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Archive for February 2010

Thendulkar notches one day double ton

India's Sachin Thendulkar became the first player to score a double century in a one day international when he scored 200 runs in the on-going series against South Africa.

Before Thendulkar's double century the highest score was 194, a record which was jointly held by Zimbabwe's Charles Coventry and Pakistan's Saeed Anwar.

Its interesting to note that Thendulkar's previous highest score was a 186 noy out which he scored against New Zealand in 1999.

I think its fitting that Thendulkar has created this record for himself after having played so well at the top level for a long time.

I also think that this will be a record that will take some time to match and overtake.

South Africa lost the match by 153 runs.

Category: Cricket | Comments : 0

Mugabe 86 and going on

This week Robert Mugabe the President of Zimbabwe turned 86 and is still going on to contest the next election whenever its held.

In December Mugabe's party Zanu PF decided that their presidential election in the next election would be Mugabe and by then he would be 87 if next year or 88 if in 2012.

The purpose of this post is not to discuss the pros and cons of that decision taken at the Zanu PF congress but to ask what makes some leaders continue to want to lead forever and ever.

For somebody in his late eighties you would expect that somebody would be talking about retirement especially if that person had been in power for thirty years but that is not the case for Mugabe.

He is expecting to be president in his 90s assuming he wins the next election and gets a five year term.

Is it because he thinks he is doing a very good job and nobody will be able to continue that work or is it because of a mere lack of a succession plan.

Whatever the reason may be its interesting to see that right now in the structures of Zanu PF there doesn't seem to be anybody who is positioned to take over from the elderly statesman should be decide to retire.

That means he will go on and on maybe until he loses an election.

Category: Zimbabwe | Comments : 0

Lee retires from Tests

Australian bowler Brett Lee has decided to retire from Test cricket in order to prolong his career which has been been besot with injuries.

Lee will continue to play the short form of the game in one day and Twenty20 internationals.

Its sad to see that Lee has decided to retire from Test cricket but I think he has taken a decision that can at least see him play cricket in the one day international arena for a lot longer.

I think for a long time Lee was overshadowed by Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath in the bowling department but when these two retired I expected him to be the leading bowler and take the shine.

But that is when injury struck and he has been on and off from the Australian team for the last two years.

Meanwhile Australia finished the summer of cricket without suffering any defeat.

Australia played the West Indies and Pakistan in all forms of cricket but most of the matches were one-sided contests which in the end I just lost interest.

Apart from the last two Tests against the Windies, the only other competitive match I can remembers was a Twenty20 match against Pakistan and that was all.

I hope to see better cricket next summer when Sri Lanka and England visit.

Category: Cricket | Comments : 0

Federer gets fourth Aussie total

This year's Australian Open men's tennis final was an interesting affair with Roger Federer once again showing how good he is when he beat Andy Murray in straight sets.

This was Federer's fourth Australia Open title and the sixteenth Grand Slam overall.

I think Federer was the first to settle and once that happened he won the first two sets and from I could not see Murray coming back.

By the time Murray won the crucial break in the third set, Federer had the cushion of the first two sets but he managed to break back leading to the tie break.

I still think Murray deserved to win at least one set and that would have been the third one but Federer was just a class act.

Every time Federer wins a Grand Slam he is now creating a new record which may never be broken for a very long time.

With three more grand slams left this year I can see him winning at least one more to reach 17.

Category: Tennis | Comments : 0