The Good, Bad & the Ugly ft. Afghanistan, Zinedine Zidane and Al Jazeera sting operation
This week has been an eventful one for the world of sports - starting from Al Jazeera sting operation to ICC Cricket Committee’s decision to stay with the traditional “Toss” for Test matches. Here, we are presenting you The Good, Bad & the Ugly ft for the last week and get you covered.
The Good
This is one of few good news to have come out of the ICC Cricket Committee’s conference
While the above one seems a logical decision to keep the sanity of Test cricket, one decision came out of the BCCI boardroom on Thursday won the hearts of millions. When in December the BCCI announced that India would play Afghanistan in the latter’s first-ever Test match, it triggered a celebration in the war-torn country. That was a wonderful reward for the giant stride that Afghanistan
The Bad
Doping has always been a dark chapter in any sports, but India, and weightlifting, in particular, has been affected the most by it. And when the news of Commonwealth Games gold medallist Sanjita Chanu being caught in dope test broke out on Friday, it must have been a sad news for all her fans in the country. The 24-year-old tested positive for testosterone, which improves muscle strength and endurance and although she denied the allegations, the IWF had already provisionally suspended her from participation which cast a shadow of doubt on her career.
One more news, albeit not as severe as the one mentioned above, should come as my second point under this section. After England suffered their sixth defeat in the last eight Test matches, former skipper Michael Vaughan, in his column for the Telegraph, asked the ECB selection panel, which is now headed by Ed Smith, to get rid of James Anderson or Stuart Broad so as to strengthen the team. There is little doubt that both Anderson and Broad still form the core of England's strongest seam attack, but Vaughan advocated the change to shake England team out of the stupor. Vaughan was no stranger to this type of things as in 2008, he was the skipper who jettisoned Matthew Hoggard and Steve Harmison, two of his 2005 Ashes-winning heroes, from the team to play New Zealand in Wellington after a shambolic defeat in the first match of the series in
The Ugly
When Zinedine Zidane came to the press conference room in Valdebebas to announce a news that nobody saw it coming that he was walking away from Real Madrid only five days after winning a third consecutive Champions League, there was a sense of melancholy among all Madridistas. Afterall the Frenchman left Santiago Bernabéu having won nine titles, including three consecutive European Cups and the decision was enough to leave anyone in shock. But, former Real Madrid president Ramon Calderon claimed that fallouts with Real president Florentino Perez has forced Zidane to take the hard decision and he revealed that the fallouts appeared to range from decisions over new signings and regarding the strategy of how the club is going to
While that was unfortunate, my following point came as the saddest and ugliest news to have come out from the sporting arena in the month, if not the year. Al Jazeera's documentary about corruption in cricket revealed that three England and two Australian players had agreed to score at a rate specified by fixers for the purposes of betting on certain 10-over periods in two Test matches in India. The two questionable matches were the Chennai Test of England's tour of India in 2016 and the third Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy last year in Ranchi. While the sting operation has brought the dark side of the game to the fore, hopefully, a proper investigation by CA, ECB, in coordination with ICC, will help unravel the truth in the matter.
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