2012 ICC World Twenty20: Anxiety Begins, Excitement is On…

The 2012 ICC World Twenty20 began in Sri Lanka on September 18 with no clear favorites but inaugural champions India will fancy their chances on the slow familiar tracks of the island nation where they have played a lot of cricket in recent times.

Seeded second in Group A, which clubs them along side defending champions England and qualifiers Afghanistan, India were on a high after clinching the 50-over World Cup in 2011. But their fortunes took a turn for the worst soon after with Test whitewashes in England and Australia.

On a roller-coaster ride since 2011, Mahendra Singh Dhoni's men have a decent shot at the title as Sri Lanka is a home away from home for Indian cricketers. The turning tracks which might bamboozle the likes of Australia and England would be hardly a concern for the Indians, who have the requisite spin arsenal to exploit the conditions as well.

Advantage for Hosts

The hosts themselves have a good chance of winning their first ICC world title after the 1996 50-over World Cup triumph in India. The talent is there and so is the much-needed familiarity with conditions, and the only thing that Mahela Jayawardene's flock has to guard against is the pressure that would come with playing in front of adoring home fans.

Not to forget the ever-so-unpredictable Pakistan, a team which can be outstanding one day and completely pedestrian the other. Mohammad Hafeez appears to have a balanced Twenty20 side with all ends covered.

What they have to battle are non-cricketing issues. To present themselves as a cohesive unit would be the challenge for Pakistan even though they are coming into the event on a high after beating Australia. The Asian giants aside, the tournament will be another arduous test for the Australians, once the seemingly-invincible world champions and now a struggling team in transition.

Gone are the days when the Aussies took the field as the outright favorites. Led by a rather low-profile batsman George Bailey, the side from Down Under still has to get comfortable with the format and it would be a tough task for them to master conditions which they have traditionally found hard to cope with. Clubbed alongside West Indies and the sprightly Ireland, the Australians will have it tough. In fact, they rank below perceived-minnows Ireland in the ICC table which quite reflects their state right now. Defending champions England, on the other hand, don't even look the part in the absence of a certain Kevin Pietersen.

The big-hitting controversial batsman has been forced to retire from the format as he has quit ODI cricket and England Board's rules bar players leaving one-dayers from T20s as well.

His ouster has created a vacuum which would be tough to fill for any other batsman and in a format which is called slam-bang, it could prove to be decisive.

Then there are AB de Villiers' South Africa. A team which has not won a single ICC world trophy even though, it has always been counted among the favorites. Labeled the 'chokers' for not coming good in multi-team events, the South Africans would be desperate to wipe off the tag. They seem to have the ammunition besides being the rare non-subcontinental side which doesn't find it tough in the region's dust-bowls.

The Proteas just have to keep it steady when things get rocky, which might end up being the recipe for that elusive success in ICC events.

The West Indies and New Zealand are the dark-horses of the tournament. The Caribbeans would want Chris Gayle to be at his destructive best after making peace with the board to force a national comeback. The West Indoes were a team on the slide but Gayle's comeback and some decent results in the past few months show that they seem to be steadily gaining in confidence and that would come in handy when they square off against the perceived stronger teams.

New Zealand has traditionally been known to save its best for big-ticket events. In inspirational Daniel Vettori, they have a world-class spinner who can make the most of the conditions. Australia's trans-Tasmanian rivals are, in fact, a better bet than Bailey's men to survive longer in the tournament.

The qualifiers — Afghanistan and Ireland — and Zimbabwe would try to ensure that they don't just make up the numbers and present a fight to ensure interesting contests. Looking at the overall picture, the event promises to be a cracking affair and it would be hard to put money on any team given the diversity of talent.

Wide Open Championship

This T20 World Cup looks wide open with India slight favorites in terms or odds and sentiment. But you could throw a blanket of even terms over the next seven teams with New Zealand and Bangladesh being the outsiders. Whatever else can be said about Afghanistan, Ireland and Zimbabwe, they cannot win the big thing.

It will however be quite interesting to observe whether the minnows, Afghanistan, Ireland and Zimbabwe are more competitive in the T20 than in the 50-over format.

There is a very good chance that in T20 games such as India versus Afghanistan will be more interesting in T20 than in 50 over form.

The toughest group is that of Pakistan, New Zealand and Bangladesh where one of those teams will miss out making it to the Super Eights. All the other favorite sides should make it comfortably through the group stages unless the weather intervenes.

India’s Chance

India’s success appears to depend on how desperate they are to win the cup, keeping the devastating batsman Virat Kohi in mind. Can they match the intensity of their long journey in the 2011 World Cup where it seemed almost imperative for the team and nation that they prevail?

In those tough and defining moments of tournament play, it is this hunger and desire that can carry you through those moments of crisis. In my time as coach with the team, the biggest enemy at various times seemed to be success.

Any major win or forward step of progress seemed to be followed by a period of time where our results were mixed. It wasn’t until we found ourselves in the situation of having to win a game from all the outside pressures that our quality of play would pick up.

