is mulling over an offer from the Gaikwads, the Rendezvous group owners, to handle all matters cricketing.
The news comes as a bit of a surprise and there exists speculation about Gavaskar’s role in the bidding process as a possible conflict of interest ; the master batsman was then on the IPL governing council.
(The fallout between Lalit Modi and Shashi Tharoor was the result of allegations that Tharoor sought Modi’s interference in the bidding process to ensure that the Kochi group’s bid would be successful.)
Gavaskar is no longer a part of the IPL set-up; he quit the re-constituted governing council citing differences with the BCCI.
Was the conflict of interest a reason for the differences? If yes, why then was just the super accumulator penalised?
Tennis Bytes: Somdev rises to 94, a shorter ATP tour?
Somdev is hitting his stride and new heights on the ATP tour.
His ranking has risen to 94, his best ever on the ATP tour.
Somdev has been hovering in and out of the top 100 for the past few months.
A ranking within the top 100 will ensure automatic entry into the majors allowing him to skip the grind of qualifying rounds.
Devvarman recently clinched the men’s singles gold at the CommonWealth Games in New Delhi, justifying his top seeding.
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IPL: A Sea Of Storms For Kochi, Kings XI and Rajasthan Royals
Image by kdewhunter via Flickr
The route to IPL4 has never seemed as foggy as it is today.
And there seems to be no one sounding the fog horn either!
The three vessels SS Kings XI Punjab, SS Rajasthan Royals and SS Kochi are stranded in the stormy seas seeking a lighthouse to guide them to safety.
But their distress signals , their SOSs, have received little response from the current keepers of the beacon.
The IPL seas are still uncharted waters and the reefs are mapped as they are traversed.
Three voyages in three seasons and it was Heigh Ho! Life’s a bottle of rum!
Life’s not so rummy any more for the voyagers.
Nor quite so profitable!
The treasure hunt continues!
Tennis Bytes: Sampras in the news, Federer wins 64th title
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Pete Sampras is in the news — in an active role and a passive one.
Roger Federer won the If Stockholm Open equalling Sampras’ record of 64 career titles.
Along the way, Federer passed 900 career matches —- the only current player on the tour to do so.
An interesting bit of trivia is that Federer has never retired from any of his matches.
This is hard evidence of his durability and mental toughness.
Federer’s powers may be on the wane but his popularity with fans endures.
The Stockholm Open did not offer any real challenge to Federer but sometimes the less challenging ones are harder to win.
Pete Sampras lost to Greg Rusedski 4-6,2-6 at Chengdu, China in an ATP Champions Tour event final.
The event also saw the debut of Thai star, Paradorn Srichapan.
The top seed in the event was Swede Thomas Enqvist.
This is one tour when the also-rans can get their own sweet measure of revenge for the many defeats inflicted on them by their better counterparts in their heyday.
Greg Rusedski boasts of just one win against the 14 time Grand Slam champion on the ATP tour.
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IPL: The octopus spreads its tentacles to South Africa, Kochi and Lalit Modi in troubled waters
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Cricket South Africa (CSA) reminded us that the tentacles of the IPL mess are not restricted to just Indian and English shores.
CSA have terminated an external investigation into the bonuses paid by Lalit Modi to CSA chief executive Gerald Majola and 40 other staff during the IPL’s second season.
The IPL was moved to South Africa in 2009 following the Indian government’s refusal to provide adequate security for the event because of the clash with the general election. The security apparatus of the state could not be stretched to meet both concerns.
A payment of 4.7 million rands was made to Majola and his associates.
The South African opposition has slammed the switch to an internal investigation as ‘disappointing’.
The Enforcement Directorate(ED) is known to be investigating the payment back in India as apparently there was no tax paid on the foreign exchange transfers.
Indian cricket: More cricketing mores
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The third one-day between India and Australia was rained off. A similar fate befell the first one-day at Kochi.
It just goes to show that cramming in a series in what’s usually the off-season requires detailed planning. Though we had a wonderful Test series, the fans and spectators were left short-changed by the washout of the two ODIs.
Rain, rain, go away, the Ozzies and Indies want to play!
The Australians are probably left a little shell-shocked by the way their curtailed tour of India turned out. A winless tour for a team of their calibre will rankle for a long time.
I don’t envy the Poms when they meet the kangaroos down under.
The Australians will be doubly motivated to move up the rankings and prove that their recent losses are just an aberration.
Indian badminton: Jwala Gutta, the doubles flame
Jwala Gutta has always been in the news but always for the wrong reasons.
Unlike her singles counterpart, Saina Nehwal, controversy seems to court her with a vengeance.
So who is Jwala Gutta?
Jwala is a left-handed badminton player of mixed Indian and Chinese descent.
According to Wikipedia:
“Her mother’s grandfather, Tseng from Tianjin, was a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi and stayed with him at Sevagram ashram, where he translated Gandhi’s autobiography and other works into Chinese.”
With her doubles victory partnering Ashwini Ponappa at the CommonWealth Games 2010 , New Delhi, Gutta is now a household name and can count herself among the limited pantheon of Indian sports heroes.
Jwala and her partner Diju also clinched a silver at the CWG in the mixed doubles , going down in the final to the Malaysian pair Koo Kien Keat and Chin Ee Hui 14-21, 21-10, 10-21.
But the path to glory has been a thorny one.
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