Gift for nation, dedicated to Woolmer

Pakistan cricket came alive at Lord’s on Sunday evening in all its unpredictable glory and unrefined exquisiteness. They had come into this tournament burdened by troubles at home and blighted by lack of match practice. They had started their campaign playing as though in shackles, they finished it with a chest-thumping freedom that would’ve seemed more appropriate in the frenzied, drunken stands.

The evening that began with what must be one of the most intimidating overs in Twenty20 history, ended in a flurry of fours and sixes from Shahid Afridi’s free-spirited blade. In the three-and-a-half hours in between, there were only a few moments when Pakistan flirted with the uncertainty that so typifies their cricket.

And at the end, they had trumped a Sri Lankan team that had been clinical and unbeaten through the tournament by eight wickets — a margin of victory that indicated the difference between the teams on the day.

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Team India failed unit test

Their first match on this trip, the warm-up against New Zealand, India lost by nine runs, their last game of the campaign, against South Africa, they lost by 12. As a team though, they have taken more steps back in the last two weeks than those numbers suggest.

Of all the hits that MS Dhoni and his team have taken over the fortnight, this one probably hurt the most. Losing to South Africa on a turner (the track was more Kanpur than Trent Bridge), chasing an extremely chaseable 130 at that, definitely ticks the box marked embarrassing.

For the last three days, the Indian camp has been answering questions on what went wrong.

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First signs of thaw in India-Pakistan 26/11 freezeis

Six months after the Mumbai terror attacks put the peace process between India and Pakistan on “pause”, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari on Tuesday directed their Foreign Secretaries to meet before the NAM summit in Egypt, where the two leaders are likely to meet again.

The summit of Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) countries will take place mid-July in Sharm-el-Sheikh in Egypt, and indications are the FS-level meeting is likely to be held in the last week of June or early July.

Manmohan Singh on Tuesday told President Zardari to take action to stop terrorism against India emanating from his country’s soil. Setting the tone for the meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit, Singh, shaking hands with Zardari, bluntly told him in front of television cameras that “my mandate is to tell you that Pakistan territory should not be used for terrorism against India.”

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Couldn't connect, we lost our players during Indian Premier League: Coach

The Indian team arrived in London two weeks ago, punch drunk on success and the confidence that comes with it. Riding on 39 days of manic Indian Premier League action, they were the men in form, the side that had figured this format out. So what went wrong for Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his team? Bad form? Bad planning? Bad luck?

Coach Gary Kirsten had one answer today: the IPL.

He was quite clear that the scheduling of the IPL, squeezed in between the New Zealand tour and the world Twenty20 championships, had a lot to do with the team’s disappointing showing. “We came into a tournament without being able to connect with the players at all. We got two days with the players,” Kirsten said this evening.

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England quicks send India out of World Twenty20 championship, win by three runs

India’s World Twenty20 title defence came to an undignified end at Lord’s on Sunday night, with their batsmen crumbling to an aggressive English bowling performance. Chasing 154 to stay alive in the tournament, Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s team fell three runs short, their second straight defeat leaving them with nothing but pride to play for against South Africa on Tuesday.

I Over two weeks in England, including the warm-ups, India have beaten a ragged Pakistan, the inexperienced Ireland and a ridiculously poor Bangladesh. Against New Zealand, West Indies and England last night, they fell comfortably short. England’s victory margin did not reflect how far behind India were.

There will be time for post-mortems, but first impressions are that they should have seen it coming. The West Indian quicks had them hopping around on Friday night, and they got more of the same on Sunday.

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Ronaldo to Real for 80 million pounds

Manchester United have accepted a world record bid of 80 million pounds ($131.7 million) from Real Madrid for Portuguese winger Cristiano Ronaldo, the English champions said on Thursday.

United, who fended off the Spanish club’s interest in the World and European Player of the Year 12 months ago, have given the nine-time European champions the go-ahead.

“Manchester United have received a world-record, unconditional offer of 80 million pounds for Cristiano Ronaldo from Real Madrid,” the club said. “At Cristiano’s request who has again expressed his desire to leaveand after discussion with the player’s representatives, United have agreed to give Real Madrid permission to talk to the player. “Matters are expected to be concluded by June 30.”

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Peshawar hotel bombers first fired at guards

Footage captured by close circuit cameras minutes before the suicide attack on a five-star hotel in Peshawar shows terrorists storming the building’s compound after firing at the hotel guards.

The attackers, who drove up to the luxury hotel Pearl Continental’s gate in a white car and a mini truck shortly before 10.30 pm on Tuesday, opened fire after guards opened the gate and lowered a concrete barrier. The car and the truck then drove at high speed towards the parking lot of the hotel.

The CCTV footage, aired by Geo News channel, showed a flash caused by a massive explosion that followed minutes later and plumes of smoke rising into the air.

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Injured Sehwag on way home, Dhoni a little hurt

The Board of Control for Cricket in India confirmed on Tuesday that Virender Sehwag would play no further part in the tournament, but the announcement came after the matter had snowballed into a full-blown controversy.

The BCCI press release said that the opener, who missed the two warm-up games as well as India’s 25-run victory over Bangladesh on Sunday, would return to India after consulting with specialists in England. Dinesh Karthik was named as his replacement.

Sehwag batted in the nets for the first time on this trip today, but his outing lasted just 12 deliveries, before he walked back into the changing rooms at the Lady’s Bay ground.

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From Versace couture to Byculla jail, a long and lonely road

A favourite story about Sheetal Mafatlal is how she would hate being called a page-three perennial. “I belong on page-one dahling,” she said at one of her many parties. This was, of course, before news of her husband’s family dispute made national headlines four years ago. And before Monday morning, when Mumbai woke up to front-page reports of her being detained at the airport for alleged duty evasion — she was arrested today for allegedly not declaring jewellery worth over Rs 50 lakh.

