Musings

There are few moments in sports that takes your breath away. Similarly, there are few sports person who seem to do the impossible like a routine. Think of Viv Richards, Sachin Tendulkar, Tiger Woods and the one and only Roger Federer. Oh! what a match it was yesterday. The Wimbledon finals and the champ facing a familiar opponent, but a much improved and rejuvenated one at that. Roger showed the world what steely resolve he is made of. Any other 'ordinary' player would have given up. He overcame tiredness, a relentless opponent and more importantly for most part of the 4th and final set, he seemed to have lost his 'magic' touch and he had to play a more sedate/down-to-earth tennis rather than the more sublime tennis which we are so accustomed to. I feel lucky that I could watch the last few games of this match at least. Arguably, Roddick was the much better player on display yesterday. He controlled most of the match . In fact, his serve wasn't broken till the last

There has been quite a few concerns raised by the cricket 'experts' about the overdose of T20 (IPL in particular) cricket being played. They 'fear' the youngsters will take it to T20 cricket more than the Test cricket, which is the 'pinnacle' of the game. I have to completely disagree with these experts on this. The main worry of the experts is that there is so much money at stake in the T20 format that youngsters will be lured into it and they will abandon playing for country (read Test cricket). Now, what is wrong with earning money? You can't select every good cricketer to represent the country (only 11 'best' can play!). These IPLs and T20s give the youngsters a different avenue to realize their potential and earn money too. I see this T20 preference to be a pragmatic option left before a cricket youngster today. If at all the ICC want to promote the Test cricket, it definitely needs to be made more exciting, especially to the spectators. Market