Monday Thoughts

Some stray thoughts on last Monday of Nov 2018.

1. On the 10th anniversary of 26/11. On this day on 2008, city of Mumbai was attacked by terrorist who landed in Mumbai via Arabian sea route. Their main area of attack happened to be at CST station, Taj Mahal Hotel, Oberoi Hotel, Leopold Cafe and  Chabad House  also known as Nariman House( a place where Jews were residing ). The Mumbai police, that time was grappling with the sheer magnitude of  the attacks, with all its resources. Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) was immediately put into operation and their officers were on the roads within few minutes of of the news that there are terrorist attacking innocent civilians at many places. Terrorist operation was there for few minutes at CST station, Leopald Cafe but they were holed up in Taj Mahal hotel, Oberoi Hotel and  Chabad House. The worst place to be affected was Taj Mahal Hotel, where number of terrorist attacked the guests,hotel staff and people dining in Restaurants. To comb out terrorists from Hotej Taj Mahal & Oberoi Trident Commandos  were called. It took almost 3 days for Mumbai to come to normal. With hundreds of casualties and many more injured. Only one terrorist named Ajmal Kasab was caught, and he was given life sentence after the trial. Eventually he was hanged in Indian prison.This day of November, ie 26/11 will always will be remembered by all the Mumbaikars.
2. Mary Kom- what a gutsy woman she is. She has won a Gold Medal in World Boxing Championship for record sixth time in 48 Kg weight category,  and that too at the age of 35. She won her 1st world title in 2002  and 5th in 2010.It may well be that India’s greatest sportsperson since independence is a sportswoman. People may say  Sachin Tendulkar’s name as biggest sportsman, it’s worth to remember that competitive Cricket is played only in  a handful of countries against boxing which is being played in more than 100 countries. So Mary’s achievement is much bigger than any other sportsperson in the country. secondly in most contact s[ports age is as big an enemy as your opponent, slowing you down, wearing you down with injuries that take longer to heal. Most of the people had given up on Mary Kom, as they assumed that the mother of three children will hang her gloves after the heart break of 2016, when she crashed out in 2nd round during 206 World Championship, and failed to qualify for 2016 Olympics. But she was not ready to throw her towel, she purposely skipped Asian Games in 2018 to focus on the world Championship and her choice has proven to be right. She has set a new challenge for herself and that bis to qualify for 2020 Olympics and win  a medal for the country. She being from a farming background in insurgency hit Manipur State of North East, is also very significant for her. By becoming World Champion again, is now source of inspiration to young girl boxers. She may be one of a rare kind of sportswomen, whose biopic film was made when she is still active in sport and winning World Championship in her weight category.  BRAVO MARY KOM.
3. So in the end India had to settle for drawn  T20 series  against Australia with both the team winning one match each and pone being abandon due to rain In the 1st  T20, India could have won the match but rain played the spoilsport. Australia batted first  and scored 158 in 19 overs, when the rain started. When the play resumed , India were asked to score 173 runs in 17 overs as Duckworth & Lewis (D&L) method, which India could not reach and lost the match by 4 runs.Yesterday in 3rd and final match, it was do or die kind of situation for India. Australia, while batting first could score only 164 runs, the stars for India in bowling were spin duo Kuldeep Yadav and Krunal Pandya, with bowling figures of 4-0-19-1 and 4-0-36-4 respectively. In batting Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan gave India a flying start when they added 67 runs for the opening stand only in 6 overs. Both of them got out , when the total was 67 only. Then Kohli and KL Rahul added  valuable 41 for 3rd wicket and 4th wicket of Ramesh Pant also fell on the same score of 108. Without any further hiccups Dinesh Karthik and Kohli completed that target of 164. For your knowledge In Australia’s innings there were no sixer could be hit, while India could hit 6 sixers. . Highlight of India’s  was unbeaten 61 from Virat Kohli , and quickfire 41 by Shikhar Dhavan.

Waiting for your comments/views/feed back on this blog.

Anil Malik

Mumbai, India

26th Nov, 2018.