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ESPN Targets American Cricket Fans

September 20, 2012, 11:21 pm
By SHIVANI VORA

Cricket fans in the United States have a reason to rejoice: the sports network ESPN is devoting a significant portion of its stateside broadcast to the game.

This week, the cable channel began showing the T20 World Cup live for viewers in the United States for the first time since the tournament started in 2003. Before this, cricket fans in the country had to shell out $30 to $100 for a match or an entire tournament to catch them via the Internet or through pay-per-view.

For cricket followers in the United States, where the sport isn't as universal as it is in India, this news couldn't have come fast enough. “When I first moved to the U.S. in the '90s, watching crick et was difficult because you needed to have a satellite dish or turn to pay-per-view, which only showed finals matches,” said Anand Atre, 37, who lives in New York and works in financial services. “Me and all my friends who love cricket always hoped that the game would become more accessible, and now it finally has.”

ESPN has promised cricket fans more than 1,500 hours of cricket programming from 2012 to 2015, the fruits of an exclusive deal signed with the global rights holder, ESPN Star Sports, in March 2011 to air the Champions League Twenty20 and International Cricket Council events live in the United States.

ESPN has been committed to cricket for some time. The network bought Cricinfo.com in 2007, which is now the world's most popular cricket site with more than 11.9 million unique visitors per month. ESPN had also bought the U.S. rights to show cricket matches in the past like the 2010 Asia Cup, the Caribbean Regional Twenty20 Tournament and Banglades h home matches against other national teams.

Cricket's appeal in the United States is strong and growing, said Damon Phillips, vice president of ESPN3, the channel that will show all this cricket stateside. Cricinfo.com has more than one million unique visitors a month in the United States, he said, and the United States audience has grown 37 percent every year since the network acquired the site in 2007.

When cricket matches are aired, the average viewing time is close to 90 minutes because the matches are longer than typical sporting events.

“Cricket is one of the top sports in the world, and we want to introduce American audiences to it on a wider scale,” said Mr. Phillips. “Plus, there is already a very passionate fan base in the country, and we want to drop the barriers to access and the expense that these fans had to deal with for years now.”

The new T20 format, where matches last just three hours, will make the game more appealing, said Mr. Phillips. In the past, matches could go on all day for the one-day internationals, or O.D.I., or five days for the test matches.

He said the shorter matches will also be attractive for advertisers, who are guaranteed that viewers will tune in for a set amount of time.

As for Mr. Atre, his plans for the next few days are fixed, thanks to ESPN's news. “I'll be watching the T20 India matches, of course,” he said. “And right on cable TV. Finally.”



Submit Your Questions to Princeton University\'s Dean of Admissions

By TANYA ABRAMS
Higher EducationThe Choice on India Ink

Choice LogoGuidance on American college applications for readers in India from The Times's admissions blog.

For this week's installment of The Choice on India Ink, we present our Guidance Office, a forum for readers of The Choice to seek expert advice about college admissions.

The Choice has invited Janet Rapelye, the dean of admission at Princeton University since 2003, to answer select reader questions about applying to college.

Ms. Rapelye, who received a bachelor's degree from Williams College and a master's degree from Stanford University, has 30 years' experience in college admissions. She is looking forward to fielding questions about finding the right college match and detailing what admissions officers look for in college applications.

To pose a question to Ms. Rapelye, please use the comment box in our original post on The Choice. Ms. Rapelye will be reading your questions on The Choice and has agreed to accept questions through Sept. 26. Her first answers are scheduled to appear on The Choice on Monday.

Our Q. and A. with Ms. Rapelye is only the most recent of our Guidance Office sessions, which have drawn representatives from a broad range of colleges and universities, including Michael Barron of the University of Iowa; Dr. Marybeth Gasman and Dr. Walter Kimbrough, who answered questions about the nation's historically black colleges and universities; and Kay McClenney, an expert on community colleges. We encourage you to explore these archived posts and participate in future Guidance Office sessions.



Cairo\'s Graffiti Revolutionaries Reclaim Wall

September 20, 2012, 6:14 pm
By ROBERT MACKEY

As the Cairene journalist and blogger Soraya Morayef reported on Thursday, many Egyptians who took part of the 2011 street protests, and the battles with the military rulers that followed, were outraged this week when the authorities suddenly painted over an elaborate graffiti mural dedicated to the martyrs of the revolution at the edge of Tahrir Square.

But, as a new video report by the Cairo film collective Mosireen shows, what was widely seen as an attempt to whitewash the revolution's hi story backfired, as the graffiti artists returned to the same spot the next day, and started a new mural - including an image captioned: “ERASE IT AGAIN, YOU COWARDLY REGIME.”

A video report on the graffiti battle in Cairo, produced by the film collective Mosireen.

In a post headlined, “Erase the Graffiti as You Want, You Cannot Erase History,” the blogger Zeinobia, included a Flickr slideshow of the mural, to remind readers of what had been lost.

