A Common Fan’s Sports Diary

Another step towards being the best in the world

Poll- Which Indian Sportsperson are you most excited about? (Choose upto 5)

Results - Saina Nehwal – Badminton (48.0%, 43 Votes)
Yuki Bhambri – Tennis (22.0%, 20 Votes)
Somdev Dev Varman – Tennis (21.0%, 19 Votes)
Jeev Milkha Singh – Golf (20.0%, 18 Votes)
Sunil Chhteri – Football (20.0%, 18 Votes)
Abhinav Bindra – Shooting (19.0%, 17 Votes)
Sania Mirza – Tennis (19.0%, 17 Votes)
Koneru Humpy – Chess (19.0%, 17 Votes)
Akhil Kumar – Boxing (19.0%, 17 Votes)

Disclaimer – This poll was limited to non-cricket sports only.

As I write this, Saina Nehwal has broken new ground yet again, winning the Super Series title in Indonesia. With this win she has finally managed to break through the ‘Great Wall of China’ at Super Series Events. The wall of top Chinese players had stopped her from progressing beyond the semi-finals till date, leaving behind a trail of closely contested three setters. Now that Saina has broken through the Chinese hoodoo at the Super Series, we can expect more wins and glory for her and more joy for us – the fans who have voted her as the future of Indian Sport by a landslide.

The best part is that Saina is just 19 years old and has already given us a lifetime of great moments. She continues to get better and move up the world rankings. She is unrelenting in her desire to be the best player in the world and unfazed by the challenges that lie in her path. The world is her oyster and if the poll results are anything to go by, a lot of Indian sports fans including yours truly, are already licking their chops at the prospect of all the sporting joy that Saina Nehwal is going to bring to their lives over the next 10 years.

The race to be the second most exciting sportsperson in India is a dead heat between 3 tennis players, a golfer, a boxer, a shooter, a chess player and a footballer, although technically speaking, Yuki Bhambhri is alone in second place. It augurs well for Indian sports that so many sportspersons from different sports are doing well and each of them has a decent number of followers who are looking forward to their every move.

Now there is more good news for these sports fans. They can watch the videos of their favourite Indian sportspersons on www.SportPass.tv. This is a new sports video website which aggregates the most locally relevant sports videos from all over the world.

Now you don’t need to bother about media apathy towards the achievements of these sportspersons. If they are not showing you the action, you can catch it on SportPass.tv

More glory to Indian Sports

Sports in India are at an all time high

Indian sports took a mighty leap in 2008 and a number of champion sport persons made impressive progress in a wide variety of sports. Quite clearly, Indian sports have never had it any better. It’s a time for Indian sports fans to be really excited about the future. So we thought it was a good time to conduct a poll to ascertain, which sportsperson makes our heart beat the fastest or in other words, the future of which Indian sportsperson are we most excited about.

As you will notice, we haven’t included any cricketers. Not that we have anything against them. Just that there are enough people who are always super excited about them. So let’s give the others a shot for a change. Considering the large choice, we have decided to have a multiple voting option. We have left out a few like Paes and Bhupathi, who we think, have already achieved everything they could have possibly had. On the other hand, Jeev Milkha Singh, who is hardly a youngster, still makes the list as he continues to get better every year.

Here is the list of names for the Poll. Please go ahead and vote for the sportsperson(s) who gives you the biggest reason to feel good about the future of Indian sport.

Sunil Chhteri – Football

Yuki Bhambri – Tennis

Saina Nehwal – Badminton

Akhil Kumar – Boxing

Abhinav Bindra – Shooting

Sushil Kumar – Wrestling

Vijender Kumar -Boxing

Somdev Dev Varman – Tennis

Gagan Narang – Shooting

Joshna Chinappa – Squash

Koneru Humpy – Chess

Karun Chandhok – Motor Racing

Diwakar Ram – Hockey

Virdhawal Khade – Swimming

Dipika Pallikal – Squash

Pankaj Advani –Snooker and Billiards

Sania Mirza – Tennis

Jeev Milkha Singh – Golf

Someone else

I think there is no future for Indian sports

We were part of the celebrating group at the closing ceremony of the Olympics !!!

