Lets forget about Rooney, Arshavin and Messi for the moment and go down to Barbados. Rewind to 1994. Not to Brian Lara's 375, not to the house of Joel Garner or Gary Sobers. There is an interesting match between Grenada and Barbados. Lets go out there to watch a Shell Carribean Match "maaan". A match in which both teams will later on try to pull of a 'Diaby'. (Remember ManU v Arsenal this season??!!....Sorry Abou)
You would think that the basic tactic to win a football match would be to put the ball between the two posts, in the net. In the OPPOSITION net that is.
Barbados needs to win by two goals to progress to the next round. A draw would mean, extra-time and golden goal. Anything less than a two-goal win and Barbados are out. There was one weird rule though, a GOLDEN GOAL in the extrat-time would count as two goals.
Barbados are leading by 2-1 in the 85th minute. Not enough to go to the next round. Grenadan Defence is water-tight and there seems to be no way in for Barbados. A Barbados striker realizes that there is no way into the ultra-defensive Grenadan goal in the next 5 minutes. So, he runs towards his own goal and riffles the ball past his own stunned goalie!! 2-2!!
The comical farce begins now. Grenada, initially confused, realize whats going on. They try to pull off a "Diaby" themselves (Sorry Abou again). But, the Barbados players are mindful of that and they start defending the Grenadan Goal. The Barbados players managed to force the match into extra time and eventually won on a GOLDEN GOAL!!.
The Grenadians manager James Clarkson was furious. "I feel cheated, the person who came up with these rules must be a candidate for the madhouse.
"The game should never be played with so many players on the field confused. Our players did not even know which direction to attack; our goal or their goal. I have never seen this happen before. In football, you are supposed to score against your opponents in order to win, not for them."
Type Grenada vs Barbados on youtube to watch clips of the match.
Forza Azzura.......Come on Arsenal.......GO India GO.... lets kick some Fulham and Paki ass!!!
7 ODIs and 2 T20's!!......While England are getting their asses whooped by the OZ's, I wonder if it should be the other way round......I mean it should have been 2 ODIs and 7 T20's.....
TEST CRICKET is the real deal......We have talked about that a few times....especially Lucy and me have had a few arguments on that.......So lets leave TEST cricket in its pristine form. I dont care what people say......"5 days!!??"....."Yes....5 days....."
......To me, there is nothing more exciting and intriguing than the first day, first session of a Test match.....
But how about new rules in ODIS......
My proposal is as follows:
--Divide the 50 overs into two 25-over innings.......
--The 2nd innings will continue from where it left off in the first innings. Which means that the batsmen who got out in the first innings CAN NOT bat again in the second innings.
--The team that wins the toss for the 1st innings automatically looses the toss for the 2nd innings.
What are the adavantages of it?
--Changes the "What is getting boring" ODI format. New tactics. Teams would want to loose the toss as they would get to choose for the 2nd innings!!
--Toss factor gets reduced. In day-night matches, both teams would have to bat under lights.
--If there is rain after 50 overs, the winner could be dclared based on the first innings.
Any comments?.......
Does the idea suck? or
It wont make too much difference. ODIs are dying anyway? or
Any other suggestions to improve the format?
Guys......my Arsenal predicitions have come good so far. So you better read this one too. and if you have not read the Arsenal predictions, then go down and read my Arspective before you read this.
NRI. Is it Non-resident Indians? or Non- returning Indians as she said in that movie? Or is it Not Required Indians?
I recently read an article which talked about the latest policy(You guys may be already aware of this policy) adopted by the India's Sports Ministry. From now on, only the Indian passport holders can represent India in international sporting events. My intial reaction to this article was "What the......You mean this rule was not there till now. I mean its not even a 'rule' per se. Its just common sense. Of course, non-Indians cannot represent India." But as it turned out, the reference was made to ABCD's. That is, people with foreign passport but Indian origin. But still, how can a non Indian-passport-holder represent India? 
Well, till recently that indeed was the case. And that indeed was one of the reasons, why India did well in some sports at least at the Asian level, if not at the international level. Shikha Oberoi, born in Mumbai and brought up in the US, has had a career-high singles world ranking of 122. She won India the silver meda in the Doha Asian games. With a world- ranking of 210, the US-passported Prakash Amritraj is among the top-ranked Indians. Leave him out, and you come to the "citizens" of India, then you are looking at Rohan Bopanna with a world ranking 333. Among women, leave Sunita Rao(Us citizen) ranked at 197, and then you are looking at Isha Lakshmi at 362. Tennis, it seems, is the hardest-hit victim. It faces the hardly enviable task of either dropping these players or convince them to change their passports. Shikha Oberoi, for one, has already stated that she will let go the American citizenship and dig into her old locker to revalidate the Indian passport. 
OK STOP. Stop staring at the picture above and continue reading the post.
It could take India a long time to recover from and start performing even at the Asian level. The impact this policy may have might be so deep/long that it could
outweigh the long-term gains of this policy. Critics also say that this policy could be unfair to the foreign-born Indian kids, depreiving them of the opportunity to represent their homeland because of a slight change in a technical document(the passport I mean....ok slight change in a technical book if you like it that way). In this era of ever-increasing globalization, has the Indian government erred by inflating the value of a passport? If Gary Kirsten could be our coach, Gregory King our trainer, whats wrong if we allow the ABCDs to represent India?
Whats wrong? Whats wrong is that the local players will always remain in the shadow of the ABCD's. With lesser training facilities the local talent will always fail to compete with their ABCD(ABCD = American Born Confused Desi.....for those who are condering what the f... it means. Its a general term used for someone with a foreign passport but with an India origin) counterparts. And hence, the abyssmal state of Indian sports, the poor facilities will remain unexposed for ever. Perhaps, the grassroots will be cleaned up. And rather than waiting for the next ABCD kid delivered, the Indian government may improve the facilties to develop the local talent. Let HOPE SO!!
One more question that came to my mind was. " Had Prakash Amritraj been good enough to represent the USA, would he even consider playing for India?" Chances are that he would not. So, should we allow a US reject to represent our country. Well, the answer I think, unfortunately is, YES if he is better than our best.
Vishy(Grand master Vishwanathan Anand) suggested a solution to solve the problem at hand. 
His vision:
1) Long-term: No non-citizen should represent India.
2) Short term: Donot enforce the policy immediately. Announce the policy and tell everyone that it will be enforced in a year.
This will give the various federations time to think, time to talk to the players. It would also give the ABCDs time to think if they would want to give-up their foreing passport to represent India. I totally aggree with "Namma Tamilian".
Come-on Arsenal !!
"Maradonas made in India" This was the slogan which caught everyone's attention when Maradona was here in India in December last year. He inaugurated the private academy which has some big plans for football development in India. I was browsing through the slideshare and came across their presentation and thought to share it to you all. Football is catching everyone's attention in India. Hope to see India playing in 2020 world cup.
