Punter's Last Bow

He wasn’t the best or most successful batsman of his generation....Sachin Tendulkar would win this vote with a comfortable majority.

He wasn’t the most talented or visually exhilarating batsman on view...the genius of Brian Lara would top this chart.

He wasn’t the most destructive batsman of his era....Adam Gilchrist, Virender Sehwag and Kevin Pietersen would vie for top honours here.

He wasn’t the best captain Australia produced in their recent years of glory –Mark Taylor and Steve Waugh have more deserving claims.

He wasn’t the best fielder we have witnessed (whatever Ian Chappell might say about his hitting the stumps)...there never was and will be another Jonty Rhodes.

However, the very fact that he contents heavily for all these honours, makes Ricky Ponting the undisputable legend that he is.

Batsman Extraordinaire, Most successful captain ever of the most successful team in the history of international cricket, fielder par excellence....and what came as a surprise to many, in his later years he came across as an erudite and sincere thinker about the game.

I remember well 2 Aussie debutants – both sporting goatees, in Perth against Sri Lanka. A frail looking Ricky Ponting was given out LBW for 96 while Stuart Law got an unbeaten 60 odd. While the former went on to be the 2^nd highest test run scorer (at least at the time of his retirement), Law never played another test again.

Those early days of Ponting were marked by a youngster brimming over with talent, yet seemingly bent upon defeating himself – were we witnessing the cricketing equivalent of Paul Gascoigne, many would have wondered. Thankfully for cricket fans around the world, he emerged from those early days of turbulence and steam-lined himself into a batsman befitting legendary status. In his best years (and these were long and glorious), there was none more assured at the crease or with a wider array of strokes. Though he  patented that front foot pull/hook shot of seamers of any pace, there was no dearth of shots of either foot to fast or slow bowlers.

While his detractors readily point to his relative failure to master sub-continent wickets, it may be argued that Ricky really only had that one horror series in 2001, where Harbhajan repeatedly snaffled him up as soon as he had taken guard. He missed the majority of Australia’s victorious 2004 series, but that apart he returned reasonably acceptable returns from his trips to both India and Sri Lanka.

There are plenty of Ponting knocks which spring to mind, but 2 are especially memorable : the unbeaten 140 in the World Cup final of 2003 at the Wanderers and the 156 in the thrilling draw at Old Trafford in the 2005 Ashes. At Johannesburg, not only did he take the entire Indian bowling to the cleaners , but his systematic assault on Harbhajan Singh, so often his tormentor in the past, must have been extremely personally satisfying. The Old Trafford innings was special. While the entire Aussie batting caved in to the swinging wiles of Freddie Flintoff and co, Ricky stood unshakeable at the other end on the fifth day forging late, game saving partnerships with Shane Warne and Brett Lee. Though he was dismissed ere the end, Lee and McGrath saw the game out to a draw – yet another classic finish to that legendary series.

Today as he retires, Ponting is pretty much universally acclaimed as the 2^nd best Aussie batsman of all time.....and that is saying a lot....to be acclaimed as the best among the likes of Trumper, McCabe, Harvey, Chappell, Border, Waugh, Gilchrist is no mean feat. To an Aussie cricketer, there is no higher superlative than to be placed 2^nd best in any cricketing pantheon, almost always certain to be headed by the incomparable Don. Ricky at least managed 8more runs  than Bradman did in his final inning (though its anyone's guess how Robin Peterson matches up with Eric Hollies in the who's who of test spinners).

One wonders how much of a toll captaincy took on his batting in the later years of his career. The ignonimity of 3 Ashes defeats is perhaps enough to explain the clearly perceptible drop in his batting performances in those final years. Unlike Sachin Tendulkar, who came back from a similar slump, less flamboyant but no less effective, Ricky never could quite reinvent himself (the 2011 home series against India apart). Yet his fans and detractors alike, would do better than to remember himself by these final few years.

Remember him for those mountains of run, scored far more often with exhilarating flair and panache than with dogged resistance.

