World Cup ‘83: Reliving the magic
CWC 83 Final West Indies v India_DeSiBoY_Part 1
CWC 83 Final West Indies v India_DeSiBoY_Part 2
Kapil Dev’s unforgettable knock against Zimbabwe in 1983
CWC 83 Final West Indies v India_DeSiBoY_Part 3
CWC 83 1st Semi Final England v India_DeSiBoY_Part 2
1983 World Cup India (5/6)
1983 WC final IND vs WIN part 2/5
1983 WC final IND vs WIN part 4/5
1983 WC semi final Ind vs Eng 1-3
Showing posts with label India Cricket. Show all posts
Showing posts with label India Cricket. Show all posts
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Indian Sports in 2008
SUPERSTARS, DAZZLING DEEDS: The Indian sports lover had a lot to cheer about in 2008 as talents like Abhinav Bindra, Vijender Singh, Sushil Kumar, Viswanathan Anand, Saina Nehwal and Sachin Tendulkar came up with impressive displays on the global stage.
New Delhi: A baby-faced Chandigarh shooter laying his hands on the most coveted piece of metal in the world of sport was the high point in yet another interesting year for Indian sports.
It was quite an Indian August in Beijing as Abhinav Bindra became India’s first Olympic gold medallist and in the same dizzy fortnight, Vijender Singh traded punches and Sushil Kumar demonstrated his full range of wrestling manoeuvres to bag bronze medals.
Elsewhere, the suave Viswanathan Anand defended his world chess championship crown, M.C. Mary Kom juggled family and boxing to win her fourth straight world title and a nomadic Jeev Milkha Singh earned four silverwares to rise to world No. 36.
Shuttler Saina Nehwal won the junior world title and broke into the top 10, while cueist Pankaj Advani claimed as many as eight National and international titles, including the prestigious IBSF world billiards championships in September.
IPL maniaAll along, cricket kept the entire nation engaged and engrossed, with Team India reaching dizzy heights under a charismatic helmsman in Mahendra Singh Dhoni and a Twenty20 mania, post-Indian Premier League, sweeping the country.
Still, every other feat paled in comparison with the gold medal Bindra shot down in the 10m air rifle event on that memorable day of August 11.
Few expected the reticent shooter to strike gold but the ace marksman did just that to trigger euphoria back home where a star-starved nation found a new hero.
Fellow shooter Gagan Narang clocked up two perfect scores in Germany and Bangkok, while Ronjan Sodhi won the gold at the ISSF World Cup in Belgrade, having equalled two world records in double trap.
It was boxing’s annus mirabilis as Vijender, looking more a like chiselled model than a boxer, returned from Beijing with a bronze medal dangling from his neck.
Akhil Kumar and Jitender Kumar fell tantalisingly short of the feat but both played their role to put India in the global boxing map.
Equally impressive was Mary Kom’s feat as she returned from a two-year sabbatical to become world champion for an unprecedented fourth time.
RemarkableChess wizard Viswanathan Anand also ensured that he finished the year with his World Championship title safe and intact.
Anand’s 6.5-4.5 win over Vladimir Kramnik made him the first person to bag the title in three different formats — knockout (2000), tournament (2007) and matchplay (2008).
Following Anand’s footsteps, Abhijeet Gupta and Dronavalli Harika went on to become the under-20 boys and girls world champions respectively in Turkey.
Golf also witnessed India’s coming of age and Jeev Milkha Singh shone brightest in a year illuminated by some sterling shows by the Indians.
S.S.P. Chowrasia beat the likes of Ernie Els to win the Indian Masters and Arjun Atwal claimed the Malaysian Open and did enough on the Nationwide Tour to ensure his return to the U.S. PGA tour next year.
The season, however, belonged to Jeev, who won four titles on three different tours to open all the Major doors and a tied-ninth finish in the PGA Championship has instilled enough confidence to believe that he has the game to win a Major.
Jeev’s winning the Singapore Open not only assured him of the Asian Tour Order of the Merit title but also helped him become the first player to win more than $ one million on the Asian Tour.
Dhoni’s risePublic mood, however, fluctuated with the fortunes of the Indian cricket team and even though old-timers rued the retirements of former captains Sourav Ganguly and Anil Kumble, Dhoni’s rise to captaincy in all three formats of the game proved a smooth transition.