Poll – What was the most significant sporting moment for India in 2008?

Results – India winning three medals at the Beijing Olympics – 45%
Vishwanathan Anand winning the World Chess title in the classical format -31%
The super success of the IPL – 10%
India’s cricket team winning the one -day tri-series in Australia – 7%
India’s cricket team beating Australia 2-0 in the test series at home -3%
India’s football team winning the AFC Challenge Cup -3%,

In an obvious testimony to the fact that the few people who do visit this website take more than a passing interest in different sports other than cricket, the voters of the latest Commonfan Poll have decided, that no cricketing moment was good enough to the most important one in what has a been a great year for Indian sports. And that in spite of the fact there were three major achievements for cricket in 2008. So did the presence of 3 nominations divide the cricket vote, ensuring that some other sport slipped through? not quite. Even the combined cricket vote couldn’t have been enough. And there are two reasons for that.

One is that the cricket moments weren’t just good enough- even by the sports’ own standards. We did win the tri-series for the first time in Australia but is that even in the top five of India’s greatest one-day performances. Is it bigger than the two appearances in the World Cup finals or the win in the World Championship of Cricket in 1985? Our voters don’t think so.

We beat Australia in t

More fireworks and more champagne but not monumental enough

he home test series but does that even qualify as one of our greatest wins against Australia, forget it being in the all time test victory list. This Australian side wasn’t one of their better ones and hence the win didn’t taste as good as say the comeback victory in 2001 or the triumph in Adelaide in 2003

Coming to the IPL, it did make a huge impression in 2008. But this wasn’t about the Twenty-20 format of the game, which was already quite popular. Rather it was about the first full blown and ICC endorsed International cricket League. As things stand today the league form of the game is still a poor cousin of international cricket. Some years from today, if this format really explodes, and the ICC has to find a window in the IPL calendar to accommodate international matches, like they have to do in football, than yes – we will definitely look back on 2008 as a far more significant moment in the history of cricket and Indian sport. Till that happens, cricket will play second or rather third fiddle to what were the most significant moments for Indian sport in 2008.

Now we come to the second reason – India’s performance at the Olympics and Vishwanathan Anand’s win against Vladimir Kramnik are right up there because they are watershed events – something which the cricket moments were not.

Anand’s win is a monumental landmark in the annals of Chess. He became only the second non-Russian to win it in the classical format after Bobby Fischer. But Fischer’s win is remembered more because an American beat the Russians at their own game at the height of the cold war hostilities. In purely chess terms, Anand beat a far tougher opponent in Kramnik, the only man to beat Garry Kasparov in the classical format. And we all know that Kasparov is the greatest chess player of all time. Fischer beat Boris Spassky who is definitely not remembered as one of the great champions and refused to play Anatoly Karpov for reasons unknown. The win also secured Anand’s legacy. He is now a complete champion and ready to take his place alongside the celebrated masters of the sport.

And now for the most significant moment – India’s feat at the Olympics -Is there even a debate about its position as number one. Enough has been written and said about its significance and long lasting impact and I will not go into repeating it. I will just say that for the first time in my living memory, we Indians were enjoying the closing ceremony of the Olympics and feeling a part of the celebrations. And that, as the voters have already decided, was significant enough.

Poll – Which sports administrator do you hate most?

Results - KPS Gill – 36%
Can we toss a coin -all of them are equally bad -31%
Suresh Kalmadi -16%

Others who featured in the poll

Priya Ranjan Das Munshi
Sharad Pawar
Jagmohan Dalmiya
Rajeev Shukla
I thought there were no administrators -and things were running on their own
Hey I know someone worse

Others who narrowly missed making the list

Almost everyone who is in charge of running sports in this country.