Remember him as the captain of 2, not only victorious,  but unbeaten world cup teams.

And Finally , remember him , for that one Century , which is his and his alone – that neither Bradman nor Tendulkar, neither Warne nor Murali has achieved....a century that is perhaps the pinnacle of all other statistical centuries in the game....a century that has no challenger in the horizon today or in the foreseeable future....a century of test wins.

Test Cricket to the Fore

Celebration of a Spectacular Month's Action

The months of August to October seemed particularly arduous and bleak for a cricket purist. Right from the culmination of the Eng-SA test series, the game was swamped in a needless deluge of slam-bang T-20 tournaments, where cricketers who would never be considered for test matches were suddenly touted as match winners. The world cup is an acceptable format but the biannual format is a bit too much – to give it real credibility, the powers that be should make it a 4 yearly event. What really got my goat was the ridiculous Champions League. A needless,  hare-brained concept, designed only to fill coffers of the richer boards in the ICC. With a packed international test schedule coming up for pretty much all countries , I was particularly bemused to find many so-called esteemed pundits of the game standing on one leg, trying desperately to diplomatically defend the tournament. You needn’t have been Einstein to see that even they didn’t really believe in a jot of anything they themselves said, but as long as their pockets were being suitable lined, the greater good of the game could go to hell for all they cared. So, you have it then, at the very start of the season, Australia and South Africa are missing key personnel, while a lot of India’s T-20 stalwarts are looking battle-worn and jaded.

That notwithstanding – what an outstanding advert the month of November has been for the original and (if I may say so) true format of the game. While the series between SL and NZ and the WI and Bangladesh has seen some exceptional performances (even as I type this out, the Kiwis have eked out a historic test victory in SL), the real eye catching stuff has been happening down under in Oz and in the dust bowls of India.

2 Tests down in each series...and boy, have we seen some riveting cricket and performances for the ages. I can hardly remember any single test batsman in better ball striking form than Michael Clarke is at this point. Neither Tendulkar, nor Ponting , nor even Lara at his sublime best has looked as invincible at the crease at Pup does presently. The duration of this purple patch might last for another year or for another test, but the sheer pleasure of watching the Aussie skipper stride to the crease with his team three down for not a lot against the fiery duo of  Steyn and Morkel is beyond description. If Clarke’s performances are the epitome of batsmanship at its absolute zenith, similar superlatives must be applied to the South African duo of Faf Du Plessis and the seemingly evergreen ‘Man for All Seasons’ Jaques Kallis. Du Plessis’ astonishing rearguard action at Adelaide in his debut test begs to be reckoned among the best fighting, back to the wall knocks in recent years. True, the Aussie attack was a man down and perhaps lacked the necessary punch, yet the concentration and discipline displayed by the youngster would surely have earned the approval from the likes of Cowdrey , Boycott and Gavaskar.  As for Kallis, what can one say.....hobbling on one leg to come up with 2 half centuries of supreme class. Bards of yore would be making ballads of this performance in their days.

Cook and KP : Keystones of the English Arch

What a perfect setting ,then, for Perth.....2 teams , reeling like boxers in the 12^th round , waiting to land that final knockout punch. The Proteas having played their “get Out of Jail” card twice in the first 2 tests will be looking to time that decisive right hook to perfection. Oh! Yes....and its Ricky Ponting’s swansong.....last innings heroics or failure, team rising up for the legend or distracted by the enormity of  the occasion...limitless possibilities ! Enjoy!!!

On now to the intriguing India-England series, tied at 1 apiece after the Mumbai turnaround. I wonder what odds one would have got for the widely derided English team to pull off a ten wicket victory after the Ahmedabad debacle. To be honest , the signs were there in the 2^nd innings. Cook has mastered these tracks and is playing as serenely and confidently as any opposition batsman that I can remember. The Indian batting , bar Pujara, hasn’t really seemed up to scratch (if you discount the Sehwag cameo ....the kind of innings he can seemingly pull off in the middle of a snowstorm) and England were always in with a shot with Swann and Panesar in the house , if they could get their batting sorted.  Cometh, then , the hour and cometh the man !!!

