Man U ....

What an awesome performance from the red devils against Bolton. Though Chelsea did put up a solid performance of their own, it looks like the League title should be back at Old Trafford barring some major loss of form. This was Bolton , a team 5th in the league , competing for a European slot next year , and they were humiliated!

Looking back at this year Fergie has sort of gone back to his old ways of getting the right role players in key areas and It also helped that Christiano Ronaldo finally hit his stride and fulfilled some of the potential he has been showing all these years! He has reduced the fancy footwork , and concentrated on running defences ragged, he could still work on his finishing , but overall he has been awesome this season, probably the player of the year . The back four has been solid with Neville , Rio and Vidic being Solid and Van De Sar doing his bit in goal. With some awesome striking from Saha at the start of the year , and some good contributions from Larson they have not missed Ruud Van Nistelroy this year .

Overall a gr8 team performance this year, Fergie still has the touch. Look for a potential double. Don't think they are quite ready for Europe though. Maybe next year !!! Too bad for the form of Liverpool and Arsenal or we would have had a four team awesome football league.... but if wishes were horses....

The ICEMAN Burns up the Road.

Well some random thoughts from the inaugral GP of the year. well as predicted it was the Kimi show at Melbourne. There has been a lot of relatively negative press surrounding him over the weeks surrounding the GP and even after qualifying on how he is not a team player like Michael or Fernando, but there if there is one fact that everyone tends to agree on its that the dude is quick. On Sunday we got a demonstration drive on just how quick he is ( having the quickest car on the grid also helps!) . From the moment the lights went off there was no one who was even close. So i repeat that though its early days yet, its Kimi's championship to lose this year. So here is my ranking on the rest of the grid.

Drive of the day : (Besides Kimi) Lewis Hamilton was awesome in his first GP. He seemed faster and more in control than FA , and were it not for a faster car (Ferrari) and some dubious pit work ( A Mclaren speciality) he could have been contending for the lead and a second place finish was a given !

Massa : A good drive but a bit disappointing, he should have been challenging for the podium given the package he was driving. The Hondas seemed to jinx him he was flying till he came up behind Reubens.

FA: Solid drive but Lewis is going to be closer than i thought he would be , the good news is that he was solid and so were the macs. Bad news was the start where he seems to be missing the Renault launch control. If he can put some distance to Lewis then he should have a bit of an easier time . Macs could sneak in the constructors championship.

BMW's (Heidfeld & Kubica) - Heidfeld seems to be flying and the BMW is clearly the best of the rest at the moment . Only concern seems to be reliability, much to the bad luck of Kubica.But they are still a bit off the pace , though with two fast drivers competing and with BMW behind the team it should be a good year for them .

Renault : O how the mighty have fallen. There seems to be no doubt as to who is missing Michelin the most. No FA doesn't make it any easier. Cant help but feel that with FA in the car they would be more competitive. Fisi had a decent day , and Kovalainen had an up and down day , but i don't see him doing great things this year. Look for them to compete next year with a a better car and an exciting line up. Should be a fun battle of Gen next with a Piquet in the car.

Toyotas v Williams : It was a good performance from both teams considering last year how everything seemed to be going wrong during winter testing and at the start of qualifying. But There seems to be some flexibility in the team , but this is one of the interesting factory v non factory competitions that should provide some interest during the year. Expect them to do better than the Hondas in a similar battle.

Honda V Aguri : To quote DC which i don't do often , " I don't know why u guys are surprised with their (Sato's) performance . This is the car which won at Hungary and scored the most points in the last quarter of the season , which makes u wonder whats wrong with the factory team ". Well i guess that sums up whats at stake with the Hondas. Hopefully they will get better as the season goes on but right now the Agurris hold the aces.

The rest : Well u can expect these guys to be scrapping over the minor places for most of the season , with possibly the Red bulls having a slight edge.

well thats it till malaysia..... till next time take care .

Formula 1 Season - Preview

Well the season should be on us in a few hours, and here are my first thoughts going in after the winter testing and the first qualifying sessions.

The fight right now seems to boil down to the Ferrari's and the Macs. The one team who could also be in the frame seems to be the BMW Saubers . As far as the championships go this is the year for Kimi to claim his title, he may not get a better chance. His strongest competition could be from Massa and off course the defending champion Alonso. The macs seem on the pace this year but the Ferraris seem too strong, but its early days yet. This could truly be the year the BMW's become one of the elite and in Heidfeld and Kubica they have two talented drivers who should be up there if the car is on the pace. Look for the renaults to probably get in the frame somewhere towards the second half of the season. This is also a make or break year for Fisi, and unfortunately for him the car does not seem very strong this year. If Alonso easily out paced him last year with the same machinery this year does not look very bright, expect a Piquet in the cockpit next year and maybe bye bye Fisi as far as formula 1 is concerned. Among the rookies Hamilton seems to be very quick and should be able to keep pace with Alonso , though Alonso should be ahead more often than not. So if the Macs are good expect him up there . With Heiki Kovalainen it may take some time for him to really shine .

among the others the biggest disappointement could be the japs. The Honda is expected to be no where this year and even Toyota is not able to bring its dominance in the world car market into formula 1. I expect Toyota to out perform Honda, but i don't expect them to be at the front too often. Williams should have a better year than last year , but i still don't expect them to contend. This year could actually be fun in that we could have non factory team beating up on the factory teams as far as the Honda and the Toyotas are concerned. I expect the Super Agurris and the Red bulls to be in the Mix jockeying for the middle positions.

As for the rear i think the Spykars (in spite of the Ferrari engine) should rule here, maybe with some competition from the Toro Rossos.

All in all i expect an exciting season with more race winners and a lot more young guns shinning on the day. But for the drivers championship its either Massa , Kimi or Alonso....

