Twenty20 World Cup India… Yuvraj… and my predictions…

Wow! Like so many Indian fans going through their short-lived memories, I can’t remember the last time India got into a late stage of a tournament feeling good about themselves. And of course, being the betting man that I am, I’ve been trying to think if I can predict whats going to happen in the semi-finals or the finals. In line with what one would expect, I’ve got some thoughts, in fact I’ve got many, but I doubt if any one has the time to read them… but some things I’m thinking:

a) India is going to win the semi-finals and the finals – yeah, thats a lot of optimist in me too.

b) Yuvraj is not going to play any more match winning innings in this tournament.

c) Sehwag, Pathan, R P Singh and Gambhir are going to deliver for India

d) It’s going to be an India-Pakistan final.

If 3 out of these four predictions come true… Ferrari are going to win the drivers championship in F1 as well… keep watching!

On one of the betting sites I checked, the last odds were as follows (while the India game was not finished yet, I bet that changed soon after):

Australia – 6/5

South Africa – 11/4

Pakistan – 7/2

New Zealand – 13/2

India – 10 (this later became 6/4 after India threw SA out)

Imagine… and now South Africa is out of the Twenty20 world cup. HA!

And by the way, here are the six sixes by Yuvraj Singh on youtube…

Formula 1 and McLaren disqualification

McLaren had been having a nightmare of a time in F1 preceding the 2007 seasons for quite some time. That was also possibly the reason why Mika Hakinnen retired in 2001… also leading to a sad career forward for David Coulthard. For a while, it seemed that there was no challenger to Ferrari till Renault came along and started the era of Fernando Alonso.

Throughout the 2007 season, I have marvelled at the progress McLaren had made. I hate dislike Alonso too much to give him credit for all the progress McLaren had made, and now it seems to be very plausible that the Ferrari dossier helped McLaren achieve much of its progress into 2007.

Everyone would have their take on the decision handed out to McLaren and it would definitely be clouded by our personal preferences, but I am in disagreement with almost everything.

a) Why do the drivers not get penalised at all? Could they have secured any points if the car did not move as fast as it did? (Obviously the assumption here is that it is proven that McLaren derived an advantage from the Ferrari dossier)

b) Why strip them of ALL the constructor championship points? Its not like they would have scored 0 points by themselves. I’m sure they would have scored 20-30! Maybe some formula should have been deployed, like halving it or something. It gives them too easy a way out when it say o points in 2007. It should have said 50,60,70… don’t let them get away with a simple “0” which can be justified by McLaren as a “technical result” or whatever…. you know what I mean?

c) The $100 million fine, seems to be a bit too much. I don’t know how much the teams get as a share of the revenues and what the numbers are like, but $100 million!!! Most teams don’t have a total budget that large, many have a much smaller one. That was a bit too much I think.

Let’s see if there is more to come. And how the hell will they prove they are using no Ferrari know-how in 2008?? That’s a very tough one.

Formula 1 : News Spyker bought by Vijay Mallya and gang, to be called Orange India – F1-Live.com

Formula 1 : News Spyker – F1-Live.com

The news in the link above is AMAZING. Vijay Mallya, in his “personal capacity”, has bought the SPYKER F1 team in a joint bid. The new team will be called “Orange India”. Wowwwwww……. makes my heart swell with pride. Wish we had more people like Vijay Mallya. Flamboyance coupled with a little bit of India makes me feel so good.

Of course, a number of drivers will now be hoping to be a part of the team from India and I am sure a lot of Indian corporate money is going to flow into this team. Yippie! Here we come, F1 world. Any guesses on how long before we produce a world champion? I think that one is going to take some time….

From other news articles, like the one here, at business standard, it appears that the team could even be names Kingfisher Ferrari some day! And that Narain Karthikeyan and Karun Chandok could be frontrunners for the drivers seat. I am so sure that the money problems of the team are really going to be a thing of the past now. 🙂