KP !! Could it get any more romantic.....weeks after the sceptical ‘regintegration’ and days after the horror show in Motera , which had Poms worldwide calling for his sacking, Pietersen came up with an inning of rare counterattacking prowess and control, the like likes of which I can only remember twice in India. Tendulkar’s 160 odd on a Chennai turner where he repeatedly slog swept Warne’s ‘around the wicket’ fizzers to, and over the boundary and Adam Gilchrist’s whirlwind century at Mumbai that single handedly swept the first test the Aussie way in 2001. True, the quality of bowling KP faced was probably a tad inferior to that before either Sachin or Gilly, but that should not it any way detract from the sheer brazen skill and bravado on display. More than once I was reminded of Matthew Hayden’s words in his autobiography about VVS Laxman’s strokeplay in the Kolkata miracle of 2001 – “Kids , do not try this at home”.

India may still have that little bit extra to edge out the series but they had better be warned....back in the 2005 Ashes (no matter that they were held in England), the Poms came back after a drubbing at Lords just with a relentless intensity that caught the Aussies of guard......back before the beginning of the series, 5-0 predictions had been made...sound familiar ???

Not much more to write then...but to be thankful to the glorious test matches cricket for having restored the faith....and to sit back and enjoy Perth and Kolkata and Nagpur....if the start is any indication, there is plenty of lip smacking fare on offer. 

The King Abdicates : Lock up the Throne Room

Tribute to Michael Schumacher

There have been sporting heroes and plenty of them.....Some supremely successful, some not to the same extent......from Shane Warne to Alessandro del Piero, from Roger Federer to Ernie Els, from Kobe Bryant to Lance Armstrong (well, at least in those glorious days of innocence)....but there has never been one who has captivated my imagination as much as Michael Schumacher.

In those early days of the nineties, where cable TV introduced me to the joys  of unfettered  sports viewing (up until then restricted to Indian cricket, the world cup football and the latter rounds of Wimbledon) , I still remember the first TV ads of Formula 1 on Star Sports –

“Watch Schumacher and Hill....go Wheel to Wheel....in a nail biting mayhem”

....and then on a fateful Sunday afternoon, I found myself staring at the starting grid of the Hungarian GP. Michael retired from the race after an engine blow-up, while Damon Hill led from start to finish but a connection had been made. I still do not know what it was in that first race that made me a lifelong Schumi faithful....perhaps the fact that he was reigning world champion, or perhaps that the sky blue Benetton car looked so much cooler than the old Williams.....or maybe even to an untrained eye, there was something about the Schumi style. The deal was sealed in 2 exceedingly memorable races later in the season  - at Spa (Belgium) , where he won after starting from 16^th position on the grid and at Nurburgring (in probably the best individual drive I’ve witnessed in nearly 2 decades of F1 viewing) in a crazy wet-dry race, Schumi came out of nowhere to pass leader Jean Alesi, then fell behind after his routine pit stop, covered the entire time gap in 15 odd laps and passed the Frenchman again in the final few laps to seal his victory.

Michael Schumacher’s place my personal hall of fame was sealed......all that remained was for him to cement his name as the greatest in the sport. That for a few years looked exceedingly unlikely in those initial years after the famous move to Ferrari....the multitudes of technical glitches in the first year (still that huge victory in the downpour in Barcelona reaffirmed his genius), the infamous clash with Villenueve , the near miss to Hakkinen and finally the accident at Silverstone which prematurely cut his season short. Leading into the next season, it was almost like now or never for Schumi and boy did he deliver....and thereafter swept all and sundry in a performance of such exhalted dominance by himself and his team, which I am certain will never be matched – so much so , that the rules of the sport had to be drastically altered to bring Michael and Ferrari back into the pack.

