All posts tagged: Sandeep Dwivedi writes

Saliva or not, IPL will remain ‘six fest’ if ground realities don’t change | Ipl News

Saliva or not, IPL will remain ‘six fest’ if ground realities don’t change | Ipl News

It is that time of the year when bowlers have second thoughts about their career choice. If IPL can give false confidence to batsmen about their abilities, it can also shatter the conviction of bowlers, get them social media abuse and give lifelong trauma. This season the BCCI has allowed bowlers, cricket’s marginalized lot, to use saliva to shine the ball and in case of heavy dew in the second innings provide them a dry old ball. Thanks but no thanks, that’s too little, too late. This can’t be the antidote to cure the bat-ball imbalance in white-ball cricket. Last season, IPL saw an unprecedented 1260 sixes hit by batsmen with varying skill sets. There was one every 13 balls. The season before that, pacer Yash Dayal, on a lifeless Ahmedabad track, was hit for five sixes in an over by Rinku Singh. Dayal became the butt of jokes, subject of memes. Kids would shout ‘Rinku, Rinku, paanch chhakka’ outside his home and run away. He couldn’t sleep, he had nightmares. The pacer on the …

Why US Open’s  million prize money can’t make Mixed Doubles great again | Tennis News

Why US Open’s $1 million prize money can’t make Mixed Doubles great again | Tennis News

There was once a time when tennis stadia wouldn’t empty out after the singles programme. Doubles too had stars and ardent followers. And then there was the uniquely vibrant mixed doubles circuit where greats on either side of the gender divide came together. The US Open, by offering a million dollar incentive, Las Vegas-style fanfare and a new diet-format to woo the singles champions, is trying to make mixed doubles great again. But then, if money had the power to turn back the clock, that dreamy feeling of nostalgia would have been the most popular product on Amazon. Back in the day, when tennis truly qualified as a team sport, hardcore tennis reporters would have for company entertainment hacks and gossip columnists to watch the stars in mixed company. Story continues below this ad This was a battle of sexes. At times, even the exes. In the early 1970s, the two best players in the world, Jimmy Connors and Chris Evert, were America’s ‘boy and girl next door’. The world wanted them to get married …

How Donald Trump is Making America Golf Again but a book titled ‘Commander in Cheat’ raises red flags | Golf News

How Donald Trump is Making America Golf Again but a book titled ‘Commander in Cheat’ raises red flags | Golf News

Donald Trump is Making America Golf Again and the greens around the world are buzzing. Politicians are dusting off their clubs to bond with the golfer president-elect and the pros are desperate to play a round or two with him. The office of South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol recently confirmed that the premier has taken up golf. Yoon is said to be inspired by the late Japan PM Shinzo Abe’s successful golf-diplomacy during Trump’s last presidential stint. But it is the serious golfers who are seeking the urgent intervention of Trump, and his virtual running-mate Elon Musk. They want the two to end the long-standing stand-off that threatens to divide the global golfing landscape. Power and money – Trump and Musk – can strike a deal between the Professional Golf Association and the rebel breakaway Saudi-backed LIV Golf. Among his many pre-election boasts, the man who prides himself on his negotiation skills had said that he could broker a deal between the PGA and LIV Golf in “15 minutes”. And within days of Trump’s re-entry …

Yusuf Pathan’s new innings and how politics re-labels and brackets national stars | Cricket News

This was early 2000 in Baroda. It was the time a middle-aged muezzin, connected to the city’s famous Jama Masjid, was living probably the busiest period of his life. The mosque was his place of work and worship. It was also his home. His family of five had a designated room inside the holy complex, situated in Baroda’s crowded Mandvi area. Between giving prayer-calls, the muezzin would sweep the long corridors of the ancient structure. To make ends meet, he would also sell ittar on the steps of the masjid, work at a chemical factory and at times even ferry a three-wheeler auto-rickshaw. The deeply-religious man, though, would also pedal to drop his two sons to a cricket ground. The elder one would ride pillion, the younger would sit on the bar that connected the seat to the handle. With the kids carrying two huge cricket kits also, this was one of the many balancing acts, the father with a meager income would be expected to pull off all day. Those many cycle rides would …

What Novak Djokovic can learn from Golden Slam winner Steffi Graf? | Tennis News

If Novak Djokovic says that he can walk on water, the world is most likely to believe him. So late last year when the Serb said that 2024 for him would be about winning the Olympic gold medal at Paris and sweeping the four Slams, the ambitious new year goal sounded reasonable and realistic for most. The ones not convinced by the Serbian living legend were those who had diligently followed the then 19-year-old Steffi Graf’s magical Golden Grand Slam year of 1988. Djokovic might have won a world record 24 Slams but at 36 he isn’t the Steffi of the late 80s. The 1988 bar is too high. The German phenomenon lost a grand total of just two sets in all the four Grand Slams she won. Djokovic, by the way, has already lost two sets in the first two rounds of the season’s opening Slam – the ongoing Australian Open. Steffi’s breakthrough win of 1988 was at Wimbledon, where she stopped Martina’s six-year long unbeaten run. Credited with bringing power to the game, …