The Good, Bad & the Ugly ft. Sourabh Verma, Adil Rashid, and Mesut Ozil

The Good, Bad & the Ugly ft. Sourabh Verma, Adil Rashid, and Mesut Ozil

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From Sourabh Verma winning the Russia Open to FC Goa launching women’s team, the sporting world had a lot of positives for us this week. However, Mesut Ozil’s public criticism, which ended with him retiring from German football and Dansuhka Gunathiaka misconduct also gave us a lot to reflect on.

The Good

After a successful outing in the Commonwealth Games at Gold Coast, where India won gold medals in the team event and women’s singles, their hopes of repeating the feat at the Asian Games next month looks more than bleak. With Kidambi Srikanth losing form and Saina Nehwal aging, PV Sindhu remains India’s only hope. And the World No. 3 hasn’t shown much promise either at the BWF events in the recent past either. However, the fans had something to celebrate as former national champion Sourabh Verma lifted the Russia Open on Sunday. Though he won’t be participating in India’s latest venture, World Championships in China that starts next week, the World No. 19 would be confident ahead of the Asiad where he has made the cut into Pullela Gopichand’s contingent. 

After getting a bye in the first round of Russia’s Open, Verma had to overcome the likes of Rahul Yadav Chittaboina, Misha Zilberman and Mithun Manjunath to get to the final. He also got a walkover in the third round by local favorite Sergey Sirant. However, it was the manner of his final that made the headlines. The eighth-seed had to come back after going down in the first game against Japan’s Koki Watanabe, and he did brilliantly by swiping him completely in the second game before leaving it incredibly late in the decider to eventually win 18-21, 21-12, 21-17.

Though AIFF did cite the example of the improvement of Indian women’s team while blasting IOA’s decision to exclude the Indian football team out of the Asian Games contingent, in truth, India’s women’s football team has been dismal. Playing only two friendlies in the last five years, the Indian eves have played only two competitions in last three years – 2015 SAFF Championships and 2016 South Asian Games. Hence, it was hardly surprising when they returned from Pyongyang in 2017 conceding 25 goals in three matches. 

However, taking small but significant strides towards their improvement this week was FC Goa, who became only the second ISL side to launch its official women’s team. They will compete in the second Vedanta Goa Women's Football League, which starts from August 14, along with eight other teams. Grassroots level coach, Naresh Virnodkar will be the head coach of the side. The other side to do this has been FC Pune City and regular tournaments could go a long way in actually improving women’s football in India.

The Bad

Indian’s women’s hockey team got the shock of their life when they went down 1-0 to lower ranked side Ireland in the ongoing World Cup, who put them in danger of missing out of the quarter-finals berth. The rampant changes at the coaching level had to impact sooner or later and fortunately, it has come early. A 13th-minute penalty corner conversion by Anna O'Flanagan was enough for the second lowest side of the World Cup to jeopardize India’s hopes of making it to the knockout stages. The Irish had previously stunned USA with a 3-1 win leaving India with no reason to be complacent, but the Indian eves looked average at best.

India would now need at least a draw against World No. 7 USA to advance from pool B. India stand third in the table with a draw against England and a loss against Ireland and another draw would help the side stay in the competition. Chief coach Sjoerd Marijne has dubbed the game as a “must-win” but given how little his messages have reached the players so far, India stand on a slippery edge of elimination early on with HFI running out of ideas fast.

Adil Rashid was England’s best weapon against Virat Kohli in the ODI series as the spinner sent the Indian skipper to the pavilion twice in three matches. Hence, it was not entirely surprising when national selector Ed Smith decided to go with his gut by selecting the Test squad. However, England’s potential chance of winning the series has evidently angered few personalities of England cricket, who threw scathing criticisms at the player bringing up his limited-over contract with Yorkshire back in February. 

Former player Michael Vaughan even went as far as to call Adil ‘unprofessional’ citing previous instance when the player had refused red-ball cricket for Yorkshire. With ECB on his side now, Adil too didn’t hold back claiming that Vaughan’s “opinions do not matter to anybody”. Adil also went on to accuse Vaughan of being “controversial and saying stupid things”. Yorkshire’s lack of support also irked the player who even went to state, “It would have been nice to have got the support from your county or the people close to you, but if they do not want to give their support, that is their problem.”

The Ugly

While the World Cup’s ugly curse of winners going out in the group stages of the next edition might have spurred some to guess Germany’s early elimination in this year’s World Cup, not a single person would have expected German star Mesut Ozil’s retirement from the national team after his meeting with Turkey president Tayyip Erdogan. Popular German football figures like Oliver Bierhoff and Ottmar Hitzfeld even went on to suggest that the playmaker and Ilkay Gundigan shouldn’t have been allowed to wear the national jersey in Russia.

The World Cup elimination worked further as a catalyst and a section of media found the No. 10 as the scapegoat for the team’s collective failure, and Germany Football Federation (DFB) President Reinhard Grindel added the final tinge of poison by bringing up Ozil’s controversial meeting with the Turkish president to cover for his poor job at the World Cup. In his long parting statement Ozil had first addressed the media stating, “What I can't accept are German media outlets repeatedly blaming my dual-heritage and a simple picture for a bad World Cup on behalf of an entire squad.” Regarding Grindel, Ozil said, “I will no longer stand for being a scapegoat for his incompetence and inability to do his job properly."

However, when we were just breathing a sigh of relief back home thanking the heavens for keeping us away from such atrocities, Sri Lanka’s Danushka Gunathilaka’s six-match suspension for an alleged rape scandal reminded us we are no better. The SLC had launched an inquiry into the alleged breach of conduct of the 27-year-old after the conclusion of the second Test match against South Africa. Though the board didn’t mention the reason, there have been reports of a Norwegian woman accusing Gunathilaka’s friend of rape in the same hotel room where the Sri Lanka cricketer was present.  

This isn’t the first time that Gunathilaka has been suspended for breaching of code. ICC had previously fined the Sri Lankan cricketer for giving a sendoff to Bangladesh cricketer Tamim Iqbal, which was a Level 1 offence. SLC had also banned the player last October during the home series against India for misconduct when he was handed an additional three-match ban over a one-year period.

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