Sania Mirza hopes to play in Commonwealth Games

Indian tennis player Sania Mirza has said that she hopes for a speedy recovery so that she can return to the game and also participate in the commonwealth games this year to be held in Delhi.

Mirza has suffered a wrist injury as she complained of a pain in an earlier wrist problem during the Dubai Tennis Championships last month.

"I will surely play Commonwealth Games and I am preparing for it. But for the next six weeks I would not be able to play and practice due to my injury. Let me recover from my injury, then I will start playing," said Sania.

She was speaking during the inauguration of the Pailan World School Residential Tennis Academy in Kolkata. She also appreciated the opening of the academy as it would give confidence to future players.

India has qualified in the Asia/Oceania Zone Group-I in the Fed Cup, where she is an important player. She said that she would be interested in the "special" training programme forthe Commonwealth Games after she recovers.

She said that she has enough time until the games to prepare for the matches.

Schedule for IPL Finally Released

In a country where cricket is almost a religion, the fact that the IPL 2010 schedule has been released is obviously a huge deal and a joyous development for the lovers ofcricket. Fans are now eagerly waiting for Friday, 12 March,
2010, which is the opening day for the 2010 season matches.

The 3rd IPL season will commence of March 12 and close on April 25. The 2010 season has already managed to create much interest since its biding window was opened, with none of the teams involved opting to pick up the available Pakistani players.

Also, this season holds a special importance as the game has come back to its home country after it was shifted to South Africa last year because it coincided with the General Election in India.

The same 8 popular teams would be playing each other, with the starting match featuring defending champions Deccan Chargers pitted against Kolkata Knight Riders.

Also, as most of the matches have been scheduled for the evening slot, majority of the fans will be able to enjoy the season.

For once, it seems we have managed to please the hard-to-please Australia as well, with the country expressing its complete satisfaction with the security arrangements which have been made for players.

The atmosphere is all charged up and we are all now waiting for March 25!

Netherland dumps Canada 6-0 in HWC

The Netherlands have continued their dominance in the Hockey World Cup (HWC) as the Dutch team has thrashed Canada by 6-0 in the Pool A match at the Major Dhyan Chand Stadium on Friday.

Both teams failed to open their accounts in the first half but Dutch smashed six goals in the second half to outplay their opponents. Drag-flick specialist Taeke Taekma and Rogier Hofman smashed two goals each for Netherlands.

Taeke has now become the leading goal scorer in the World Cup with six goals. Roland Brouwer and Rob Reckers scored one goal each.

Meanwhile, New Zealand has upset the Asian Games champion's South Korea 2-1 in the first match of the day. The Kiwis took 2-0 lead in the first half while Koreans scored their first goal with just 23 seconds left in the match.

In another Pool A match, Germany has defeated Argentina 4-3. Martin Zwicker scored first goal for Germany in the fifth minute to give his team lead in the match.

KKR to Improve Performance in IPL Season 3 by Public Suggestions

For improving the performance and coaching his team Kolkata Knight Riders in IPL season 3, Shah Rukh Khan, the Bollywood celebrity, invited suggestions via messages on Saturday.

These suggestions were invited under "Main Bhi Coach" program launched by Nokia in collaboration with KKR in Mumbai.

The suggestions are invited to be sent to 9664555555 and as Shah Rukh Khan says all the suggestions will be discussed with the team.

Coach John Buchanan was replaced with Dav Whatmore following the age factor and communication gap with the players that was being held responsible for poor performance of the tem in last two IPL seasons.

Launching the "Main Bhi Coach" program, "When we used to lose, I used to get inundated with messages, mostly suggestions.

I don't mean that the team losing is lazy or it doesn't want to win or it is a bad team. When one team competes, it competes to win.

I won't say that we didn't work hard. Maybe our decision of multiple captains was not right, we can find excuses but the bottom line is that we worked hard, we played very hard but not hard enough".

IPL mops up cash by selling mobile rights

On Thursday, the Indian Premier League (IPL) allotted license for the distribution of exclusive rights of transmission of their matches to various mobile platforms all across the world. The IPL lovers would now get the updates and watch the match on the move, no need for them to sit in front of the TV.

This strategy would help to bring in some additional money and generate a revenue stream for the telecom companies who were providing these updates for a fee.

A Gurgaon based company vRock Mobile Communications has got the contract. Under this contract, the company will be responsible to take the IPL news and updates to the mobile consumers. IPL Chairman Lalit Modi explained the absence of this technology in the past as the unavailability of providers during the previous 2 versions. One of the world’s largest online video sharing sites Youtube also has the rights to telecast these matches.

The rights that have been distributed are solely for vRock Mobile. The only company to provide information to consumers through SMS, MMS and IVR over the various fields like CDMA, GSM, GPRS, MMS, WAP, EDGE, 2G and 3G will be vRock mobile.

Dhoni set for another challenge

While the Indian captain M. S. Dhoni may have proved to be the true captain of the ship when it was against the South Africans but his road to the IPL trophy is full of heavy waves. His team Chennai Super Kings will be entering the third season of this much-hyped cricket tournament without the two key all-rounders as Andrew Flintoff and Jacob Oram will be missing from the action.

Though, Oram is expected to join back later in the tournament. The problems don't end here, in fact, they start. Muttiah Muralitharan and Makhaya Ntini, considered to be the backbone of CSK are also not in the best phase of their careers which will put additional pressure on the Captain. Its affair with the auction for third season hasn't been so well either.

After its unsuccessful bets for players like Kieron Pollard, Shane Bond and Kemar Roach, the franchisee settled for ICL-returned Justin Kemp and Sri Lankan all-rounder Thissaara Perera. Clearly, Chennai Super Kings will be banking on their batting line-up and more importantly on their captain to sail through the aimed top slot of the IPL rankings.

Spain crushes England 2-0

Already on a roll, the Spanish team has settled its old score with England as the Spanish beat England by 2-0 in an interesting encounter. Although, the British have already secured a place for themselves in the Semi-final but the fact that the England team was beaten 4-2 in January by Spain and they haven't been able to file a victory against them in the past 35 years remains intact.

Pau Quemada converted a penalty corner into a goal in the first half for Spain while Eduard Tubau added on to the leading the second half for Olympics silver medallist Spain's third victory in the tournament.

While on the one end, England's pole position was at stake, Spanish were fighting for the third spot in their Group to stay at the sixth spot in the world ranking. However, it hasn't been so bad for the England team keeping in mind their green signal to the semi-finals. It will be veryinteresting to see what effect this lost match will have on the players when they enter the playfield for an intense encounter.