“Arsenal takes the lead through an attacking move with less than 6 passes (the most common move of scoring a goal, as stated in Inverting The Pyramid) and partly due to an error by an English keeper. Minutes later, a corner from Robin Van Persie and a simple header by Arshavin gives Arsenal a 2-0 lead”, and that’s precisely where the problem begins!!!! Because it all starts to end there.

Title winning squads require three things: quality, luck and mentality.

The current Arsenal squad has the first one. Over the past few years it has become evident that Arsenal always possesses enough fire power up front. Their midfield and attack are always packed with plenty of talent. They have extremely talented players who have the ability to score and create goals for fun. The current Arsenal squad is no different. They possess abundant quality up front and have already scored 100 goals in all competitions this season. In midfield they have players like Nasri, Fabregas, Walcott, Arshavin, Wilshere, all players who are capable of changing the course of the game single-handedly.

Even in attack they have the likes of Robin van Persie, Marouane Chamakh and Nicklas Bendtner, players who are extremely talented and capable of carrying the team forward on their own. But mere quality is not enough to win titles. If that was to be the case, then Arsenal would have been lifting trophies for the past several years.

So what precisely is the problem that stands between Arsenal’s embarrassment of talent and the bare trophy cabinet, that’s for the premier league, since the historic 2003-04 Unbeaten League Championship 7 seasons ago or the complete emptiness since the 2005 season;

Here are my list of 5 reasons why Arsenal are trophy less since the Invincibles of 2004:

1) Cesc Fabregas :

Simple. If Cesc Fabregas can’t help you win trophies, the only other way is to try without Fabregas. From where Arsenal are at the moment in context of the last 6 years, change can only be progressive. The only plausible reason why Arsenal would consider retaining Fabregas, in this mish-mash of a situation, could be to stop Barca from becoming an almost UNBEATABLE side.

2) WENGER & The Youth:

Ordinary players donning the jersey, Almunia a case in point. Poor defence set up. Mishandling of contracts, Nasri will testify to this. Plus no concrete thought of replacements post the exodus of Henry and Viera. Finally, if a team having the likes of Walcott, Fabregas, Nasri and van Persie are called “youth” and are given a staggering number of opportunities despite failing to step-up when required. It’s time Mr. Wenger steps down. Wenger’s sheer involuntariness to bring in an English type center back often is the witness to their defensive weaknesses of recent times.

3) The Mindset:

They are notoriously getting famous for throwing away matches which can/should be won by the most handsome of margins. Remember the Newcastle game last season when Arsenal, after leading 4-0 at halftime ended up drawing the game. The end season draws and add to that the failure to bury Barcelona despite beating them in the first leg shows Arsenal’s growing mental weakness. With the aforementioned pattern of play they don’t look good enough to come close winning the league. For the fans, Winning and Challenging are as different as chalk and cheese. Runners Up finishes are practically useless, ask the Indians about that fateful night at Johannesburg in the 2003 Cricket World Cup.

4) Injury:

Injuries and Arsenal are something that we have grown accustomed to. It would be a shock if Arsenal fielded a fully fit squad in the next two to three years. And that is something they have been unable to do in a very long time. Arsenal have been missing some player or the other at some point or the other.Thomas Vermaelen has been out since October. Robin van Persie has been shifting between the pitch and the treatment table. Fabregas’s hamstring cannot hold up for more than two months and Walcott’s ankle is broken or sprained more frequently than Chelsea’s revolving managers. Add to that Mr. Wenger’s ability to play with a shallow squad, or the lack of it to bring in some depth to the squad gives answers to most of the questions being asked off the gunners.

5) Highbury:

Ever since the move from Highbury to Ashburton Grove a.k.a The Emirates Stadium, the gunners have failed to pack a punch. The “GUNNERS” have been Gunned more often than they would have liked!!! Blame it on “VAASTU SHAASTRA” or “FENG SHUI”…the groove has not yet been found at the “GROVE”.

