Sehwag's knee problems keep India on tenterhooks

Opener Virender Sehwag's knee injury will keep India on tenterhooks as the co-hosts aim to end Australia's World Cup domination with a quarter-final victory on Thursday.

Sehwag missed India's last Group B match against West Indies on Sunday following an allergic reaction to an injection on his right knee but more than one billion home fans will want him to show up against Australia as he has the ability to blunt their formidable pace attack.

However, skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni could not announce him fit for what is a repeat of the 2003 final.

"On Viru (Sehwag) we are taking a call late in the evening or tomorrow morning before the start of the game," Dhoni told reporters on Wednesday.

Australia's aura of World Cup invincibility was punctured by Pakistan when they beat the four-times champions on Saturday, ending a 34-match unbeaten run.

However, while that defeat did not have much riding on it since it was a round-robin match, a loss on Thursday will mean Australia will not feature in a World Cup final for the first time since 1992.

Determined to avoid suffering that fate, Ricky Ponting will let loose his battery of pacemen, who will literally aim high at the Indian batsmen's body.

In Australia's last match at the same venue, the pacemen -- Brett Lee, Shaun Tait and Mitchell Johnson -- crushed Zimbabwe by 91 runs with the trio claiming seven of the 10 wickets.

At the same time, Ponting's men can expect the co-hosts to spin a web around their batsmen with a combination of their frontline and part-timer tweakers.

"No doubt we rely on our fast bowlers to take the wickets and India are probably the exact opposite of that," Ponting, seeking a hat-trick of World Cup titles as captain, told reporters.

"We could be facing 30 overs of spin bowling and they will probably... face 30 overs of fast bowling."

Thursday's quarter-final, in all likelihood will be the last World Cup appearance for either Ponting or Sachin Tendulkar -- the two most prolific run-scorers in international cricket.

While the 36-year old Ponting is battling a slump in form, the Indian batting maestro, 37, has been in a rich vein of form with already two centuries in the tournament.

The partisan crowd at the 48,000-strong Sardar Patel Stadium will throng the stands with two wishes -- Tendulkar gets to his 100th ton in international cricket and India set up a semi-final clash with Pakistan in Mohali.

"It is a big advantage. You have 30,000-40,000 people coming on to the ground to cheer for you. If they are cheering for you then it definitely makes a difference," Dhoni said.

Source http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/sports/sehwag%60s-knee-problems-keep-india-tenterhooks_531574.html

Police fire stun grenades at World Cup pay protest

Police fired rubber bullets and stun grenades to break up a protest by hundreds of stadium staff unhappy at their wages on Monday in the first major unrest of the football World Cup.

As organisers promised to investigate why thousands of seats were empty at weekend matches, they also struggled to contain a backlash against the din generated by the vuvuzela horns which have become the symbol of the tournament.

Danny Jordaan, chairman of the local organising committee, said he would consider banning the horns if they drowned out national anthems although a spokesman later said they were here to stay.

Champions Italy meanwhile were beginning their defence of the trophy with an evening match against Paraguay in Cape Town while the highly fancied Dutch were to play Denmark in Johannesburg.

The protests in Durban broke out around midnight after the match between Germany and Australia as around 400 stadium staff protested what they said was a pay cut from 250 rand (33 dollars) to 190 per day outside the main gate.

"They were unhappy about the wages they were getting from their employers, so they started getting unruly," police spokeswoman Phindile Radebe told AFP.

Police broke up the protest at the stadium, but about 200 continued protesting on a nearby street, where rubber bullets and stun grenades were fired to break up the demonstration, she said.

"No one has been arrested so far," she added, adding that the fans had already left the stadium when the protest broke out.

Durban municipality, which owns the stadium, said that the stewarding at the stadium had been subcontracted by FIFA and the local organising committee to another company.

"The LOC and FIFA are responsible for all elements of the operation and management of the stadium and the appointment of all stadium service providers and employees for the period of the World Cup," it said in a statement.