The State of affairs

I will not bother to get into the details of how sport has been ‘run’ into the ground in this country. A proper analysis will take a book, probably more. We will just mention that ability is not a pre-requisite to become a sports administrator in this country. You need to be an influential politician, businessmen, bureaucrat or a crony of someone influential. In the words of IOA and IAAF president, head of the ad-hoc body of the IHF, Member of Parliament and businessman, Suresh Kalmadi, “it’s imperative that Politicians or industrialists run sports in this country, for only they know how to get more money out of the government”. Golden words indeed. No mention that they are also more capable of diverting this money into their own coffers.

Poll outcome

In light of these facts, it was quite a challenge to pick out a winner from amongst our sports administrators. It was a battle among equals. Things have been bad across the board. And that was well proven by the 31% votes received by ‘Can we toss a coin -all of them are equally bad’.

We had expected that people who run the more popular sports would be at an advantage, their notoriety and ineffectiveness getting more media attention – like the men who have been involved with the cricket board. Also people who have had extremely long tenures – we have a system of getting appointed for a life time in Indian sports – the likes of Priya Ranjan Das Munshi and R.K.Khanna. But surprisingly, this advantage counted for nothing and none of these guys got a significant portion of the votes.

It takes much more than that to separate oneself from the rest of the administrative mediocrity

It takes an extraordinary effort – like ensuring that the sport you rule (that’s the right word) touches its nadir – like hockey did when our men’s team failed to qualify for the Olympics. This led to a national outcry and also the hitherto unseen step of the head of the sports body getting sacked by the sports minister.

I am a proud winner

And that is why KPS Gill – the man who oversaw this great decline – runs away with the poll, getting 36% of the votes. That he is unrepentant and is still making an effort to mobilize the support of the state units to re-capture power makes his case even more convincing.

He is the first among the equals

On a side note, it should be noted that the sports minister at the time of our hockey failure, failed to take any action, referring to the Olympic charter for his impotency. He would have done well in this poll, had he been eligible as the head of a sports body.

Suresh Kalmadi also comes out with flying colours taking a comfortable second behind Gill with 16% of the votes. He takes pride in the fact that he won the Commonwealth Games bid but this event could well become his Waterloo. With the games getting shifted out of Delhi becoming a realistic possibility owing to slack preparation work, Mr Kalmadi could well end up matching KPS Gill in the ‘touching a nadir’ dept. But for now, KPS Gill can bask in the glory all by himself.

The statistical relevance and bias prevention steps for this poll are the same as all the other Commonfan Polls.

Poll – Who is your favourite Indian sportswoman?

Results – Saina Nehwal (33%)/Koneru Humpy (33%)

Sania Mirza (12%)

No sports woman is good enough to be my favourite (9%)

Mithali Raj (6%)

D Harika (3%)

I didn’t know women played sports in India (3%)

The message is loud and clear

Humpy and Saina - Two Unlimited

We have two brilliant young women who ended up in a dead heat in this poll and justifiably so. They are already the most accomplished Indian sportswoman in their chosen sports and world beaters too.

Koneru Humpy is the second best women’s chess player of all time and getting better – She is the female version of Vishwanathan Anand and the rightful heir to his mantle – a more rightful one than the likes of Harikrishna and Sasikiran. She could easily end up becoming the strongest female grandmaster of all time surpassing Judith Polgar and the undisputed women’s world champion – and then even Vishy Anand will have to doff his hat to her. After all he couldn’t do the same thing in the men’s category

Saina Nehwal missed an Olympic medal by a whisker and is knocking on the doors of a top ten world ranking. While she is yet to match the All -England winning accomplishments of Prakash Padukone and Pullela Gopichand, she has managed to do something which no Indian –man or woman has ever managed before – develop a knack for beating the best Chinese players in their own den. If you can do that in badminton, you are capable of winning anything. So basically we are talking of someone who could be the female equivalent of Prakash Padukone here.

We have a female Anand and a female Padukone in the making. Indian women sportswomen have never had it this good before

There is quality and there is quantity too.

