April 19th Delayed but got the post going !!Hhgh..

Quotable Quotes of the week

If they play like this, God help their careers -- Sourav Ganguly Kolkata Knight Riders captain, on the dismal performance of his team mates.

Rumours have always existed, but I think they are part of being human - Carla Bruni French first lady , after reports that her marriage with Nicolas Sarkozy is in trouble.

This is not the time for tu tu mein mein. The Maoists are a big threat to the country and we all must united take a stand against them - Sitaram Yechury CPI ( M ) Leader

The EPL tight Finish-- It is the Spurs who are making it Interesting --

Spurs ( Tottenham Hotspurs ) have done extremely well this year ,compared to the relegation threat they were under last year. They were following the Big three on their own and last week they played out a twist to the tale in the league standings.
First in a mid week match , they dumped Arsenal and nearly pushed them out of contention out of the title race. Then ,Arsenal decided to get out of the race over the week end by themselves, loosing their match to lowly placed Wigan. Arsenal lead by two goal till the 80th minute and then Wigan pumped in three goals to leave Arsene Wenger their manager clutching his hairin frustration at the way his team, played the last ten minutes of the match.

ManU meanwhile made their fans bite their nails in a lunch time ( UK time ) match as they played nicely not to win !! As the match went in to stoppage time , in what was the last raid in to the opposite goalmouth , veteran ManU Paul Scholes scored through a gem of a header to gain valuable three points for ManU .
Then Spurs had the Supper story ( IST Time ). Playing brilliant , aggressive football , they hounded Chelsea , pumped in two goals at half time , missed to score more by full time , frustrated Chelsea Manager and his team throughout , got the Chelsea captain Terry red carded ( he misses the next two matches ) - Terry showed the frustration by mindless tackles -
With this result , with three games to go , one point seperated Chelsea the leader from ManU. Spurs meet ManU , this week end and a ardent fan of Spurs has said , they will have ManU for their lunch on that day- Not sure what ManU will serve out !
All exciting stuff if you are following the league

The IPL

I did write in my previous posts on the so far in IPL - Non Cricketing events have taken a over the Sport . But we cannot completely say this as true for crowds at the various venues have been amazing .. They have trooped in large numbers to support teams .
CSK -Dhoni came back strongly with a match winning knock and has taken the CSK to the semi finals . CSK have been inconsistent in their overall efforts and need to get a team act if they want to progress beyond the semis
KKR -- Sourav did his best but I think the team did not back its skipper as well as he would have liked them to. ( See his quote on top as well )
RCB - Again a team with talented players , not able to get a good combo in to the playing eleven
DC- This team has few big names , but the unsung heroes are people like Suman , Ojha and local hero Rohit Sharma.
DD- All big names but no one seems to be serious about their reputation with the result that DD did not get to the Semis
MI -- It is Tendulkar all the way and he rubs his shine on everyone of his team mate . His support staff has been hand-picked. Robin Singh the Coach and TA Shekar the bowling coach are men who do not talk match . They play the game quiet !!
RR - Warne could not insipire his young team .

I want to still back Lalit Modi although he may loose his job soon. He took on the Home Minister last year and took the tournament to South Africa and gave IPL the international stage. This year , the bidding amounts for the new franchisees were crazy and this was bound to have its backlash .

Modi this year , took the issue of the political influence , the funding , the allotment of sweat shares to a friend ( difficult to define the relationship ? ) of the Politcal Influencer of the Kochi Franchisee to the public . Although the minister resigned ( he was under the gun for various other issues ( sweet tweets ) but finally went out of the Cabinent on this issue ), the sweat equity is to be returned , enough has been unearthed . Modi for his part has kept his composure , handled the media ,other pressures and allowed the tournament to go on .

End of the day , Modi may get the sack , but no one can deny the fact that he has taken the game to the next level and it will take a huge mountain to climb if as demanded by a section for the IPL to be scrapped ! If the money becomes bigger , than it is no longer a sport . The stage is set for bigger money sharks and Modi may be a victim of that or may event be a part of the drama !