The tournament was also facing a raft of negative headlines over ranks of empty seats which were spotted at some of the less glamorous ties over the weekend.

Around 8,000 seats were empty during Saturday's match between South Korea and Greece while there were also gaping holes at Sunday's game between Slovenia and Algeria in the northern city of Polokwane.

A spokesman for the local organising committee said that most of the tickets had been sold but many people just had not turned up.

"We have no clue what happened -- tickets had been issued," Rich Mkhondo told the Johannesburg-based newspaper The Times.

While around 3,000 tickets went unsold, another 8,000 corporate ticket holders failed to show.

"We are investigating who these companies are, why those tickets were not distributed to their owners or why those owners did not make it to the stadiums," he said.

Mkhondo also tried to slap down down any suggestion that the vuvuzela horns could be banned after yet more complaints about the noise they are generating.

"We just ask that people use them wisely and keep quiet when asked to do so during the singing of national anthems and the delivery of speeches," he said.

Asked if a ban was an option, local organising committee Danny Jordaan told the BBC: "If there are grounds to do so, yes."

Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo was the latest World Cup star to voice unease about the trumpet, telling reporters that it affected players' focus.

"It is difficult for anyone on the pitch to concentrate," the Real Madrid star told a press conference.

"A lot of players don't like them, but they are going to have to get used to them."

Makers of the plastic horns meanwhile said they had come up with a toned-down version.

"We have modified the mouthpiece, there is now a new vuvuzela which will blow noise that is 20 decibels less than the old one," Neil van Schalkwyk, a partner at Masincedane Sport, told The Star newspaper.

"We hope to sell these at park and ride areas and public viewing areas," added Van Schalkwyk, whose company owns the vuvuzela trademark.

Source http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iekx9IaGOlN8C8NExCJhdjerP-Xg

Were Ghana right to celebrate as if they had won the World Cup?

Gabriele Marcotti

The vast majority of Ghana's players celebrated their 1-0 victory over Serbia as if they had won the World Cup. John Pantsil did his lap of honor with a giant Ghanaian flag and Asamoah Gyan danced away amidst scenes of immense jubilation.

At the time, tweeting from the media stand at the Loftus Versfeld Stadium in Pretoria, I commented that it was over the top and that maybe "Ghana should act like it had been here before. "After all," I figured, "we're talking about one win against a solid team, but nothing beyond that: Serbia are hardly Brazil. Shouldn't you save your celebrations for when you achieve something truly meaningful?

I received plenty of instant responses from the Twitterverse. Many criticized me for being a spoilsport. Others said they were celebrating because it meant so much to them to be the first African team to win a World Cup game on African soil. A few agreed with me: such celebrations may be appropriate for minnows in a Cup giant-killing, but with a big footballing nation like Ghana they just don't sit right. Not in those circumstances, not for a group game victory against a beatable opponent.

But the counterargument was compelling too. I was told this kind of celebration was "an African thing" and who was I to judge? Fair enough. But the whole "first African team to win a World Cup game on African soil" sounds slightly fishy to me. Partly because, in my experience, players don't generally think about that sort of thing.

And partly because, if they did, they would realize that only an accident of the calendar made Ghana the first team to win a World Cup game on African soil, as opposed to, say, Ivory Coast or Cameroon (or, indeed, Nigeria, if they had been playing Greece instead of Argentina).

Perhaps it is a cultural thing. But, rather than a European/African thing, celebrating at this stage tells you more about how a team sees itself. Most successful players or managers will tell you that you don't celebrate until you win it all, not if you believe you are strong. It's the underdogs and minnows who celebrate every step of the way because, well, every match they play could be their last. And I like to think that had a guy like Michael Essien - a proven winner - been out there, he would have been proud and delighted, but probably would not have cartwheeled around the pitch as if he had won it all. (In fact, Sulley Muntari, another winner, who was on the sidelines, limited himself to some hugs and backslaps, no more than that).