Edited by Leelaprasad

Economics and everything else apart: Here is the list of 5 reasons (in no particular order) why, I think, most Indians are fans of Manchester United

1. TRAGEDY a.k.a. the dard ka rishta:

Be it for the B grade SRK starrers or the brilliant ANAND or the applesauce Dard e Disco, Indians are most fascinated by tragedy. Post the tragic Munich ’58 air crash, our forefathers picked up the Red Devil baton which has changed hands over generations slowly evolving into a community of sorts. Seven of the Busby Babes, a talented bunch of team players, were to die in the snowy wastes of Munich airport that day, and an eighth, Duncan Edwards, the greatest of them all, lost his battle a fortnight later. It was an air disaster that sent shock waves around the world. The tragedy moved everyone. This wasn’t just a young, vibrant team, it should have been the team.

2. THE No. 7: George Best, Eric Cantona, David Beckham, Cristiano Ronaldo:

Need one say more?? Each of the aforementioned names are big enough to inspire a generation of fans, leave alone 4 such. Beguiling looks along with dollops of awe inspiring footballing skills make for a heady mixture sure enough to propel the fan base of an English club in India.

3. BRAND UNITED:

Manchester United has the ability to take players that may not look the best and seemingly turn them into winning machines. Recall Scholes, Giggs, Neville, Yorke, Solskjaer; players with immense Manchester United Value and less about adding value to Manchester United. Manchester United is known to build players’ reputation, much different from how things are with other clubs where it’s a high value player constructing the club’s repute. Just ask Park Ji Sung for further details.

4. Sir ALEX FERGUSON:

24 years, 12 League titles, 2 Champions League and 35 Silverware in total!! Anything else? For a continent where managers change more frequently than seasons, Fergusson’s record is nothing short of mind boggling.  For most of the younger generation, Sir Alex Ferguson IS Manchester United.

5. 1998/99 Champions League Final:

1 Match, 2 minutes, 2 Goals, A TREBLE. The stoppage time of the ’99 CL final could well be the most important “2 minutes” in the history of United and NO exaggeration here. A frightful(depending on which you were rooting for!) turnaround of fortunes with two clinical touches so typical of United and here was another INDIAN generation waiting in the wings to catch the UNITED flight.

Irrespective of whatever happened on that fateful night at Wembley against the spellbinding Barcelona, United’s lustre remains as intact as ever.  For some, it’s a bond that goes back to Munich. For others, it might be a fleeting obsession with Hernandez’s latest poke. Many won’t have heard of the Babes or of Bryan Robson, the 80′s Captain Marvel, but that won’t stop them rooting for the Red Devils.  As aBarcelona fan, my respect for Ferguson and what he managed to do remain untarnished.

P.S. For the record, there are an estimated 25 million Manchester United supporters in India.

Eshan Sett

First things first, it’s the cricketers who run the game and NOT vice versa neither are the Officials , high or low, associated with the game. The contours of the game, positive or negative, are shaped by the players and it is they who need to have the final say. Some of you could argue blaming the players’ skewed priorities and such but for the successful men they are, success at this level can’t come without sincerity and an enormous amount of hard work, these genuine men need to be given an ear along with a delicate balance of sound mind-heart judgement towards judging their priorities as either right or wrong.

The INDIAN PREMIER LEAGUE (IPL) has, off late, become the scapegoat with Test cricket “aficionados” blaming the league for the overall decline of test cricket or test match attendance to say, with the majority of them going to the extent of squarely faulting the league for the dwindling quality of test cricket and cricketers around the world. Before we further go about blaming the league and its products, some facts need to be considered along with some clean cut analysis of events and situations post summer’08.