Those Sunday evenings in the college TV room were unforgettable....seats were booked in advance almost as if this was India in a major one day international cricket final....there were 2 distinct groups...the ardent Schumi lovers and the Schumi haters....the latter did not seem to mind who won as long as it wasn’t Michael. From Montoya to Coulthard to Kimi to little brother Ralph , they would root for anyone who could be perceived as denying him that inimitable leap on the top of the podium. That single fact alone bears testimony to his greatness.

From what I see and hear today....there are ardent Alonso, Vettel and Hamilton fans...probably some Kimi and Button ones as well.....but back in those heady days of the first part of the noughties.....there were only 2 outcomes to a race...either Schumi won or he didn’t (people, by the beginning of the next race, would forget who’d won the previous one).  For us, his faithful followers, the tone for the coming fortnight was set by his performance on raceday. The standard line on those rare bleak Sunday evenings, over the 9-30 cup of coffee at midway would be “Haar gaye.....ab agle do hafte kharaab niklenge.” It was never “Schumi haar gaya”...always “hum haar gaye”

7 titles (5 in a row with Ferrari), 91 race wins , 60 odd poles and the almost certainly never to be eclipsed record of 13 wins in a year (out of 18 races) – aye Schumi , had done me justice for the faithful support during those shaky initial Ferrari years. Yet, for all those years of unbridled joy, Schumi has done, at least me, and surely a host of other supporters a grave injustice. He spoilt the sport for me to the extent that after his inital retirement – there was almost unease at trying to sit through a race that didn’t have the German on the grid. There were great moments in the sport, but the adrenaline never shot up the way it did in the Schumi years – and almost certainly will never do so again. Vettel is young and may yet get to 7 or more, but he will never consistently blow the field away season after season like the senior German. What’s more , there will scarcely be another singular personality who monopolized the frenzy of all and sundry in a single sport. Roger Federer has a Nadal , Michael Jordan has a Magic, Messi has a Ronaldo....but Schumi at his scintillating best , had only himself for comparison, the rest very too busy trying to unlap themselves.

I winced when Michael announced a return to the sport....perhaps a premonition to what lay ahead – yet faith in his genius and the joy of the caged fan appeased all other anxiety....maybe not a championship but surely race wins would come, maybe even that magic 100 number might be achieved.  With great anticipation I tuned in yet again for his return season. Alas! My hopes were misplaced. In a relatively underperforming machine, Michael struggled to keep up with the pack. The biggest disappointment was his being consistently 2^nd best to teammate Nico Rosberg. Here was the greatest of them all, fighting for mid-table positions against drivers he would have lapped twice in one race in his heyday. Perhaps age had caught up and the reflexes did not allow him to execute what his mind thought was possible- a fair explanation for the myriad of pile ups in his last 2 seasons.

Yet now that he has fittingly called it a day, these final seasons will soon seem like a minor blimp compared to the days of his glory. Michael Jordan’s return with the Washington Wizards does not lower his standing in baseball. In a similar vein, Michael Schumacher’s legacy is set in adamant, at the very top of the sport. He will be remembered for that bicycle ride in Spa before his Jordan debut,  for the maverick early seasons with Benetton and of course for the all consuming domination of his Ferrari- a domination that which brooks little comparison , in this sport or another.

Farewell Michael....thanks for the years of unfettered joy.

An Obituary to a Great Career

Michael Ballack Retires from Professional Football

Michael Ballack’s retirement from professional football has gone down without a lot of fanfare. Rather unfair this, as here was a man who bridged across 2 eras of German football and at times held it up solely on his muscular shoulders when the European powerhouses threatened to slip into a chasm of mediocrity. Make no mistake – German football was in a crisis in the early noughties. The era of Klinsman, Mattheus and Bierhoff was over. Bayern Munich lynchpin Effenberg was at odds with the national team. To make matters worse, there was that night of terror in Munich when Michael Owen ripped apart the old enemy in a 5-1 thrashing. At this time, we in India read about a young man from Bayer Leverkusen named Ballack who was scoring an extra-ordinary number of goals from his midfield position. A naturally gifted shooter off both feet , strong in the air and a penchant for the odd tasty challenge in defence, Ballack was to remain the engine room for the German national team for the entire decade. 

