What the f–k is wrong with Andre Agassi?

Something is wrong with Agassi. He recently wrote a book and in the book he revealed that he took crystal meth for performance enhancement and lied about it to the ATP investigators. Had he not lied , then his career would have been over in 1997 itself and the general public would not have considered him to be the legend that is.

In many people’s mind, Agassi is one of the tennis greats. This group includes me as well. He is one of the best returners in the tennis game and is one of the handful of guys to have won all tennis surfaces. There is no need to now tarnish that image buy revealing something that happened long time ago. I think it is stupid to reveal stuff just to sell the book.

I guess sports people are writing lot of books and creating some sensational news to sell their books. Even, Adam Gilchrist did that not so long ago.

India goes up 2-1 in the India vs Australia ODI series

I watched some ODI cricket today because the match was during the weekend. I completely stopped watching any other format other than twenty20 on weekdays.

India won the match with one over still remaining. It was a low scoring game. Australia made 229 runs after batting first on the slow track of Kotla stadium in Delhi. Indians successfully chased the total with the help of big partenship between Yuvaraj and Dhoni. Dhoni was not out at the end, while Yuvaraj made a very good contribution of 78 runs to the total score.

I realized that ODI’s have lot of new rules to make the matches more interesting in the era of Twenty20 cricket. Some of these things include powerplays and free hit.

I donot have an issue with an ODI match on a weekend. I would enjoy it just like I would enjoy Twenty20.

Three years in INDIA since returning from USA

It has been almost three years in India since returning from USA after abandoning the green card. Life has been a roller coaster ride like it always is. I am happy with my personal life. I am married again and I have a beautiful daughter. The time spent playing and teaching my daughter are wonderful moments of my life. My work life has been relatively more tepid. I am working at my third company since my return. I even started a sports management firm and got out of that business after it didn’t do well.

For enjoyment, I have been travelling to some Indian tourist destinations instead of foreign destinations which I like to do. I am watching movies every now and then in multiplexes. There are four multiplexes within short driving distance from my home in Masab Tank. There are couple of good shopping malls near my home as well. Now a days, I go to the mall to eat in the food court there and shop for books, music and movies. The crossword bookstore in city centre mall is my favourite bookstore. The music world outlet in Ashoka Metropolitan is where I buy lot of Telugu music and videos. These days, I am buying lot of 99 rupees DVDs from Moserbaer and other companies. Telugu movie song Cd’s are around 45 rupees and very affordable. I still have my canon 20d cameras and use them for all my photography pursuits. I have been attending quite a few cricket matches in Hyderabad since my return. Recently, I went to see the finals of Champions League Twenty20.

The only problems I have in Hyderabad are the bad roads near my home. The sewers on Ahmednagar road always have some problem and there is a sewage water on the roads. Also, if it rains, the road becomes like small river. Also, I don’t like how garbage is stored and collected by GHMC. Also, right now I am living in a building that has only Muslims as neighbours and my wife doesn’t like it that much.

Overall, life is good.

Champion league T20 final at Rajeev Gandhi International Stadium

I went to watch the finals between New South Wales(NSW) and Trinidad & Tobago(T&T) yesterday. I reached the stadium early and waited patiently for the match to start. Lot of people were supporting T&T because lot of players were of Indian ancestry and also because they played good cricket throughout the tournament.

My gut feeling was that New South Wales would win the big game. I thought that it was bad on part of organisers to not leave a day free for T&T to rejuvenate after the semi-final on October 22nd. NSW was well rested and ready for the game.

Any way, NSW batted first. They lost wickets at regular intervals but a good knock by Brett Lee took them to a respectable total of 159. T&T started the match on a disastrous note by loosing the wicket of the opening batsman in the first over. It was unnecessary on part of batsman to come to the front to take on Brett Lees bowling. The other batsman also made many mistakes because of big match pressure and finally ended all out for less than 120 runs.

NSW pocketed a cool two and half million for winning the tournament. The runners up didn’t do bad and they pocketed a cool 1.3 million dollars.