Consider this, Lasith Malinga  after his stupendous performance in the 2007 World Cup ( remember the 4 wickets in 4 balls!!!) had found himself out of favour with the Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) contracts the immediate season as he had fallen prey to injury, whose reason can be attributed to his art of slinging tearaway fast bowling. It had taken him more than 18 months’ time and append to that the extra baggage of missing the entire cricketing calendar and you now know that the impact of the injury went well beyond the realms of an unfit physical state. In the meantime, Mumbai Indians had paid a whopping amount (by any yardstick in cricket) to hire his services for the IPL, well aware of his injured state. It was his performance in IPL 2009 where had taken 18 wickets that brought him back into limelight which resulted in a culmination of events reinstating his place in the national team. He has repeatedly thanked the IPL for his return and cricket would’ve been poorer without a character like Lasith Malinga given the premier challenge of facing his Yorkers hurled with surgical precision or those magnificently disguised slower bouncers. He has led Sri Lanka to numerous wins since his return till a illuminating performance in the current World Cup. Now, hasn’t Sri Lanka benefitted from his return? For a trader of Malinga’s skill, it’s hard to imagine the shelf life of bowlers extending beyond 34-35 and then comes the question about his future. Can Lasith Malinga necessarily attract a lucrative contract from any of those premier channels? Does his peculiar (and astoundingly skilful and difficult) art own a platform for coaching?? Now, is it wrong for someone to be loyal and attracted to an event which gives skill the perfect platform over other formats (read tests)? Is it wrong for an international bowler to think for a stable income given his board’s rather in different treatment, low payments and taking into account that his colleagues on the other side of the strait end up as millionaires behind an Audi steering wheel?

How about this when Gayle comes up with a stern reply concerning the victory over the English in the Stanford 20-20 match where he says “You wanted it, we needed it”. He had later gone on to say that he used a part of that money as part of his mother’s treatment!! Now, are we to blame the cricketers for wanting the extra amount given their short shelf lives and short lived fame. These are the stories you read about the more famous Gayles and Malingas, imagine the utility of the fame, recognition and money to the lesser cricketers who remain a Sherpa all through their life never to become a mountaineer despite having all the skill in climbing but lacking the sophisticated resources required to start an expedition and earning a name for themselves. Increasingly players from the lesser paid countries will face such questions and it’s grossly unfair on them as individuals. Go through the Shane Bond story for further testimony to the fact.

From an Indian perspective imagine the ripper of a delivery which disturbed the furniture of an in-form and settling Shane Watson during the India Australia Quarterfinals in Ahmedabad, what’s the first name that comes up for that miserly start and that all important wicket?? Ravinchandran Ashwin, IPL’s gift to Indian cricket and had Watson stayed on, one can never really convince me if Sachin Tendulkar would have ever got that ride over the young shoulders with emotional war cries and the cathartic reverberations in front of his home crowd?? Can you? Can one imagine what would be the state of affairs if the cricketers stop playing for some reason?? Personally, my article would have never seen the light of day or to be more specific, I wouldn’t have penned it down neither would there exist any platform called SPORTSKEEDA.Sounds bitter but true.

IPL doesn’t demand extraordinary cricketing skills to sustain; a balance between average cricketing skills fused with some good behaviour ensures your life is made. The BCCI will not have to spend a lot of time over pension plans neither will you end up hearing any sad stories of medals, memorabilia etc. being traded for that extra money. For all we know, power, fame and money pushes through most roads in the world and after leading a largely uncommon life in absolute spotlight, IPL ensures more than anything else that the average cricketer has the last of the resources to live a decent life and support the non-celebrity half of his career.

From a more cricketing point of view, we surely don’t need another Packer era and a 45 day window in between the Indian summer will ensure that the team owners go happy, the advertisers go happier and more importantly the audience and the Chief Protagonists(read: players) go the happiest. I am sure no one would ever mind a retired Shane Warne coming on to bowl for 45 days of cricket neither would any of us mind the charismatic Gilchrist dispatching the bowlers with disdain, an Iqbal Abdullah strangulating World Cup final centurion Mahela Jayawardene or Muttiah Muralitharan being sent out of the ground by a Ravindra Jadeja to snatch away a match. These are all win- win situations with the experience for one and some stability for the other. For a youngster like Wriddhiman Saha or a Shreevats Goswami, while taking guard for the Indian team on debut there will be less than  half the pressure than it was for the likes of Sanjay Manjrekar and Vinod Kambli. I bring about this comparison because the mentally stronger players are bound to bring home the bacon but the above mentioned senior cricketers( two extremely talented cricketers they were) were ones who had become victims of pressure and plagued to a large extent by theWhat if question. What if I fail? What if I never make it big? What if I don’t get another chance? Now , you’ve got the IPL as an emphatic answer to dispel all those doubts and utilise the league as the supplementary paper to pass. Ask Shaun Marsh, Dirk Nannes and Ryan Ten Doeschate to name a few.