Among India’s main opponents, three teams stand out in terms of hunger and desire. South Africa, New Zealand and Bangladesh have never won a World Cup of any significance (This is outside the Champions Trophy which is now on its last legs).

US Open Tennis Championship 2012: Andy Murray Becomes First Male Slam Winner for Britain in 76 years

Men’s Title

British tennis was savoring its first male Grand Slam champion for 76 years but Andy Murray's extraordinary feat in New York on September 11 was actually the antithesis of decades of failure from the nation where the sport was born. Murray became Britain's first major champion since Fred Perry claimed his third US Open title in 1936, the year the Spanish Civil War started and Franklin D. Roosevelt was reelected US president. Murray defeated defending champion Novak Djokovic to win an epic US Open final.

The Scotsman, beaten in his four previous Grand Slam finals, made it fifth time lucky with a nerve-jangling 7-6 7-5 2-6 3-6 6-2 victory at a windy Arthur Ashe Stadium where the players had to battle the elements as much as each other.

The 25-year-old, a survivor of the 1996 Dunblane school massacre, won a titanic first set that took almost an hour and a half to complete and ended in a 22-point tiebreaker, then added the second despite blowing a 4-0 lead.

Djokovic, already a five-times Grand Slam champion, rebounded to win the third set, then took the fourth to raise the prospect of becoming the first man since Pancho Gonzales in 1949 to win the final after losing the first two sets. However, the world number two was unable to conjure another fight back as his legs started to cramp and Murray wrapped up victory after four hours and 54 minutes, the same time it took Mats Wilander to beat Murray's coach Ivan Lendl in the 1988 final.

Olympic champion Murray served out the biggest win of his life a game later, lifting the honors on his second match point on a Djokovic forehand long. He won with 31 winners and eight breaks of serve from 17 chances. Djokovic got treatment for a groin injury on court prior to the last game as both players were severely tested in windy conditions.

Murray was playing his second New York final in four years after losing the first of his career in 2008 to Roger Federer. He established himself as a bona fide member of the ATP elite, winning six of his last seven matches against top 10 opponents.

The Scot’s victory ended his summer of success after playing the Wimbledon final against Federer and then beating the Swiss three weeks later in the London Olympic gold medal match. He is the first man to win the top Games medal and the US Open in the same season.

Women’s Title

Serena Williams won her 15th Grand Slam title and fourth career US Open Championship with a 6-2, 2-6, 7-5 victory over World No. 1 Victoria Azarenka on September 9. In the first three-set final at the US Open since 1995, American fourth seed Williams joined her sister Venus and Steffi Graf as the only women to win Wimbledon, the Olympics and the US Open in the same year.

The 13-year gap between Williams winning her first Slam title at age 17 at the US Open and now marks the longest span between first and most recent titles in US Open history and for any Grand Slam in the Open era that began in 1968.

No US Open women's final had gone to a third set since Steffi Graf went the distance to defeat Monica Seles 7-6 (8/6), 0-6, 6-3 some 17 years ago.

She missed eight months after having surgery on her left knee in 2003, the year she had completed a self-styled “Serena Slam” by winning four consecutive major titles. Of more concern: Only a few days after winning Wimbledon in 2010, Williams cut both feet on broken glass while leaving a restaurant in Germany, leading to two operations on her right foot. Then she got clots in her lungs and needed to inject herself with a blood thinner. Those shots led to a pool of blood gathering under her stomach’s skin, requiring another procedure in the hospital. In all, she was off the tour for about 10 months, returning in 2011.

She won her first major title age 17 at the 1999 US Open. Winning titles 13 years apart at the same Grand Slam tournament represents the longest span of success in the professional era, which began in 1968. Martina Navratilova (Wimbledon, 1978 and 1990) and Chris Evert (French Open, 1974 and 1986) had the longest previous spans of 12 years.

Williams won prior US Open titles in 1999, 2002 and 2008 and added Grand Slam crowns at the 2002 French Open, the 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009 and 2010 Australian Opens and Wimbledon in 2002, 2003, 2009, 2010 and 2012.

Doubles Titles

Men’s Doubles: Bob and Mike Bryan collected a record-equaling 12th Grand Slam men's doubles title on September 7 when they defeated Leander Paes and Radek Stepanek 6-3, 6-4 in the US Open final. The second-seeded American brothers went level with Australia's John Newcombe and Tony Roche as the most successful partnership of all time, but out on their own as the best doubles pairing in the Open era.

The present win was their fourth at the US Open, following triumphs in 2005, 2008 and 2010. They also won the 2003 French Open, the 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2011 Australian Open titles as well as Wimbledon in 2006 and 2011.

India's Paes and Czech partner Stepanek had defeated the American duo in the Australian Open final earlier this year.

Women’s Doubles: In the women’s doubles, Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci added to their career-best year with a US Open doubles championship.

The second-seeded Italians beat Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka 6-4, 6-2 on September 9 for their second Grand Slam championship and second in three months after they broke through at the French Open.

The best friends faced each other in the singles quarterfinals at Flushing Meadows, with Errani winning to become the first Italian women to reach the semis at this tournament in the Open era. Errani was also the runner-up in singles at Roland Garros. Vinci’s quarterfinal run this week was her best individual performance at a major championship.

