The Good, Bad, and The Ugly ft. Man Kaur, Coaching and Indian Kabaddi
The sporting world was abuzz with various sports events taking place in the last week. With the India-England series ending and the Asia Cup starting, we had a lot of content to select. And here is our compilation of everything good, bad and Ugly incidents that happened in the week gone by.
The Good
At a time when Indian Super League and wider television coverage made Indian football storm back into the Indian consciousness, Star Sports took an appreciative step to give the sport its personal platform. Adding to its wide bouquet of sports channels in India, the Star Sports network has decided to launch Star Sports 3, a channel exclusively dedicated to Indian football. As per a tweet released by the Channel, Star Sports 3 will be launched on September 15. Sunil Chhetri was seen promoting the new channel on Twitter, where he mentioned that this channel is for the football enthusiasts of India. It is indeed an appreciative step considering the way the sport has gained momentum in the country and if the channel runs some interesting programme to go with the live matches, it may help Indian football more than ever.
While Star’s step was one fine step, 102-year-old Man Kaur’s achievement at World Masters Athletics Championships is another feel-good story of grit and determination. Kaur clinched a gold medal in 200m event at the Championships in Malaga, Spain. Prior to this achievement, Man had also secured a Gold in the 100m event at the World Masters Games, held at Auckland, New Zealand. The Punjab lady started her career at the age of 93 and had finished her first 100m race in only 61 seconds and still at the age of 102, she is the oldest female athlete in the country - a sheer inspiration if nothing else. At a time when people in our country often decide to take retirement from their profession in their 50s and put themselves under the clouds of old-age, Kaur has craved own niche and set an example for many.
The Bad
Talking of bad, it couldn’t have been worse for Indian sport this week. First, Indian shuttlers put up one terrible performance after another in the Japan Open before Indian football team were comprehensively beaten by
Some of the rules in Tennis is as controversial as it could get. Like coaching from the stands rule which resurfaced in the last US Open Women’s singles final. What Serena Williams did was absolutely wrong and the violation that was given to her was completely justified. However, one thing needs to be ensured that the rule remains constant for everyone. The coaching violation for which he penalised Serena that day is actually pointing fingers at something wrong with the rules. It is a well-known fact that most coaches are seen coaching players from the stands and there were no actions taken then. The problem that the ITF now face is that if any player is seen receiving coaching from the stands and is not given a code violation, the uproar is going to be swift and messy.
The Ugly
Racial abuse in cricket hasn't been a new thing with the Harbhajan Singh-Andrew Symonds saga taking it to a whole new level in 2007. While Imran Tahir had to suffer the same fate in England once, most of the Pakistani players of the yesteryear had to tolerate a lot of racial abuse. And now, Moeen Ali is the latest one to have come out in public about the existence of racism in the game and he was abused during the first Ashes Test at Cardiff in 2015. Moeen revealed that one of the Australians had come out and called him "Osama". Another person in Australia had even asked him when his kebab shop was opening. In a world where we call ourselves progressive, this type of behaviour is certainly not acceptable and Australian cricket is gaining nothing from this sort of problematic behaviour of their cricketers and fans.
After Indian Kabaddi team’s ( both men and women) shambolic performances at the Asian Games, the sport got a terrible setback in the country. In a recent development, New Kabaddi Federation of India (NKFI) filed a petition in Delhi High Court alleging that there were rampant malpractices with regards to the selection of the Indian teams for Jakarta Asian Games. Going through the petition, the Delhi High Court released an order on August 2 of which the clause 9 (i) stated that “The Amateur Kabaddi Federation of India – respondent no 4 shall conduct a selection process which shall commence from 15th September 2018 at 11 am.” Although there was no mention that national teams are required to take part in the trial process, the NKFI had conducted their own trials in Bengaluru last month and selected the men’s and women’s squads with an eye on a trial match against the national teams that took part in the Asian Games. While the whole incident was a misinterpretation in NKFI’s part, it was an ugly episode to have come out from a sport which has gained momentum in recent years and India are at the pinnacle of it for the longest time. There has to be a fairness to everything!
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