Van-tastic Pitch-side View

Courtesy: The Telegraph

I've spent a good deal of money on The Arsenal. It certainly does not compare to what most avid Arsenal fans spend, going to every other game. Yet, after quite a few trips to the Emirates, I felt a sense of entitlement to see the REAL Arsenal. By that, I mean some flowing passes, good possession, and as a bonus - a victory. I got most of that today. Every single penny I spent was worth it (this is compared to my previous visits ONLY of course), mainly due of the genius of Robin van Persie. A flowing move for the first goal before some of the Emirates faithful had even warmed their seats, a sublime chip that came off the post and a brilliant late free kick again from the skipper sealed a deserved win. It did for a long time look uncertain after a nicely taken free kick by Seb Larsson, which I didn't see in real time to be honest.

It's IPL time again.... Yawn

The latest installment of the IPL is a week old as I write this, and we Indians haven't even had the time to gloat over a famous World Cup win. I have yet to watch a full game and the credit (of course I'm being sarcastic) goes to some of our favorite commentators, all back after being rested for the World Cup. Laxman Sivaramakrishnan says, "Oh yes! Happy to be back. Had to keep myself fit for this one. That's why I opted out of the World Cup sponsored by Money Gram International, Reliance Communications, Castrol, ESPN Star ....... ",  all this hoping that at least a few of the brands would pay him a few Rupees for mentioning their names on live television. It's hard enough for cricket fans, having to many times miss the first and last ball of an over because of a commercial break and now we have these dimwits at the mercy of advertisers playing out the audio versions of the commercials almost every alternate ball. LS can be excused because that's probably as close as he'll get to featuring in a TV commercial.

Graeme Smith Reveals Retirement Plans

Graeme Smith, at a press conference after the first day of the deciding Test match between India and South Africa, has announced that he will be retiring. There was a twist though in store for everyone. As we all know some players have in the past retired from one form of the game or other as they wanted to devote more time and effort to their preferred format be it ODIs, Test matches or more recently T20 cricket. Smith though went one step ahead when he announced, "Well ya, I have decided to quit from all matches which will feature Zaheer Khan in the opposing team. Ya, this will help me focus on bowlers who I am more comfortable against" after having being dismissed by Zaheer for the 11th time in his career.

Saurav Ganguly when told about this development gave his customary look of disbelief by batting his eyelids at the rate of three times per second. "If I had retired from matches played in Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and West Indies, my average would have been much higher. This is not right. Soon you might have people retiring from short pitched bowling" he said, suggesting that he might have considered various kinds of retirement plans to suit his batting average.