2002 was his Annus Mirabilis. His Leverkusen team defied all odds to reach the Uefa Champions league final where they were taking the fight to the aristocrats of European Football, Real Madrid. That is till Zinedine Zidane decided to take matters into his own hands and unleash that left footed volley from the edge of the box. However, the performance of his team had catapulted Ballack to superstar status, and he lived up to his billing in the ensuing world cup. His crowning moment came in the semi-finals against South Korea where he scored the winner however the game would prove bittersweet as just before his goal a yellow card for a tactical foul had ensured that he would miss the final. There is still speculation on how the final would have panned out had his enforcing midfield presence been there – as it happened Brazil cantered home thanks to a Ronaldo brace but German football had found its newest superstar, and essentially the first since the Klinsman-Mattheus days.

A rather injury curtailed latter half of the decade, first with Bayern Munich and then with Chelsea probably denied him from fulfilling all of that early promise of 2002. However, a national team return of 42 goals from 98 international appearances is an outstanding result for a midfielder. Much more acclaimed strikers have poorer strike rates. Add to it a World Cup runners up and a third place finish along with league titles in Germany and England and the baby-faced German easily slots in as one of the classiest players of the previous decade.

The national team of today , with the likes of Schwienstieger, Muller,  Goetze and Ozil have been predicted to accomplish great deeds – however this team might never have been realised had they not emerged through that evolutionary bottleneck of the early noughties, where at times the national team seemed synonymous with the name Ballack. Hats off to a great career!

The Cup of Dreams

Memories of a Legendary Ryder Cup

The 2012 winning European Team

Pretty much everything that could conceivably be written has been done before , during and after that incredible Ryder Cup at Medinah. Adding my humble words would just like adding a dollop of sugar over the perfectly iced cake. However, I cannot - not write at least something before the emotions wear down. So here goes – my memoires of not just the greatest Ryder cups yet –but one of the more compelling sporting occasions I have ever witnessed.

From the opening tee on Friday till Tiger’s (eventually immaterial) missed four footer in the shadows of Sunday ,  a encyclopaedia could possibly be compiled on the variety of facial expressions. Ian Poulter, of course, would hog a good few chapters in this. I don’t know if it was Arsenal’s defeat against Chelsea that inspired this ardent Gunners fan, or the Sevie spirit ‘in the sky’ message or just the genes that he’s been born with. One of the early comments I heard on Friday was the the Europeans have 4 world number ones in their squad – Rory McIlroy who’s the current No. 1 , Luke Donald and Lee Westwood , the past number ones and Ian Poulter , who always feels that he should be number one. On the evidence of his Saturday and Sunday play , who would disagree? It’s a bit too much to attempt to decipher his single greatest contribution to the event was, but I’ll settle on that remarkable serial birdie finish on the Saturday fourballs – a spectacle which gave his teammates hope and planted that seed of doubt in the till then dominant and supremely confident Americans’ minds. Westwood summed it up perfectly – “For 2014 , the European qualifying for the Ryder Cup will be different – 9 automatic spots , 2 captain’s picks and Poults.” I've never seen Sevie play this event - even his genius and passion could not have been too far ahead of the fiery Englishman.

Poulter: The Look that Killed

The precocious McIlroy wasn’t in the best of form over the first  days , but perhaps all he needed was a miscalculation of his tee time – arrive 8 minutes before – hit a few practice putts , munch a roll –and a few hours later pocket a point for Europe ....easy as you please. Justin Rose- that putt on the 17^th deserves a place in golfing immortality....Martin Kaymer – where have you been for the past 2 years lad ? Paul Lawrie , making mincemeat out of the hottest player on the circuit , Fed Ex Champ, Snedekar – who writes these scripts ??