Under him, India won a tri-series in Australia, thumped the world champion 2-0 at home in Tests, blanked England 5-0 in ODI series and beat it 1-0 in the subsequent Test series.
As Ganguly and Kumble perfectly timed their retirement to walk into a golden sunset, their comrade in many a battle, Sachin Tendulkar, however, felt some cricket was still left in him.
The little master eclipsed Brian Lara as Test cricket’s most prolific run getter, became the first player to score 12,000 Test runs and stroked a sublime century in Chennai to script India’s epic win against England.
Cricket scored over terrorism as Kevin Pietersen and other Englishmen returned to continue their India tour which was disrupted by the Mumbai terror attacks.
The Mumbai incidents, however, led to a diplomatic standoff as India cancelled its Pakistan tour.
The IPL proved the most radical development in the sport since Kerry Packer’s World Series of 1970s. The ‘who’s who’ of international cricket volunteered for a first-of-its-kind $43.54 million auction and at the end of a 59-match extravaganza, the crown went to Rajasthan Royals led by the wily Shane Warne.
Indian football, under coach Bob Houghton, also showed some promising signs and the AFC Challenge Cup win gave the team a berth in the 2011 Asian Cup in Qatar.
Kolkata played host to two soccer legends. German goalkeeper Oliver Kahn’s farewell match proved a massive success while Diego Maradona’s trip had the city under the grip of a football mania.
Tennis proved quite a let down and apart from Leander Paes’s mixed doubles triumph at the U.S. Open, there was hardly anything to cheer about.
Though Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi teamed up for the Olympics, eventual champion Roger Federer and his Swiss team-mate Stanislas Wawrinka put paid to their medal hopes. Paes succumbed to a players’ ‘revolt’ and surrendered his captaincy.
Sania Mirza, on her part, battled injuries and slid down the ranking chart.
Hockey in troubleIn hockey, nothing went right. The men’s team could not qualify for Olympics and then a sting operation showed the then Indian Hockey Federation secretary-general K. Jothikumaran apparently accepting bribe to include a player.
The International Hockey Federation refused to deal with the K.P.S. Gill-led IHF, which was eventually replaced by an ad-hoc committee of the Indian Olympic Association.
Roped in to revive the game’s fortune, a piqued Australian legend Ric Charlesworth eventually left India with bitter memories of the country.
Doping scandalsThe world of Indian weightlifting was mired in doping scandals, selection controversies and administrative gaffes.
Egyptian coach Magad Salama quit in February, alleging doping by senior lifters and as if to prove him right, Kavita Devi was caught in the drug net before an Asian Championship.
Monika Devi was grounded hours before flying to Beijing on doping charges. It evoked consternation in Manipur and the north-east and the sports ministry had to set up a one-man commission to probe the issue. — PTI
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India emerge as cricketing superpower in 2008
India emerged as the cricketing world's new superpower in 2008 making top-ranked Australia bite the dust while also exhibiting its financial might with the launch of the highly successful Indian Premier League which revolutionised the sport.
The year also marked the end of an era with Sourav Ganguly and Anil Kumble bidding adieu to international cricket even as 35-year-old Sachin Tendulkar continued to sore high, making it clear he had no plans to retire in the near future.
As Ganguly and Kumble made an exit, a new era heralded in Indian cricket under the charasmatic captaincy of Mahendra Singh Dhoni who cleverly camouflaged the vacuum created by the departure of the two veterans and led the team to a series of triumphs during the year.
After India defeated the mighty Australia at Perth, the Dhoni-led team inflicted more humiliation on Ricky Ponting's men by defeating them 2-0 at home.
It was Australia's worst series loss since a 3-0 setback against the West Indies in 1983. As India prevented Australia from a record 17-match winning run for the second time, the signs were clear that the balance of power was finally shifting away from Ponting's men.
India also humbled South Africa and England in the year which proved to be annus mirabilis for the team.
India, placed second in the ICC Test rankings, and South Africa, just a point adrift on third, are now in race to topple Australia from the number one slot. Australia, struggling in the post-Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath era, failed to prevent South Africa from completing the second-highest successful fourth-innings run chase in Test history.
Apart from their heroics on the field, the Indians also found themselves in various controversies such as the racial row involving Indian off spinner and Australian all rounder Andrew Symonds who clashed in the acrimonious Sydney Test.
