Aug 4th Updates

Quotable quotes of the week
The fact that my speech struck a chord in the valley and the rest of the country is a uique experience for me - Omar Abudallah National Conference President on his speech in the Parliament on the trust vote
The land of Mahatma Gandhi has been blooded by terrorists, whom we should not spare -- Narendra Modi Gujarat CM
The action of India and China has thrown the entire Doha round in to the gravest jeopardy of its seven year life -- David Shark US trade official critizing the countries for the failure of the talks
Formula1
There could not have been a better race for the twists and turns- the Hungaroring is one of the toughest circuits on the formula one course- first overtaking is next to impossible and the track is very hard on the cars and engine as well as the tyres - One of the key things is that whoever takes pole in the Saturday qualifying is a winner in all likelyhood- So when Lewis Hamilton of Mclaren took the pole , one thought that the Briton was on course for his third consecutive race win of the season-- No that did not happen -- First Felippe Massa of Ferrari took the bull by the horn by gaining over Hamilton and his teammate Kovalienen in the first corner-- that was a big surprise as Ferrari are poor starters and Mclaren would not have expected this to happen-- Hamilton followed Massa till he had a puncture that ruined his chances to win and pushed him down the order from second to as low as tenth-- Meanwhile Raikonen was having a ordinary race and was in sixth place-- The sixtyseventh lap of the seventy lap race changed the entire race course-- Massa's engine blew and it gave the race lead to Kovalienen -- Raikonen who moved to fourth suddenly found new motivation to race and was vying for a second place-- but better sense from Ferrari told him to go slow ( avoid another engine blow out ) and he finished third ( unexpected )- Massa's failure has helped Lewis to stay at the top and he leads with 62 points followed by Raikonen at 58 and Massa at 54- Clearly in this race Lewis Hamilton was lucky and he survived on that to stay at the top -- definetely not on his driving skills
Cricket
What a turnaround -- last week I had written in bitter disgust at the performance of the Indian team but said we will watch and suppor the Indian team anyway-- Well we have to now following their splendid win at Galle -- Virender Sewag lead the charge by a scintiallating knock where he did only one thing - hammer the ball to all parts of the ground with audacious shots and picking the length with ease -- The mystery spinner Mendis held no terror as he attacked him with gusto-- It was clear that others still struggled to pick the mystery spinner with the exception of may be Gautam Gambhir-- All these do not matter- we won and that was important and what a great win for us and all of us now need to watch the next test and be so focussed on it ( Common , we have to do this !!! )
One more fascinating duel lasted for around 15 minutes and it was a interesting duel between Andrew Flintoff and Jac Kallis on the second day of the Edgbaston test between SA and England-- Flintoff bowled three great overs in this spell - In the first he had Kallis searching for the ball , in the second over , he beat Kallis four times in the over and then sent in a Yorker crashing in to the stumps to get rid of Kallis-- the sound of the ball thudding in to the stumps was great to hear and only cricket lovers will like this sound !! While every one appreciated this , it was learnt that sighting the ball was difficult from the height at which Flintoff was delivering and sight screen background was insufficent -- so the reason for Flintoff to do what he did at the fag end of the day .
Does not matter-- the fifteen minutes of the duel was a purist's delight
Tennis
What would be Roger Federer thinking ?After being the world no 1 for 255 weeks ( yes over four years ), Federer was dethroned this week by none other than Rafel Nadal- This was coming -- Federer lost in the French open to Nadal and then was buried in his own backyard at the Wimbeldon by Nadal again and then strangely was kncked out off in a couple of tournaments in the first round -- All this lead to the gap narrowing down between the no1 and the no 2- Last week end , another defeat and Nadal moving in to the semi finals of the same tournament ensured that Federer did not gain points to retain his No 1 ranking--
Now the question is how will Federer take this ? Will he bounce back ? Or he will quit as Bjorn Borg did several years ago ? We need to wait and see as to how Champions react and behave ---

BSNL Spors Quiz
I had written earlier in my blog on this Saturday late night live Quiz on DD Podhigai -- I had been trying hard to call in and answer for a long time and long time is close to atleast four years- Never had the luck to get through the line , answer a question on the grid and get a prize-- This week end , I watched , fuming at the answers I knew. I made no attempt to call in or send SMS to the SMS contests-- My wife was quietly using the phone trying to dial -- And then lady luck smiled- She got through and gave me the line and I was on AIR on TV ( big deal ) and I got the right answer ( it was a toughie , few people called in and gave wrong answers for the same question ). It was good thing to happen to me since it took me only four years to get through this !! Prize for the right answer -- SIM Card with talk time of INR 200 --
The biggest thing was not this but my mother calling one and all and telling them that her son called in to this program and got a prize-- that was great and I relished every call that she made and that gave my so much happiness

Comments

Anonymous said…
Cool!..Congrats on the quiz!
Anonymous said…
Hi Sri,

Congrats for winning the Quiz but you didn't mention about the question…Let us know what the question was.

F1 - Disappointing race for Ferrari….I was watching it live here (well past mid night) hoping for a Ferrari win…Massa was absolutely brilliant but ran out of luck….

Tennis - Fed seems totally out of depth….Shots which he used to play effortlessly are now nowhere on sight…….Lets hope he gets some form going in at Olympics and US Open.

Cricket - Didn’t get to watch the highlights but no complaints……
Naresh said…
I occasionally watch BSNL sports quiz, more than the format of the quiz I like the programme for the pace in which DR Sumanth conducts it….

I believe you would heavily bank on lady luck from this week… congrats !!!

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