Shane Warne got a stage and proved how “He was the best Captain Australia never had”.

For all the Test Cricket lovers, agreed there’s nothing quite like the thrill of a closely fought test match (Chennai ’01 vs. AUS, Mohali ’10 vs AUS or Edgbaston ’05 Ashes) but just like how Hollywood can never survive on the likes of Hurt Locker and Kings Speech without the Hangovers and Pirates in between, cricket too needs its equivalent of Harry Potter. Something low on content and literary quality but high on adrenaline and thrill.

The IPL is more like the birthday party or the anniversary in an average man’s life generally fraught with liabilities and other regular problems, a day when everything’s forgotten to enjoy for a brief moment during the party. The party which lets some enjoy and some make a living out of. Just like any average human being would crave for that one special day a year, cricket too needs its special moments, for that “smile that goes the extra mile”.

Expectedly or not, the old diseases have come back to haunt again. The all too familiar collapse and the sheer inability to wrap up the tail after you have the opposition right on the mat. For the first time in this tour and much to the relief of the host team, the matches swim across to Antigua from the “Indian” Trinidad, or that’s how the hosts would want to refer to and why not. Rank turners, massive crowd support (if any) and 3 games into the tour unbeaten and this is not what a host nation would expect, leave alone wanting it, save for the groundsmen.

Coming into Antigua, one expected the surface not to turn but not too much was understood about the nature of the pitch which made India decide to bowl first and test the opposition. The West Indies got off to the worst possible start losing Edwards with the score at blob following which some controlled batting took them to a respectable 65/1 till the tornado struck again just before the end of the power plays. A lazy run out, a stumping followed by a turning delivery disturbing the furniture and suddenly 74/4 and familiar picture loomed. Amit Mishra was once again the wrecker-in-chief and the West Indies seemed jinxed to him. The next 10 overs only had a sad story getting sadder till the tipping point was reached with the dismissal of Sammy at 96/7 and West Indies were well and  truly on the mat and lunch hovered on the horizon for the Indian team  but Andre Russel and Carlton Baugh had other ideas. With Mishra’s overs running out in attack mode, Russel in the company of supporting star cast Baugh laid the foundation meticulously till a thundering blast at the end by Russel and with just another wicket lost, the West Indies unfamiliarly recovered to a fighting 225 and a young man with a fantastically paced 92 (not out) off just 64 balls, announced himself on the big stage. Mishra once again proving to be the pick of the bowling lot and once again was an insipid performance (not economically but in terms of wickets) by Harbhajan on a turner against an ordinary line up.

India were expected to overhaul the target with ease and given West Indies perennial largesse this tour,the result was a foregone conclusion unless otherwise an equally pugnacious and accomplished performance by the bowlers. With Roach and Bishoo having 20 overs to themselves, a contest was anticipated though not by many. Dhawan’s poor run continued and a lazy drive away from the body, when on 4 off 15, should spoon his place in the reserve bench for now. Virat Kohli followed next ball, as if to immediately advise Dhawan, caught in front off Sammy, who now with 2 off 2 suddenly had the sparse crowd bringing life into the match.

What followed next, was an eerily similar pattern of the West Indies innings being inseminated with a run out starting the slide coupled with some poor shot selection soon had the World Champions in tatters at 96/6.Some highly calculative and sensible batting by Rohit Sharma in the company of Harbhajan, making up for his bowling, only made us wonder why the top order batsmen couldn’t apply themselves on such a track, particularly the likes of Yusuf Pathan who for once had sufficient time and overs in his side to settle and harbour India to safety instead of going for the reckless shot.

Some poor bowling, the continued largesse of the Windies fused with some superb batting by Sharma mixed with Bhajji ways and Praveen Kumar’s end credit lusty blows, took away the match from the West Indies and in the process clinched India the series.It was Rohit Sharma’s best international innings and given that he was in a pressure situation, he has come out in flying colours thus cementing his place in the team for now. Harbhajan seems to thrive on his batting more often than not, considering that his bowling clicks only when his batting doesn’t and with Ashwin breathing down the neck for the off spinner’s spot, this looks like his armour for the time being.