Mixed Doubles: Pakistani tennis Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi failed to win his first Grand Slam doubles title when he and partner Kveta Peschke lost to Liezel Huber and Bob Bryan in the mixed doubles final. The US top seeds defeated Qureshi and his Czech partner 6-4, 6-4 at Arthur Ashe Stadium for the crown. This was Bryan’s fourth US Open mixed doubles title in eight years, each of them coming with a different partner.

PSLV-C21 Creates Historic Landmark: ISRO Making 100th Mission Grand Success

An Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) rocket has successfully put into orbit two foreign satellites, making the space agency’s 100th mission a grand success. The Indian space agency celebrated its 100th mission with a flawless launch of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) from Sriharikota. Given the long association between the French and Indian space programs, it was particularly appropriate that this landmark launch carried France’s SPOT 6 satellite.

This PSLV launch vehicle which has been putting our satellites around the Earth’s orbit has stupendously moved towards the Moon target through ‘Chandrayaan’ mission. It is the same PSLV that will make India and the ISRO embark on journey to Mars.

Spot-6 Launch

ISRO’s workhorse PSLV placed in orbit France’s Spot-6 satellite and the Japanese craft Proiteres some 18 minutes after a perfect liftoff from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, completing its 100th successful launch.

Spot-6 is an earth observation satellite, while Proiteres is intended to observe Japan’s Kansai district through a high-resolution camera.

The 44-metre PSLV took off on its 22nd flight into the overcast skies carrying the French satellite with a liftoff mass of 712 kg, the heaviest to be launched by India for an international client, and the 15-kg Japanese micro-spacecraft.

At the end of a 51-hour countdown that started on September 7, PSLV-C21 lifted off at 9.53am. After 17 minutes and 49 seconds, it injected the first satellite, France's SPOT-6, into orbit. Seconds later it put the Japan's Proiteres in orbit. The launch was scheduled at 9.51am but was delayed by two minutes after India's Inertial Navigation System, which guides rockets and helps them put satellites in orbits with pinpoint precision, relayed an alert of a possible collision with space debris.

After a perfect launch, as the rocket roared into space, there was a minor scare. Scientists watched anxiously as the trajectory of the rocket on giant screens at the mission control room showed it deviate slightly mid-flight. But its course was soon corrected and it followed the flight plan flawlessly before inserting its payload into orbit.

SPOT 6 is the heaviest foreign satellite to be carried by a PSLV since 1999 when ISRO started launching satellites of foreign agencies. Proiteres will study the powered flight of a small satellite by an electric thruster and observe Japan's Kansai district with a high-resolution camera.

On the two-minute delay in the rocket’s lift-off, ISRO Chairman K Radhakrishnan said it was to avoid possible collision with space debris. He said ISRO would set up a Multi-Object Tracking Radar (MOTR) to track space debris and time its rocket launches accordingly.

Undoubtedly, the GSLV is an immensely more complicated launch vehicle the cryogenic engines of which are very difficult to master. India has been using Russian cryogenic engines, but our own effort to develop such engines has not fared well and the last GSLV launch failed because the Indian-built cryogenic engine did not perform successfully. As of now, India is dependent on foreign space agencies to put its heavy satellites into geo-stationary orbits.

Success Story

ISRO began its space program in 1975 with the launch of its first satellite Aryabhata. With the present launch, ISRO completed its 100th successful mission. It has so far launched 62 Indian and 29 foreign satellites from Sriharikota and foreign launch pads.

It has so far injected 28 foreign satellites into orbit, beginning with Germany’s 45-kg DLR-TUBSAT aboard the PSLV-C2 in 1999. SPOT-6 is the PSLV’s biggest commercial lift so far. The financial matters relating to the launch could not be disclosed, but the cost of the vehicle was recovered. The ISRO also sent its own payload, ‘Mini Resins,’ for demonstration of an instrument called Redundant Strap down Inertial Navigation System.

Trouble-Prone GSLV

With the PSLV, the country does not have to look abroad for launching its remote sensing satellites. But the same is not true with communication satellites. In contrast to the PSLV, the trouble-prone Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) has been hampered by delays in mastering the cryogenic technology required for it as well as other problems. Moreover, ISRO’s needs appear to go beyond the capabilities of this rocket, which was designed to carry two-ton communication satellites.

The PSLV has become a rugged workhorse with 21 consecutive successful launches behind it. It has taken over 50 satellites and spacecraft into space, half of them for foreign customers. Since it became operational, the PSLV has carried all of India’s remote sensing satellites and also launched the country’s first lunar probe, Chandrayaan-1.

India is set to put a spacecraft in the orbit of Mars to study its atmosphere and the launch will be done in November next year from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh with the help of PSLV.

The organization already has its sights set on its next assignment, the Mars Orbiter Mission on August 3, 2012 for its proposed launch in 2013, after receiving approval from the Union Cabinet.

To conclude, it can be said that ISRO has done the nation proud with its success in mastering space technology. India is on the threshold of achieving greater success in space, both in satellite technology as well as satellite delivery systems.