Shooters gun for more medals
M. S. Unnikrishnan

India had won the bulk of medals in shooting at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, and hope to strike it rich yet again when the country hosts the 19th edition of the games in Delhi in October this year. In Melbourne, India annexed 22 gold, 17 silver and 11 bronze medals to finish fourth in the overall medals tally behind Australia, England and Canada. Out of this, shooters alone accounted for 16 gold, seven silver and four bronze medals.

Samresh Jung, who shot five gold, one silver and a bronze, was adjudged the best shooter. Samresh and wife Anuja Jung, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Gagan Narang, Abhinav Bindra, Jaspal Rana, Sushma Rana, Avneet Kaur Sidhu, Tejaswini Sawant and Pemba Tamang were the star performances. Jung and Narang alone won eight golds between them. The Indian shooters’ tally at Melbourne was two gold and one bronze, in excess of the medals they won at Manchester four years earlier. Indian shooters had indeed come a long way from the three gold and two silver they bagged at the 1994 Victoria Commonwealth Games.

National coach, Prof Sunny Thomas, feels that this time around, the shooters would put up a better performance`A0at the magnificent Karni Singh Shooting Range, situated on the Delhi-Faridabad border. "We will strive to better the record of the Melbourne Commonwealth`A0Games in the 2010 CWG at Delhi," says the chief coach. "If not more, at least we should repeat the performance of Melbourne," he adds as an afterthought.

Professor Thomas’ optimism`A0is born of the fact that India did extremely well in the recent Commonwealth Championship held at the Karni Singh Range, which was also a test event for the Commonwealth Games, to test the facilities of the range.

India picked up 35 gold, 25 silver and 14 bronze medals`A0for an overall tally of 74 in the Commonwealth Championship.

The medal swell, of course, was due to the inclusion of badge event and three shooters each per event, in both individual and team events, in the Commonwealth Championship. In the CWG-2010, however, there would not be any badge event, and only two shooters each per event would be allowed. "We did extremely well in the Commonwealth Championship, considering that England and Australia had picked up only four gold and three gold, respectively," explains the coach.

At present, around 100 shooters — both men and women — are being trained for the Commonwealth Games and the chief coach expects India to win medals in every event. "We have an Olympic champion, World Champions, world record holders`85we are capable of winning medals in every event, though it all boils down to the form and performance of the shooters on a given day," Professor Thomas adds.

Overall, there would be 38 golds at stake, including 18 in events for men, in the Commonwealth Games.

The only event in which India have not finalised their team is in the big bore event as the range is getting ready at the CRPF camp in Delhi.

The Indian shooters would be participating in the World`A0 Cup events in Australia, China and the US. The trials for the World Championship will be held in May. The World Championship is slated to be held in Germany, and after the World Championship, trials for the Commonwealth Games would be held in August-September in Delhi. According to Professor Thomas, both men and women, should fare well in the Commonwealth Games with a clutch of medals expected in rifle, pistol and shotgun (trap, skeet and shot gun) events.

"We are well on track for the Commonwealth Games," adds Professor Thomas.

Lethal mongoose
Abhijit Chatterjee

Any sport can only thrive and prosper with innovations. Cricket is no different. While the basic format of the game has not changed over the years, the shorter versions, especially the Twenty20 format, has seen a lot of innovations, especially on the playing fields. The ongoing IPL-3 has had its own share of newness. Spinners opening bowling attacks, wicketkeepers with helmets on heads, standing right on the stumps even to fast bowlers, fast bowlers using the slower deliveries with telling effect and field placings with an eye on choking the batsmen from taking singles, forcing them to take the aerial route, often leading to their downfall.

But what has taken the cake is the bat used by former Australian batsman and Chennai Super Kings opener Mathew Hayden in the match against Delhi Daredevils at Ferozeshah Kotla. This bat, used by the former Aussie star, called the mongoose bat, could well change the way cricket, specially the shorter version, is played. Hayden is a veteran of 103 Tests, 161 ODIs and nine Twenty20 matches for Australia before he retired. He is one of the mainstays of Chennai Super Kings, who are led by current India captain M. S. Dhoni. He recently smashed a 43-ball 93, with seven hits into the stands and nine boundaries to set the cricket world ablaze. Hayden had walked in to bat with a regular bat and switched to the mongoose bat after he had scored 19.