The fireworks during the closing ceremony at the stadium were pretty good.

New way to relax – Snake massage

I just read the news on Times of India website that some Israeli spa centre is offering snake massages. In this massage, few non venomous snakes are left to crawl on the body of person getting massage.

Obviously, there are takers for it. Otherwise, the spa business would have never been open.

We live in an interesting world!

US robbers targeting Indian homes for gold

One of the top stories on Times of India today was about US robbers targeting Indian homes for gold.

I would say these robbers are smart. They are aware of the Indians fascination with gold necklaces and saress with gold zari work. Also, Indian jewellers use 22 carat gold as opposed to the 12 carat gold used in fashion jewellery. The necklaces can fetch a good price in the black market.

The robbers must have attended some Indian parties and found that Indian women have lot of gold jewellery at home and wear them often, when they go out.

delay in inauguration of PV Narasimhma Rao express way

I was just reading the news in Times of India about the delay in opening up the new expressway to public. The expressway was named after late Prime minister PV Narasimha Rao from the beginning of the civil works on the expressway. After lot of delays, the work on the expressway is finally complete. Recently, YS Rajaskehara Reddy, the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh died in a tragic helicopter accident. Now, some political parties want to name the expressway after him.

I think this is unnecessary. I like both PV Narasimha Rao, who opened up the country for economic reforms and YS Rajasekhara Reddy, the charismatic leader.However, it is better to leave the name as PVNR expressway. After all, he was the first Telugu Prime Minister.

Deccan Chargers amazing loosing streak at Home

I went to watch the Deccan chargers(DC) vs Trinidad &Tobago(T&T) twenty20 match at the Rajiv Gandhi cricket stadium yesterday. T&T batted first and made a decent score of 149 runs. DC were in a match winning position until the loss of Gilchrist and Rohit Sharma’s wicket. There were several reasons for the loss which include promoting Abhinav Kumar to number #3, unnecessary second run call by Symmonds, Rohit Sharma’s bad shot, RP Singh’s unnecessary second run without giving batting opportunity to Suman, etc.

DC have never won at home. It is kind of funny that they are IPL 2 champions. They won the tournament when it was conducted in South Africa.

At the stadium, I thought DC were going to win when Venugopala Rao was going great guns. But, then they never fail to disappoint.

Champions league match – Deccan Chargers vs Somerset Sabres

I went to watch match between Deccan Chargers and Somerset on Saturday night. The stadium is little far from home, but I drove there in my santro xing and parked it on the roadside and went into the stadium. I went inside through Gate 4 and realised that the outsides of the stadium have still not been fixed. They just built the stadium and forgot to finish the work outside.

Anyway, after getting inside the stadium , I went to the first floor stands. The stands were full and there were lot of youngsters. The match started with Deccan Chargers batting first. Laxman and Gilchrist opened the innings. Gilchrist fell before the first six overs were complete, while Lax am made forty plus runs while lasting until the middle overs. None of the other chargers played well. The middle overs saw very few runs being scored and this turned out to be the reason they lost the match later. On the other hand, many Somerset batsman contributed twenty or more runs each and accomplished the target on the penultimate ball of the match.

In the stadium, the fireworks were going off for every six or wicket. Although, I didn’t understand why the fireworks would go off when Hyderabad wicket goes down, when one’s home ground is Hyderabad and majority of the people in the stadium support Hyderabad. Food for some thought for the fireworks guy?

Anyway, it was fun to be there during the inaugural Champions League Twenty20 tournament.

Nobel prize news related to US President Barrack Obama and Venkataraman Ramakrishnan

I am glad to hear the news that Indian Origin Venkataraman Ramakrishnan won the noble prize for chemistry for his work on ribosomes. He works at the Cambridge lab which is factory for noble prizes.

I was surprised to learn that US President Barrack Obama won the Peace prize. He is still relatively new on the world stage and yet he got the prize for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.

I think he got the prize for not being like Bush and not waging war on anyone based on some evidence of weapons of mass destruction.