Later in the day, a city court remanded her to judicial custody until June 12, a ruling some legal experts felt was harsh — her lawyer Satish Maneshinde said “some disgruntled opponents of the Mafatlal family and industry” had tipped-off police and other authorities. This is not how Sheetal would have liked to make news. But none of her friends, many of Mumbai’s beautiful society ladies, said a word in her defence. Or spared a thought wondering if she was being made a victim as her lawyer alleged.

Not too long ago, these friends had enjoyed the expensive champagne and mutton raan her art-filled home on Altamount Road was known for, and had Sheetal light up their parties, swilling from crystal tulips, dressed in the latest couture, and only couture made from European designers’ ateliers.

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Ojha adds to India’s aura

Sunday morning, sleepy Nottingham woke up to a steady drizzle. Dull, grey, windy and damp, the weather prompted faces to slip easily into fierce scowls, a complete contrast to the mood in the Indian camp.

India had beaten Bangladesh by 25 runs on Saturday night, a result as comprehensive as they come in this miniature format of the game, all but ensuring smooth passage to the Super Eights stage of the second edition of the World T20 championships.

In Robin Hood’s land, Bangladesh had threatened, briefly, to steal from the rich. Tamim Iqbal and Junaid Siddique had started off their pursuit of 180 in real earnest but then, in one over, Pragyan Ojha killed off their challenge.

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One FIR, Government blacklists 7 firms, hits artillery upgrade

Having already taken a knocking with the controversies involving Bofors and Denel, India’s artillery modernisation programme hit another roadblock when the Ministry of Defence, taking note of bribery allegations in a fresh case, blacklisted seven firms, including gun manufacturer Singapore Technologies (ST) and munitions giant Israeli Military Industries (IMI) until further notice.

With all dealings with the two firms put on hold, defence contracts worth over Rs 6,000 crore — all involving artillery guns and ammunition for the Army — are now in deep freeze.

Confirming a report in The Indian Express, the Ministry of Defence said “all acquisition cases in the pipeline” with seven firms have been “put on hold” after their names figured in a CBI probe into corruption charges against former Director General of Ordnance Factory Board Sudipta Ghosh.

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Scientist dies in Antarctica, kin agree to last rites in icy station

Ranshu Wali’s only hope and prayer is that her Papa gets a decent cremation. Because in icy Antarctica where her father, Assistant Meteorological Officer (Research) Kuldeep Wali who was part of the 28th Indian mission to study climate changes, died three days ago, even the last rites are not easy to perform — the wind has been blowing at over 100 miles per hour.

The family in Delhi has been told that Wali, 57, suffered a massive heart attack and despite efforts, both by Indian doctors and those from a Russian research facility eight kilometres away, could not be saved.

“My father went there (he left on November 17 2008) despite the fact that he could have easily excused himself citing his age.

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How times have changed

“The BCCI members had resolved in a working committee meeting recently that they were not happy with the Twenty20 version and will not play it.” This was Board of Control for Cricket in India president Sharad Pawar’s stance three years ago, when the Indian team’s participation in the inaugural edition of the World Twenty20 championship itself was in doubt.

Back then, the bigwigs in the board considered the format a bit of a joke. England might have needed T20 to “bring crowds back to the grounds” but India did not, was the general theme (and anyway, they whispered, the fast-paced nature of the game, with just a 10-minute break, didn’t lend itself to advertising revenue).

As Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his team prepare to start their title defence, it’s hard not to chuckle at how, and how much, the board’s posturing on the game’s shortest format has changed.

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Lashkar-e-Toiba founder set free, Pakistan Prime Minister invokes Kashmir word again

Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, who founded the Lashkar-e-Toiba which carried out the Mumbai terror attacks, was today set free by the Lahore High Court, triggering an angry response from India which accused Pakistan of not being serious about fighting terror.

Hours later, Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, in a strident anti-India statement, asked “occupying forces” in Jammu and Kashmir to stop “repression”. He said the “indigenous uprising” in J&K ignited by the Amarnath shrine issue last year had added “another sad chapter to the sufferings of the Kashmiri people.”

In New Delhi, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon too was present at the meeting where they were said to have discussed options India could exercise to put pressure on Pakistan following the release of Saeed.

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228 feared dead as Air France jet is lost

A missing carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris ran into a towering wall of thunderstorms over the Atlantic Ocean, officials said Monday, fearing that all aboard were lost.

The area where the plane could have gone down was vast, in the middle of very deep Atlantic Ocean waters between Brazil and the coast of Africa. Brazil’s military searched for it off its northeast coast, while the French military scoured the ocean near the Cape Verde Islands off the West African coast.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy told families of those aboard that “prospects of finding survivors were very small.” If all 228 were killed, it would be the deadliest commercial airline disaster since2001.

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Air India, Jet planes avert collision

A collision between two departing aircraft, which carried 239 passengers between them, was narrowly averted on Sunday morning at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport. The incident on the runway occurred just a day after the Directorate General of Civil Aviation passed instructions allowing round-the clock usage of the cross runways that were earlier being used for only six hours a day. Aviation experts say the near collision puts a serious question mark on safety assessment at the airport.

The incident occurred around 8 am, when Air India flight AI-348 was preparing to take off from the main runway, even as Jet Airways flight 9W615 was readying for the same from the airport’s secondary runway. The planes came within seconds of a possible collision because the airport’s runways intersect one another and, according to sources, either a take-off clearance was given to both planes simultaneously or one of the pilots misunderstood the Air Traffic Control’s (ATC) instructions.

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