The bat developed by advertising guru Marcus Codrington Fernandez, and being revolutionised by Hayden, was unveiled only last year. The mongoose is a tailor-made bat for Twenty20 format, with a 5-cm thick base that boasts a sweet spot twice the size of that on a traditional bat. The handle is 43 per cent longer while the blade of the bat is 33 per cent shorter.

Marcus Codrington Fernandez first showcased this bat in February last year. The bat was shown to a number of cricketers during the English County league, including Kevin Petersen, Andrew Flintoff and Yuvraj Singh, to get their views about it. Players like Stuart Law and Lou Vincent, as well as the England women team’s players Laura Marsh and Ebony Rainford-Brent, (According to Fernandez, the mongoose bat can revolutionise the women’s game), were around when the bat was unveiled at the Lord’s.

The maker of the bat, while unveiling bat, had advocated the theory that batsmen hardly ever use the very top part of their bat, and certainly not to play attacking shots and score runs with. If you take all that ‘wasted’ wood from the top part of the bat, you can use it further down in the blade, making the (shorter) blade as thick as a brick and more powerful and in having a longer handle, the blade has more ‘whip’. Though the bat is more powerful, it is the same overall weight as a conventional bat —but in effect feels lighter, because the longer handle offers greater leverage. Also, in the Twenty20 format there was not a great deal of need for the back-foot defence as in the conventional game and therefore the shorter bat does not hinder the player.

Over the years cricketers have tried to innovate the bat, sometimes with disastrous results. Australia’s fast bowler Dennis Lillee’s attempt to play with an aluminium bat incensed Mike Bradley’s England squad at the WACA in 1979 so much that it had to be banned by the ICC. The mongoose bat is really quite similar to the boutique shoulder-less blade used by Lance Cairns in the 1980s, known as ‘Excalibur’. Cairns used that bat to hit six sixes in 10 balls against Australia, including a pair off consecutive deliveries from Lillee. Even Sir Allen Stanford’s black bats were not a new idea, Barry Richards having used a bright orange one back in 1973.

The MCC (the rule-makers for the game) has, over the years, rejected dozens of submissions, including a bat with holes drilled into the blade for aerodynamic purposes, described by observers as a "Swiss cheese bat" and Ricky Ponting’s Kookaburra bat, which was not made entirely of wood and was covered with graphite. But the MCC passed the mongoose bat, which was used for the first time on a cricket field on May 26, 2009, by former Australian batsman Stuart Law during a county Twenty20 match. The MCC found that it met all requirements under law six of regulations regarding the make-up of a bat, and they were not concerned about the possible ramifications for bowlers.

As a very experienced and veteran cricket coach said after Hayden’s knock that in the olden days tail-enders often used the "long handle" with telling effect and now they will probably use the mongoose bat, with its inbuilt long handle, for the same reason.

Fit Zone
Drive away exam stress
Bharat Thakur

Most people have taken tests or examinations in their life, at one point or another. Hence, you should know that feeling you have right before your examination, most especially if you crammed and are not too confident of your preparation.`A0`A0The good thing is that yoga can help you cope with any feeling of anxiety or tension that might build up in anticipation for exams.

Students who are about to take an exam or test feel an increasing level of anxiety because they cannot predict what questions might appear. This is closely associated with their desire to earn high marks and the level of uncertainty brings about anxiety. Hence, they feel the strong desire to escape the situation yet they are confronted by it.`A0

The asanas, breathing exercises and meditation of yoga are truly helpful in such cases. They not only help you combat anxiety, but also enrich your mental capacity such that you are able to have a sharper mind and increased mental clarity. Those are essential qualities you need when about to go for an exam.`A0