Oh you poor Americans....what were you thinking on Saturday...actually , Mr Love....what were you thinking Saturday afternoon by benching the ‘jalapeno’ partnership of Phil-Bradley. Sure – Bubba was a great choice for one of the early matches...but surely even an inconsistent Tiger Woods should have been one of the early tee-offs. The aura of Tiger is not yet lost ....and he is still a fearsome beast in one-on-one golf. The best putter in America (Stricker) faltered horribly...while Mr “Nice Guy” Furyk maintained his unblemished record of choking over the home-stretch in events in 2012.

The Iconic Message in the Sky

Sport ,in most cases, follows the expected script – occasionally , the unexpected makes for great viewing – and once in every few years , the seemingly unthinkable and all but mathematically impossible happens : Boston 2004 – Headingly 1981 – Kolkata 2001 – Istanbul 2005 – Miracle on Ice “Lake Placid” . The 2012 Ryder Cup belongs right up there – an absolute privilege to have witnessed a rare iconic moment in sport written in front of you. Is there anything left to view this year in sport that would match this emotion – well – the baseball post season is starting , and the St Louis Cardinals and David Freese look like they might be able to secure another backdoor birth...hmm.

P.S. : In the midst of this historic weekend - I heard that India had beaten Pakistan in a T-20 match somewhere. 

The Fergie Factor

The English Premiership has had me hooked from the time they started broadcasting it in these parts of the world in the early nineties. Even in those embryonic days of regular club football viewing, the name Alex Ferguson (the ‘Sir’ came after the treble in ’99) stood like a colossus, a larger than life figure, a bigger name than all the big name players in his first team at Manchester United. His words carried greater weight in the footballing world (referees, media, administrators) than those of the Ayatollah in Iran.  Since those days, till last night’s daylight robbery for United over Liverpool, I have watched the Premiership intently, as an Arsenal supporter, but otherwise essentially a neutral student of action on and off the pitch.

They say in football, decisions even themselves out for a team over a season. Somehow, for Fergie’s team, they never seem to do. Over the past few seasons, I have seriously given thought of maintaining a stat sheet over the entire season counting the number of incorrect potentially game changing refereeing decisions that go for and against Man U over the course of the entire season. I have never managed to do so, but a random look at this season and the count stands at 2 incorrect penalties awarded and an incorrect red card (still waiting for a decision to go against them).  Wenger, Mourinho, Ancelotti and Mancini  (the other premiership winning managers that I have seen) have all made claims to their side being short changed, but for their teams the whole ‘decisions even themselves out’ factor probably holds true – if anything Mancini has probably been at short end of the stick more often than others.

What then ticks for Fergie and United- I will not go as far to claim that officials are bought off. That would be puerile. However, the undeniable fact remains that the intimidation factor of Sir Alex far weighs heavily in the mind of an official while having to make a split second, game changing call. Imagine the position of the referee while having to officiate on the Welbeck or Valencia ‘dives’ this season.  Even he is wavering towards the side of a non-call, his sub-conscious probably starts weighing up the implications of a post game Fergie rant vs a Brendan Rogers rant, and within the fraction of decision making time, the damage is done. If I had a dime for every time I’ve seen Paul Scholes go unpunished for the type of challenge Shelvey was sent off, I’d have been a far richer man.  

The other thing to factor in this is that over in the European Competitions, this Fergie intimidation factor is lost and you find a lot less managers bemoaning the refereeing advantage to United in Europe.

Sir Alex has even famously targeted referees before a game making statements in his pre-match interviews about how the gentleman had cost his team points in a previous game -  a gambit that has played havoc in the official’s mind before the starting whistle. Would the man then dare brandish an early card for a cynical foul in the opening few minutes of the game?