We have female champions all over the place – so many of them that the likes of Anjali Bhagwat and Anju Bobby George have already faded from the national consciousness. You can no longer rest on your laurels and benefit from a lacuna of top talent. Even Sania Mirza has slipped to a distant third on account of one bad year. The likes of Dronavalli Harika and Mithali Raj are also rising. Go Indian woman go

And that brings us to the ignorant and the uninformed

For those who voted – ‘No sports woman is good enough to be my favourite’ – Your standards are obviously very high. Don’t think you have a favourite Indian sportsman either. You should either move to Baltimore and start cheering for Phelps or to Jamaica to start rooting for Usain Bolt. Don’t think anyone else is good enough for you.

As for the others – the ones who voted – ‘I didn’t know women played sports in India’ – you better start following the Common Fan – We will keep you updated with all the exploits of the Indian sportswomen. You will surely have a favourite next time round.

I have a new poll on Common Fan – to pick out the most popular Indian sportswoman from the current lot. I had expected this poll to get as many responses if not more than the previous polls on this blog. Sadly no one seems to care and the response has been bad. This is bad and we need to show more respect for Indian sportswomen. So to get more participation for this poll, I am writing this post and providing more information about each of these ladies. I hope this information generates a little more interest and a lot more in terms of participation. So here you go. Let the most popular lady win.

The poll is in the ‘Caste your vote’ page

Saina Nehwal – Badminton – Currently ranked world number 14, Saina is the first Indian woman to reach the singles quarterfinals at the Olympics.

Anju Bobby George – Athletics – Made history when she won the bronze medal in the Long Jump at the 2003 World Championships in Athletics becoming the first Indian athlete ever to win a medal in a World Championships in Athletics.

Koneru Humpy – Chess – Her October 2007 FIDE Elo rating was 2606, placing her at number two in the world for women (behind Judit Polgar) and becoming the second female player ever, after Judit Polgar, to cross the 2600 Elo mark.

Sania Mirza – Tennis – Is the highest ranked female tennis player ever from India, with a career high ranking of 27 in singles and 18 in doubles.

Anjali Bhagwat – Shooting – She won four golds in the 2002 Commonwealth Games.

Dronavalli Harika – Chess – She has won three World Youth Chess Championship titles: in 2004, she won the Girls U14, and in 2006, she won the Girls U18. In 2008, she took the Girl’s title at the World Junior Chess Championship

Neha Aggarwal – Table Tennis – Qualified for the Olympics at the age of 18

Dola Banerjee – Archery – Became world champion in archery by winning the gold medal in the women’s individual recurve competition at the archery world cup in November 2007

Mithali Raj – Cricket – Became famous for her score of 214 runs in a test match against England, which broke the record for the highest score in women’s Test cricket. She led the Indian team to the finals in the Women’s Cricket World Cup of 2005 where the team lost to Australia.

There are three other options that you can choose.

Other – If you think someone else is more deserving. Please post a comment with the name.

I didn’t know women played sports in India – This is self explanatory. I hope this post helps you to become more informed.

No sports woman is good enough to be my favourite – Again self explanatory. I am sure you have very high standards. Tell me who your favourite Indian sportsman is?

United should let Real Madrid have Ronaldo if they can get a fortune in return

And finally, a fair portion of fans also think that United could do well to make the most of this opportunity. I guess most of these are United fans like me, who can see the benefits of a mega transfer kitty – which Ronaldo’s move to Real could bring. United could use that money to buy a right-back, a striker and also pay for Carlos Tevez’s transfer fee. They haven’t managed to ad a single player to their squad this year. The heavy expenditure made last year seems to have tied down Fergie’s hands this season. And how good is a disgruntled superstar. And nobody will pay more for Ronaldo than Real Madrid. The first two options will give us (United fans) a lot of wicked pleasure but option three is most beneficial for the club. Man United and their manager should just shed their pride and sell Ronaldo to Real Madrid for a fortune.

