inroads

Cricket World Cup 2011: Afterthoughts on the India-Pakistan semi-final

The much awaited, much hyped, Mother Of All Games between sub-continental giants—India and Pakistan—is finally behind us.

India won, Pakistan lost.

Indian fans will celebrate.

Pakistani fans will mourn.

Another sub-continental giant—Sri Lanka—await the men in blue on Saturday, the 2nd of April, 2011 in Mumbai.

Despite it sounding like a cliché on a stuck record, can Team India do it for Sachin Tendulkar?

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Soderling clinches Paris Masters in style: Heartbreak for Monfils again

Soderling takes home the Paris Masters for the first time.

Monfils could not use the momentum of the crowd to make inroads into the Swede’s game.

The first set was an one-sided affair with the tall Nordic breaking twice to take the set 6-1.

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Disastrous run at World T20!

Image via Wikipedia

With India’s 2 matches of the Super 8 match over and with them effectively India’s hopes of qualifying for the semis,  it is time to make a couple of points about India’s no-show at this tourney.

1> The standard of cricket exhibited at the IPL and the World T20 are reams apart. In the latter, we have the best teams representing their country, whereas the IPL teams are constrained to having just 4 foreign internationals representing them and at the same time they need to ensure that deserving youngsters (read youngsters with potential) are given a chance to ware their talents. So suddenly we have our IPL heroes peppered with short-pitched balls and when you are a team batting second and chasing a  large total, you have to try and hit every ball and the proclivity to succumb to the short-pitched variety is both exposed and exploited. Besides, since when have Indian batsmen known to be masters of the short ball?

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