These issues are greatly downplayed by the media and the English refereeing association is a bad joke and I fathom ,till the great man stays in the job United will get the rub of refereeing green just that wee bit more often than his rivals. What I’d be really interested in seeing is the first Man U season after Sir Alex hangs his boots. While I’m convinced the decisions will be far more even, there’s even a chance that United may suffer from a few awry ones fuelled, by the sub-conscious relief of officials finally free of the yoke of the Fergie factor.  

Previewing a Marquee Weekend

This is the first real marquee weekend of a still embryonic English football season – at least in England where Arsenal travel to Man City and Manchester United play at Anfield against Liverpool.

Matchday of the Season thus Far

Things appear to have somewhat changed , early though the season is, as compared to May for both the Gunners and City.

Back then, Arsenal were dealing with the impending departure of talisman Robin van Persie and desperately looking around for replacements that would enable them to compete and yet meet their business model at the club. The season began with 2 goalless draws and it portended to be another long and weary season for Arsene Wenger. However, the clinical win at Liverpool, the thrashing of Southampton and the crucial (albeit lucky) win at Montpellier has seen a new wave of Optimism sweep through the Emirates. Lucas Podolski and Santi Carzola have settled into the physical nature of the league like ducks to water – the Spaniard has apparently created an astonishing 18 goal scoring chances in the 4 games thus far. While Podolski’s finishing has been far more clinical than what I expected, even more impressive about the German has been his willingness and not altogether negligible skill in dropping back to defend – a crucial factor considering left back Kieran Gibbs has a tendency to go missing at times. The defence has never looked this solid in years and key players like Wilshere , Sagna and Rosicky are on the verge of a first team return.  There are still many questions to be answered ! Will Giroud turn out to be another Chamakh ? The goalkeeping scenario also appears a bit iffy with Szczesny throwing in that howler last week and then injuring himself. While Manone has been safe , he still has a long way to go before proving himself consistently dependable. All in all, the most promising start to the season for Arsenal in years but Sunday will provide the first real acid test of their title credentials.

City, on the other hand, were conspicuous by their relative inactivity in the transfer window. Javi Garcia, Jack Rodwell and Matija Nastasic were not exactly the first names on the big managers’ shopping lists. Though still unbeaten in the league, City got out of jail against Southampton and have looked indifferent at times through a relatively easy opening 4 games (well, perhaps with the Exception of Stoke away). The crippling blow was provided in the mid-week when Real Madrid came back virtually from the dead to snatch that late win at the Bernabeu. If City are to be counted among the European elite, these are the kind of fixtures they must hit back in. They still have the best squad of players in the league and the game against an upbeat Arsenal should be a real treat for the purists with both continental managers likely to put out attacking sides.

Manchester United have bounced back in typical style after the opening day loss at Goodison Park. The RVP solo show against the desperately unlucky Saints followed by the rather more convincing win against Wigan has got the crowd at Trafford (and millions outside) quite enthused. The Man U midfield and defence still look doubtful at times but the brilliance of their wingers (especially if Nani comes to the party) and the best forward line in the Premiership should , on paper, not have too hard a time at Anfield against a winless Liverpool looking desperately short of squad depth.

But then again – this is Man U against Liverpool – and I do not quite know how, but over the past 2 or 3 seasons , the Reds somehow always manage to turn up for these fixtures (the results notwithstanding). I do not expect anything different this time around. With the backdrop of the recent Hillsborough revelations, there never will be a time for a thin quad to punch above their weight. Another classic in store, though, I hope, there are no more of those dreadful Evra-Suarez – will they-wont they-handshake fiascos.

There is a lot of action on hand this weekend apart from the marquee premiership clashes, with the Singapore GP and the Bayern Munich –Schalke clash being other lip smacking offerings. However , keep an eye on the  PGA Tour championship, which  is already halfway through. All eyes will be on a precocious Northern Irishman to see if he can make an unprecedented hat-trick of Fed-Ex cup playoff tournaments. Also, if the 10-inning game I was any indication, the remainder of the Yankees-Athletics series at the Bronx should be a riveting affair, with both teams still harbouring very realistic playoff ambitions.

Happy Viewing !!!