Harbhajan was charged with racially abusing Symonds for which he was slapped with a three-Test ban, which was overturned on appeal. Harbhajan got off with just 50 per cent of his match fees as India threatened to go home unless they received a satisfactory verdict.
The bitterness was, however, forgotten as Symonds fetched the second highest bid after Mahendra Singh Dhoni in the players auction for the year's biggest cricketing extravaganza -- the Indian Premier League.
The IPL was the most significant development in the sport since Kerry Packers World Series of 1970s as US $43.54 million auction took place that finally placed cricket alongside the big-money sports of the world.
The sport which was struggling to draw big crowds was revived with the culture of clubs, Bollywood and cheerleaders and spectators returned to stadiums while millions others relished the excitement through televisions at prime time slot.
The Twenty20 league captured the imagination of cricket fans so much so that purists feared it would ruin the future of Test cricket, which indeed witnessed low crowd, making even the International Cricket Council sit up and take note of the fact.
Bindra breaks Olympic jinx, Dhoni toast of a nation
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New Delhi: A babyfaced Chandigarh gunner laid his hands on the most coveted piece of metal in the world of sports but it was a long-haired swashbuckler from the backwaters of Jharkhand who kept the cricket-crazy nation enamoured in yet another engrossing year for Indian sports.
It was quite an Indian August in Beijing as Abhinav Bindra became India's first Olympic gold medallist and in the same dizzy fortnight, Vijender Singh traded punches and Sushil Kumar demonstrated his full range of wrestling manouevres to bag bronze medals.
Elsewhere, the suave Viswanathan Anand defended his World Championship crown in Germany, mother of two MC Mary Kom juggled family and boxing to win her fourth straight world title and a nomadic Jeev Milkha Singh earned numerous frequent flier miles and four silverwares as well to rise to world number 36.
All along, cricket kept the entire nation engaged and engrossed, with Team India reaching dizzy heights under its charismatic helmsman Mahendra Singh Dhoni and a Twenty20 mania, post-Indian Premier League, sweeping the country.
Still, every other feat paled in comparison with the gold medal Bindra shot down in the 10m air rifle event on that memorable day of August 11.
Few expected the reticent shooter to strike gold but the ace marksman did just that to trigger a euphoria back home where a star-starved nation found a new hero in an introvert shooter.
Olympic glory eluded him but Gagan Narang nevertheless clocked up two perfect scores -- 600/600 in Germany and 400/400 in Bangkok -- against his name in the same year.
Earlier in June, Ronjan Sodhi did something similar by winning the gold at the ISSF World Cup in Belgrade, having equalled two world records in double trap. It was boxing's annus mirabilis as well as Vijender, looking more a chiselled model than a boxer, returned from Beijing with the bronze medal dangling from his neck.
Akhil Kumar and Jitender Kumar fell tantalisingly short of the feat but both played their role to put India in the global boxing map.
Equally impressive was Mary Kom's feat as the mother of two returned from a two-year sabbatical to become women's world champion for an unprecedented fourth time.
Chess wizard Viswanathan Anand also ensured that he finished the year with his World Championship title safe and intact.
Anand's 6.5-4.5 win against Vladimir Kramnik made him the first person to win the title in three different formats -- knockout (2000), tournament (2007) and matchplay (2008).
Following Anand's footsteps, Abhijeet Gupta and Dronavalli Harika went on to become the Under-20 boys' and girls' world champions respectively in Turkey.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
India glorious
The third one-day between India and Australia can be rightly called the ‘Tendulkar match’.
More... Relive the game
Sunday, December 21, 2008
India and England cricket thru Decades
India have dominated England in ODIs in the 21st century but the contest has been a closer one in the longer version of the sport. The English were dominant in this battle during the 60s and 70s but the Indians have fared better since then. Here is a decade-by-decade record of Test matches between India and England:-
| Decade | Played | India | England | Drawn |
| 2000s | 13 | 4 | 2 | 7 |
| 1990s | 9 | 3 | 2 | 4 |
| 1980s | 17 | 4 | 3 | 10 |
| 1970s | 21 | 4 | 9 | 8 |
| 1960s | 13 | 1 | 5 | 7 |
| 1950s | 14 | 1 | 9 | 4 |
| 1940s | 3 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| 1930s | 7 | 0 | 5 | 2 |
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