So cheers to the season ahead.

Give me a break ----- Schumi ????

My favourite grouse.... Schumi... don't know why, but i just can't stand the guy... its not totally rational, but there is is !

Why the sudden outburst ??? well my favourite part of the year is upon us and there was the Bombay times doing a headline piece on how we will miss schumi this year and maybe formula 1 will be boring! Its strange but you can easily spot a pseudo fan , people who follow F1 coz maybe they think its HIP !! Chances are that 95% percent of these people will be Ferrari and Schumi fans. Its just the way it is in general to follow people who win , but at least get your facts right, get some idea on how the sport works before you go mouthing of as an expert.

well this really has me steaming. NO schumi .. bring on the champagne i say. Lets face it when we talk about the pinnacle of racing we are talking abt a few tenths or a few hundereds of a second. Lets not forget there are some really talented blokes burning rubber out there. Give most of these folks the fastest car out there and chances are they would find their way to the top step of the podium ( Great case in point is Massa, and even Reubens paced Schumi quite often). So for all you ignorant dudes out there (the person who thought up the headline) read my lips - "No Schumi , NO problem". Let the racing begin and i for one can't wait. The possibilities are endless and most entcicing ! Fernando Alonso in a Mac (Don't particularly like Alonso after last year, love the Macs) . Kimi in the scarlet! the rookies and the sophomores Kubica, Hamilton, Nico , Kovalainen. Its probably the most talented and most exciting new class of drivers in the top flight in recent memory. If anything Schumi has held so many promising drivers back , and kudos to ferrari for getting him to leave when they did.

Now there is no disputing that schumi was one of the greats the sport produced, no one was more focused and had the win at all costs mentality than him, the master of the in and out laps, but his time was up. Lets not forget this sport has survived the end of Senna & Prost. Senna's death and a whole lot retirements . Remember there are a 100 more great drivers waiting for their opportunity. So having Schumi out there was great, but the new generation has staked its claim and so lets hang around for the rise i am sure we will not be disappointed!!!

Gentlemen Start your engines !!!!

All hail King Anand

An Indian is the World No 1 in sport. Can you even guess whom we are talking about? Too bad it coincides with the world cup of cricket!! It more important to try and analyse what Dravid said and what he meant rather than to celebrate one of the most amazing achievements in sport by an Indian.

Well for those of you who missed it, Vishy Anand is the World No. 1 in chess. One of the best players in the world for most of the last decade and a half, he has seen the end of the 3 k’s (Karpov, Kasparova and Kramnik), the split in the world championship, unification matches, and he still remains man the Russian chess factory fears.

There have been disappointments along the way to be sure the loss to Kasparov, losing the championship to Karpov after doing all the hard work.But through it all he has remained the man to beat at most tournaments and possible the best blitz player of all time. But to me the true genius of the man is that he managed to come out of our system, he remains an inspiration to a whole new generation of really young talented chess players in the country, and perhaps to me the most crucial is that in sport known for big ego and odd behavior, he remains a genuinely nice guy with none of the eccentricities that seem to be the norm in the world of chess.

So three cheers to the best in the world of chess, and to the one world champion we have. GO Vishy make us even prouder! To those of you in the media how about some noise crowning the King?

Lets win together !!!!
Not a rabid cricket fan by any stretch of the imagination , but as a lover of sport and with the world cup round the corner i have to get my two pence in so to speak. But the real trigger thats got me going has been the statement by Yuvraj and the still continuous analysis and opinions right from the experts to my neighbhorhood pan wala. If we all had a vote ui am pretty sure that we would possibly have more than a million combinations for the team to represent us at the world cup. My point is that we have a team there and nothing we say or do (barring an injury) is going to change that. So the best thing we can do is get behind the team thats there(BTW as i write this we have just demolished the West Indians). I mean whats the sense in picking on individuals that are there and demoralise them and put pressure on them by questioning the logic of slecting them!

The two guys who have been most picked up on are Sehwag and Pathan. Well i don't know if its just me but i love the sight of Viru in full flow. It reminds me of a younger Sachin , terrorising bowlers. There have been many a match where my TV is off the minute viru was out. As for Irfan, at his best he is truly be among the top 3 all rounders in the game today. The way i see our team today , we have 3 types of batsman, the blasters, the responsible men and the finishers. I label Viru, Robin and Irfan as the blasters. The responsible men are Sachin, Sourav and Dravid, and finally the finishers are Yuvi and Dhoni. So ideally we need one of the blasters to fire in every match , we need the responsible men to be a bit more consistent and yuvi and Dhoni taking turns to finish them off. So ideally we could survive on one awesome innings from the blazers and some cameos as long as the others play their parts well!!

In conclusion i would urge everyone to get behind the team and just wish for the guys to fire, adn just sit back and enjoy the fun!!!! Go India!!!!!!!!!!

Target :.... KPS Gill
Well its a rather strange event that brought about this post, actually a bit of a combination actually. Just got through a season of the PHL and today happened to watch some young kids playing some really good hockey, and that got me wondering about the state of Indian Hockey.
For the life of me i can't figure out why we still have KPS Gill as the head honcho ? After years of taking us from bad to worse, if that was possible. Today we seem to be easy meat even for the minnows of world hockey, i mean we lost to China !!! whats happening ??? Why after all the screw ups is there no one in sight to challenge the domination of KPS Gill. I mean even Jaggy Dalmia was overthrown when the board was making money and the team performing relatively well. What does the Gill man have over everyone else ? when can we hope for some new blood to change the face of Indian hockey and let the abundant talent that seems to be there at the grass roots to blossoma nd then who knows what the future holds! Till then all we can do is pray and hope that changes happen before its too late !!!!!!!!!!