Still, though, I'm not sure. Do we make too much of the stoic, play-it-cool machismo? Or do excessive celebrations against average opponents show a lack of self-belief and, ultimately, ambition?

Source http://timesonline.typepad.com/thegame/2010/06/were-ghana-right-to-celebrate-as-if-they-had-won-the-world-cup.html

Mandela relative's death clouds World Cup start

Nelson Mandela's great grand-daughter was killed in a car crash on Friday hours before the World Cup kicks off in South Africa, a tragic note amid revelry for the biggest sports event the continent has held.

Former President Mandela, 91, is credited with helping South Africa win the World Cup bid in 2004 as well as ending apartheid, and South Africans hoped he would be at the opening match between the hosts and Mexico despite his frail health.

Zenani Mandela, killed two days after her 13th birthday, was one of Mandela's nine great-grandchildren. The car crashed after a concert by a bevy of international and local stars at a stadium in the Soweto township outside Johannesburg.

"The family has asked for privacy as they mourn this tragedy," the Nelson Mandela Foundation said.

The death cast a cloud on the unprecedented rush of excitement in South Africa, which was tormented for years by negative and even domestic pessimism that the world's most watched sporting event was too big for Africa to handle.

That pessimism has been transformed in recent weeks and South Africans of all races can scarcely contain their pride at being in the world spotlight.

Successfully hosting this tournament for the first time in Africa will mean much more for the hosts than just sport.

Racial reconciliation, the affirmation of an often troubled post-apartheid nation, future investment and millions of tourist dollars could be at stake.

It is also a symbol of Africa's emergence from decades stereotyped as a continent of disaster, conflict and failure into a dynamic region winning ever-increasing foreign investment.

The once-improbable dream kicks off later on Friday when Mexico face the host nation in Johannesburg's 90,000-seat Soccer City stadium.

The Mexicans have to contend not only with a frenzy of patriotic fervour but also the ear-splitting din of the vuvuzela trumpets, so loud they can make communication between players and coaches almost impossible.

UNBEATEN RUN Once mocked even by their compatriots as hopeless under-achievers, and still one of the lowest-rated World Cup hosts, at 83rd in the rankings, South Africa come off a run of 12 unbeaten matches and are new national idols.

A string of comparatively minor crimes against journalists and three Greek players in recent days have been reminders that security in one of the globe's most violent countries outside a war zone remains a concern.

Six people were injured in a crowd crush at Cape Town's main World Cup fan zone on Thursday when thousands of people tried to get in.

The death of Mandela's great grand-daughter, a day after three British tourists died in a bus crash, highlighted the fact visitors face as much danger on the roads as from crime.

But the biggest distractions for the South African team are the weight of expectation and joyful street parades.

Their Brazilian manager, Carlo Alberto Parreira, said on Thursday they had expected calmness and focus but he could understand the party on the streets.

"I don't want my players to be affected by all of that," he said. "Now we have a World Cup game...we want to make this country proud."

Mexico fully intend to spoil the party. "My team has come here to play football, not make friends and go sightseeing," said coach Javier Aguirre.

Mexico's confidence has been boosted by victory over defending champions Italy last week and good performances against England and the Netherlands in other recent friendlies.

In Friday's other Group A game, France will be under pressure against Uruguay in Cape Town after a series of unimpressive warm-up games, culminating in a worrying 1-0 defeat by China.

Les Bleus look a far cry from the dominant team that won the World Cup in 1998 and Euro 2000.

Uruguay, though unfancied, have had an impressive warm-up with wins against Switzerland and Israel and could be a threat to the French.

Source http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/wcarticleshow/6036327.cms

World Cup Watch - June 9, 2010

South African youngsters show off their goal scoring celebration skills on a dusty pitch next to the New Zealand All Whites team training venue at Sinaba Stadium, Daveyton, Johannesburg.