61st or 62nd?

India just had its 62nd Independence day and its 61st anniversary of Independence!!! Long live free India!!!
I was a little confused when I heard 61st, 62nd yesterday on the news channels and in newspapers. I started thinking that it should be India's 62nd Independence day and not 61st as some channels and newspapers were referring. This morning, I thought of checking the Indian government website. Came across this National Portal of India website. They have nicely formatted information and the look is very cool for a government website. I so hope that they make the Chicago consulate website a bit like this one.

As I am typing this, India have been decimated again by Sri Lanka's spinning duo! There have been 5 consecutive maidens between those two and 3 wickets fell. Now Bhajji and Khan are desperately trying to push the score beyond 100. They got some reprieve when Mendis was taken off after 6 overs by Mahela.

Olympics!!! Nadal celebrates his number 1 status by winning the Gold medal yesterday. He is officially the number one player today. What a year he's been having! French open, Wimbledon, Gold at the Olympics. The US Open begins in a week and he's the favorite there too.

Olympics Gold, Rainfall in Pune, Golf, Cricket loss

First of all, a biig round of applause to India's first ever individual Gold medalist in the history of Olympics!!! Abhinav Bindra takes the honors with his top showing in his shooting event!!! Congratulations Abhinav!!! Hip Hip Hurray!!!

Incessant rainfall in Pune and areas around has got the dams overflowing. The rain has stopped for brief periods today, but is still continuing on. That's a big relief and now the water cuts will stop. Hopefully, the power cuts will also come down soon. The Holkar bridge has been closed as of this evening because of the rising water level. That also means that the River banks roads are under water and I have to bear the commute traffic. But that's ok as long as there's no water shortage, for drinking as well as for the farms.

Could not watch Golf as it was showing on Ten Sports which was also showing Cricket. The cable wallahs were not showing the channel as it had raised its rates just before the start of the cricket match. Read the Padriag Harrington won and is now a 3-major winner. Great going!!! JMS faltered in two rounds , but still has a top-10 finish much to his credit!!! Great showing from him too!!

Lastly, the Indian cricket team cut a sorry figure after SL beat them by 8 wickets!!! Laxman was the not out batsman, inspite of carrying an ankle injury and playing with a runner. Valiant (if one can say that) effort from Dravid, in what might be his last international appearance for India. SRT is out of the one day series due to injury. Ishant also picked up an injury and could not bowl in the 4th inning. All in all, the batsmen let India down in this series, save for Veeru and Gambhir, which really won us the 2nd match. Can't say for the future of the Fab Four, as they are referred nowadays. :-) SRT might sneak in just to get that record. Really, he should have got it in this series itself. 200 runs in 6 innings should have been easier done than said for him. Laxman might also sneak in as he was the most consistent of them all and showed some intent to occupy the crease as well as score runs. He ran out of partners most times.

Favre and other NFL news

At last, the Brett Favre drama has come to a close!!! Favre is a Jet now! He will get to play against Tom Brady twice. The Jets fans will hope that he wins at least one game against the Pats :)

I think, the Trade by the Packers was the only logical thing to do given the circumstances. Favre was playing a spoilsport in their preparations and distracting them immensely. Hopefully, all will be well now.

The Bears have named Kyle Orton as their pre-season games' starter. I cannot predict who will start the regular season. I hope Rex Grossman can perform like he did when he got a chance again late last season. The Bears' receivers have changed and there's no Moos and Berrian to whom Rex can throw. So, we will have to see how he performs with the new guys.

I have been reading Peter King's weekly column MMQB. He's on the training camp trail nowadays and reports his observations of different NFL teams and their preparations.

Sporting Sunday

Sunday seems to be the Sports day almost every week. There was Cricket, F1 race, Golf and the count down to the Olympics on TV. I am most interested in the Cricket and F1 race.

As it turned out, I switched on the TV late in the afternoon and was quite pleasantly surprised at the score. SL were tottering on 132/8 and India were on the brink of a resounding victory. Indeed, it was a matter of two overs and the spin twins of SL were out. All credit goes to Veeru for his awesome batting. Youngsters must see his appetite for runs and try to emulate that. Kudos to Bhajji too for some great off spin bowling and a deserving 10-for in the match. Gambhir also batted brilliantly. The big wigs should take a leaf from the openers and hopefully come good in the last test.

The F1 race was at Hungaroring this weekend and again Hamilton was on Pole. But Massa got a very good jump on him at the first corner and never looked back. Although Hamilton was within 4 seconds, he was let down by a tyre puncture. He did fight back to take 5th place, but would have rued the puncture. He would have won the race if he were driving behind Massa when Massa's engine blew up 3 laps from the finish. Hekki scored his first F1 victory and the driver's championship is again ever so close.

Lastly, Nadal lost in the semi-final of the Cincinnati Tennis tournament to Djokovic. But since Federer lost in the second round, he lost his no.1 spot too. Nadal will be crowned no. 1 in a couple weeks. I sincerely hope that Federer regains some of his form and win the Olympics Gold and the US Open to round of his most disappointing year, since 5 years.

Have been following the MLB and the Chicago Cubs. More on that in my next post.

~Sandeep