Do Black Men Rule the World?

Black people have often been the target of much racism and discrimination throughout history, whether it’s been deemed as slaves or just generally being thought of as stupid or inferior.

But don’t you think it’s strange that there is one area where black people tend to dominate? What’s that area? Well it’s none other than the sporting arena. Been watching the Football World Cup? Ever notice that many of the Caucasian teams have at least one or two black players? Some have a lot more. England, France, Germany and the USA come to mind.

I remember it being funny that in the past ‘America’ won the World Basketball Championship and yet so many of their team are African Americans. The NFL and MLB also have a heavy representation of African Americans like nowhere else in the country.

But what’s that you say? African Americans are Americans? Yes quite right. They are. But it’s strange that there’s all this racism (though a black President is a change) but when it comes to sports African Americans have the best facilities and are as American as anyone else. Shame the same isn’t true when it comes to aspects such as education. In the past there were rules limiting the number of black players allowed on a team (Before the 1960’s). Yet racial equality was achieved in sports much faster than any other area for some strange unknown reason.

My only question is… what do the Ku Klux Klan remnants think of this? Where is the white power movement to clean up American sports? Oh that’s right… they play damn good, so it’s cool then.

The Sanath Saga

The semifinals are tonight! Fingers crossed that we have it in us to sail through to the finals. Despite the OKish performance of our boys in the Caribbean, this T20 world cup will be remembered as the one where Sanath Jayasuriya really shouldn't have played.

Its almost ironic, just 3 years ago Sana boy was setting the Caribbean on fire with his destructive batting in the 50 over World Cup, the headlines then were about Atapattu not being played in the team. Now it seems that the tables have turned and to rub more salt in to his wounds: while most of us think that Marvan should have been in the team,how many of us harbour the same sentiment toward Sanath?

Sanath Jayasuriya had a meteoric rise to fame, first being included as a leggie and a useful middle order batsmen. His success at pinch-hitting prompted a promotion up the batting order and the rest as we all know was history in the making.

His batting record speaks for itself. He was one of the most feared and destructive batsmen in any form of the game, be it test, one day or T20's. But enough is enough, it time to say goodbye and let your legend live on Sanath. Time to head back to Matara and attend the funerals in your electorate as any self-respecting Lankan MP would do.


(Time's up...start hanging with people your own age)

It's sad to see the slow humiliation of this once great batsmen, but on the flipside one wonders why he does it? I am sure its not for the money, having earned millions and millions over the years that could sustain the Jayasuriya's for a few generations.

I think he does it because he loves the game. He loves playing for his country, he loves going out to the middle with a willow in hand and he loves his slow left arm bowling.

It's almost as if he were obsessing after an ex-girlfriend that has left him. Your time's up Sanath, IF YOU TRULY LOVE SOMETHING YOU"LL LET IT GO.

INDIAN PREMIRE LEAGUE, A NEW BEGINNING?

It was a heart stopper, an absolute spectacle of pure adrenaline and excitement. Yes I am talking about the recently concluded Indian Premier League, which was a treat for any cricket fan. I have never been the die heart cricket fan nor have had the thought of penning down a post on cricket. But the IPL changed all that and this 60-day adrenaline rush has shown that cricket can also be taken into a level of professionalism enjoyed by other major sports leagues in the world.

The IPL concluded in the best possible way ever with the starting underdogs Rajastan Royals clinching the inaugural trophy in a nail-biting thriller. It was down to Shane Warne and Sohail Tanvir to grab the winning runs in the last over, which came down to the very last ball. A classic final, which people will remember for a long time.

Of course we would have to praise the good lads of the controversial Indian Cricket League for coming up with the idea, and if it weren’t for them we would not have experienced such an exciting twist in the world of cricket. The lazy ICC and Indian cricket board officials were fast asleep while several good minds hatched the plan for a breakaway cricket league, which fitted perfectly to a country of 100 million cricket fanatics.

Some may argue otherwise saying that we are loosing the true passion and originality of cricket, but I (along with many a cricket fan) think otherwise. Of course there is a great down side to this. If this trend is let to continue without proper control or management, we would see all the best talent in world cricket playing for IPL rather than their own countries. But I doubt that people (at least we south Asians) prefer 5 day all white test matches over 20/20 cricket. The remedy is not to stop 20/20 cricket or banning IPL type of leagues, it’s about taking this league or this type of cricket into the world arena.

I hope that in future we would be seeing more teams and clubs participating from other countries as well. This may seem like a long shot from the traditional IPL concept, but few years back did we even have a slightest idea about a 20/20 tournament this much big and spectacular??