I recently put up three IPL-related polls on the blog. The IPL is over, the polls are closed and its time to analyze the results.

Two points before we start

Point no 1 – I have myself abstained from voting to prevent any kind of human bias while analyzing the results.

Point no 2 – I am a trained but hopeless statistician. Still I remember enough to say with more than 95% confidence that the sample size is not statistically relevant. But how can we have large sample sizes when the popular forums refrain from popular polls. They cannot go beyond the ‘who will win the match’, ‘who will hit maximum sixes’ and ‘who will win man of the series’ type of polls. These Polls test your clairvoyance and don’t ask for your opinion. And if they do ask for opinion they don’t dare touch the gods of Indian sport. A hard nosed poll which puts the greats in the dock is pure sacrilege. Therefore I will throw the statistical relevance out of the window when I analyze the poll results

Poll 1 – Who is the worst commentator in the IPL?
Results Aamir Sohail – 37%
Ranjit Fernando – 20%
Rameez Raja – 12 %
I watch matches with the volume turned off – 12%

The overall standard of the commentary in the IPL was shambolic. Amit Verma has written a delightful piece on state of commentating in the IPL and I suggest you please read it. Krishnamachari Srikanth escapes this list as he was classified as a brand ambassador. I hope all the commentators find great jobs elsewhere and spare the poor fans.

Aamir Sohail – incorrigible

Aamir Sohail takes the cake and a word of advice for him – stay away from India. You always end up making an a** of yourself. You did it as a player (against Venkatesh Prasad in the 96 WC) and have now won the Razzies of the cricket commentating world. You will do a better job modelling for hair cream.

Ranjit Fernando’s eloquence has also been well-documented. A piece of advice for Set Max – cricket telecasts don’t need the lone representative from each participating country. Foreign fans watch the telecast to watch their cricket team and not to cheer their native son doing commentary. I would give an arm and a leg to hear Ian Chappell and Richie Benaud but would rather turn deaf when Laxman Sivaramakrishnan and Ravi Shastri come on air.

Poll 2 – Which Icon was the biggest dud in the IPL?
Results Sachin Tendulkar – 36%
Rahul Dravid – 22%
VVS Laxman for being a chicken and backing out – 22 %
Sourav Ganguly -12%
The biggest dud was the concept itself – 12%

There was a lot of criticism of the concept and the last option should have been the most preferred option. However as Shane Warne and MS Dhoni showed, there is definitely a need for iconic players in the League. But rather than the IPL committee anointing ICONS it should be left to the franchisees to decide their Icon or franchise player. Even the US Leagues have franchise players. The concept is ok but its modalities need serious tweaking.

It was a tournament to forget for the big 4 of Indian cricket. Sachin Tendulkar escaped the criticism but did little justice to his icon status in the IPL or his mega-iconic status in Indian cricket. Rahul was disowned by his owner and Laxman benched for mystifying reasons. Sourav Ganguly’s last few efforts and especially his last innings did a lot of damage control for his icon status.

The new brigade made another claim to replace the old icons. The likes of Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina and Gautam Gambhir cannot be denied for long.

Poll 3 – Which team had the best set of brand ambassadors/mascots in the IPL?
Results KXP with Preity Zinta – 38%
DC were smartest for not wasting any money on it– 33%
KKR with Shahrukh– 16%
DD with Akshay Kumar – 11%

Based on poll results the possible line-up of brand ambassadors for next season’s IPL -Sherlyn Chopra, Mallika Sherawat, Rakhi Sawant, Pamela Anderson(for Mallya’s team as he doesn’t believe in the desi babes), Bipasha Basu, Shilpa Shetty and Deepika Padukone. Their agenda – to beat Preity Zinta at her game of hugging and kissing, no holds barred. Don’t be surprised if you see much better performances from the other teams next season.

Preity has set the bar for future brand ambassadors

Other than that nothing else will work. So if you can’t get a hot babe to be your brand ambassador and shower her love on the players, then you might as well drop the idea of having a brand representative.