It was the closest match in the series with some inspired performances by one youngster announcing himself on the big stage and another establishing the promise he had shown on the tour to Australia 3 years ago.It also highlighted the inability of the bowling attacks to shut out matches and Roach, at the end of the innings, was spraying as if paying a tribute to Harmisson (remember the first ball of the Ashes 2006-07!, if not check it in youtube). An under par performance by both teams made it a thrill to watch and with Chris Gayle not taking the field due to miscommunication in the age of twitter, only goes on to show the attitude of the authorities in the higher echelons of the Windies board, which seems to affect the team and the sport badly in this part of the world.

India is undoubtedly enjoying one of the best summers it has ever had. For a second string team to travel away from home and clinch a series outright in the minimum number of matches, further establishes the undying spirit within the team along with the tag of being “WORLD CHAMPIONS”.

Ramnaresh Sarwan acknowledges the crowd upon reaching his fifty.

History did not repeat this time. The last time India played their first series as World Champions (in 1983), the Windies had given them a hiding of a lifetime which had raised serious doubts about who the world power still was. But 28 years on, the compass seemed to have completed a full circle.

The first ODI, played largely under the Chris Gayle shadow and billed as a battle between two largely brittle and inexperienced batting line ups, lived up to its notion and the end result didn’t throw up any surprises.

This match proved no different, if anything, it only went on to prove that the West Indies are getting no better and only flatter to deceive. After a unspectacular but solid start from the openers, the Windies have only themselves to blame for their plight. At 192 for 3 with 10 overs still to go and two genuine batsmen at the crease with one them well settled, it looked like they were making a match of it against an inexperienced Indian battling line up on a turner.

Now, when two of your well set batsmen get stumped to part time off spin and another half centurion holes out to a high full toss, something’s just not right in the mind of the team. Lightning had not struck them once but twice, with the back to back dismissals of Sarwan and Pollard all seemed lost for them.The Windies reeled under immediate pressure and Mishra assisted in triggering a collapse so familiar of the modern West Indies team. The last legacy of the West Indies was lost after the previous World Cup at the sub-continent in 1996 with the retirement of Richie Richardson though they still had the Ambrose, Walsh and Lara for company, this time though 15 years and 4 World Cups on it only has a bare cupboard to look at. History had indeed been cruel to the West Indies.

Only after some consolidation by the lower order  and the under pressure captain did West Indies manage to reach, 240, a score which was never likely to trouble even the young Indians especially when you consider their mastery over spin which runs in their blood.The fact that 240 was the highest score of the season for the West Indies only highlight how below par the season has been for them.

Virat Kohli became the 2nd fastest Indian to reach 2000

The Indian chase was par for course save for the minor hiccup of Dhawan’s early wicket and a rain interruption. The rain interruption can be thanked for bringing some element of uncertainty into the match (that’s only as far as D/L system revised score goes, and nothing to do with the result of the match), and also for setting the Indians a relatively stiffer target to get, though with the two well set batsmen at the crease and not being a patient of the” Collapse disease” (Pakistan, West Indies and an under pressure South Africa being the serious patients) the result was never in doubt. An assured innings from Kohli, also in the process making him the 2^nd fastest Indian to reach 2000 ODI runs (53 innings), further laid his cause as one of the batting mainstays and a key find for India in the future.

With important contributions from Amit Mishra, Parthiv Patel and Munaf Patel, India ensured it never made a match of the score even with what is effectively a second string line up.

For the West Indies though, the troubles seem to be never ending. Some poor shot making conflated with some baffling tactics by the skipper is not doing the team any favors and taking them no where. Consider this, the two best bowlers (leg spinners) who almost daunted the Indians in the previous match were not made to bowl until the 17^th over on a decent turner by when the match was almost out of hand.

In the victory mood a point not to be missed remains the concern over the form of Harbhajan Singh, going at over 5 an over with just a solitary wicket to show against an unconvincing opposition leaves a lot to be desired. Otherwise, for a young team with almost no senior to look upon in batting and facing the opposition away, it was a fine performance indeed.

INDIA are the World Champions, can Fletcher and his young men for the future build a dynasty?