As Zeinobia explained, the mural was “painted right after Mohamed Mahmoud clashes in November 2011 and in February 2012 after the horrible Port Said massacre.”

Sean Rocha, a New York photographer, posted more images of the graffiti artists' extraordinary work on Mohamed Mahmoud, shot earlier this month.

Ms. Morayef, who has written extensively about the revolution's street art, and the mural on Mohamed Mahmoud Stre et, previously, posted a detailed look at the new images on her blog, Suzee in the City, on Thursday. She also observed:

It's as if, step by step, we've been moving towards a clean state, where nothing ever happened. No policemen have been sentenced for the murder of January 25 protesters, and the security chiefs exonerated due to lack of evidence that they ordered the killing of protesters (because videos and photographs and eye witnesses don't count).

In this attempt to re-write history and change facts so that future generations assume the Muslim Brotherhood started the revolution and remained loyal to it, and the army never laid a finger and didn't shoot a single bullet at those bad bad protesters, I assumed the public memory would allow the painting over of the Mohamed Mahmoud mural. With almost two years of political fatigue, indifference and distraction; I can hardly blame them.

But what ensued was surprising: yesterday, artists, activis ts and members of the Ultras as well as 6 April returned to the walls and created new graffiti over the freshly painted walls. What we lost was a beautiful work of art; what w have gained is fresh fury and reignited debate.



British Soldier Gives Birth in Afghanistan

September 20, 2012, 4:13 pm
By CHRISTINE HAUSER

First, there was the news that Prince Harry was deployed there. Then, there was an audacious Taliban attack that killed two Marines last weekend. Camp Bastion in southern Afghanistan has been high profile this month for a number of reasons, and now it is once again in the spotlight for an event that has apparently surprised even its main participants.

After months of grueling training and deployment, a British soldier suddenly gave birth at the Camp Bastion military post this week, apparently not even knowing that she was pregnant. The gunner had her baby boy at a hospital at the camp, which houses mostly British forces as a NATO facility in Afghanistan's Helmand Province, British news organizations reported.

According to a Daily Mail report, the woman, who has not been identified, had gone through training that included an 8-mile march and a 5-mile run before being sent to Afghanistan in March. Once in the country, while pregnant, she had helped provide covering fire for troops fighting insurgents, while serving as a Royal Artillery gunner with the 12th Mechanized Brigade, the tabloid said.

But apparently she was not ready for the surprise appearance that came on Tuesday. After complaining of stomach pains, she gave birth to an infant about 34 weeks into the pregnancy. The birth was complicated and traumatic, The Independent reported.

The frontline birth was the first of its kind in the British military, according to officials. On Twitter, it spawned jokes about possible names for the newborn, and incredulous speculation. As Salma Elwardany, an Egyptian journalist, and others wondered, how could she not have known?

< blockquote class="twitter-tweet">

@S_Elwardany it happens all the time, they just think they're getting fat and have gas.

- forsoothsayer (@forsoothsayer) 20 Sep 12

Anna David, a consultant in obstetrics at University College London, told BBC News that undetected or denied pregnancy “not as uncommon as we think.” An 11-year study in Wales, she noted, showed that one in 2,500 pregnancies was concealed.

It is more common in younger women. There might be all sorts of reasons why one might actually not notice one is pregnant or not want to disclose it. One might be worried about a negative reaction from one's family and either not realize one is pregnant or not notice the symptoms that one might have.

Another BBC report quoted a teacher at the Royal College of Midwives, Sue Jacob, as saying every midwife has come across one or two women who did not know they were going to give birth and who then call for help wh en labor starts. “There are menopausal women, teenagers and very affluent, highly-educated women. No one is immune,” she says.

Another Royal College of Midwives expert, Denise Linay, told The Telegraph that the soldier might've guessed that her periods had stopped due to the stress of being in Afghanistan

A video report from The Telegraph in London quoting an expert from the Royal College of Midwives on how a soldier who gave birth in Afghanistan might have been unaware that she was pregnant.

The new mother was of Fijian descent. People took to naming her baby on Twitter.

International Business Times called the infant simply the “Camp Bastion baby.”

The frontline birth caught the imagination of an Irish illustrator, Eamon O'Donoghue, who drew a parallel with Conan, the fictional warrior, also born on a battlefield, created by the writer Robert E. Howard in stories starting in 1932.

The birth came just a few days after the Taliban had attacked the camp, which is home to the largest number of British troops in Afghanistan. Video posted online by The Telegraph, said to have been recorded by the attackers, showed smoke rising over the base on Saturday.

Video of Camp Bastion in Afghanistan, after a Taliban attack on Saturday.

Another focus for jokes was the coincidence that the birth had come shortly after Prince Harry had begun his deployment at the base, just weeks after making headlines with a game of strip billiards with a group of women in a Las Vegas hotel suite.



Image of the Day: September 20

September 20, 2012, 11:06 am
By THE NEW YORK TIMES

The End of Team Anna?

September 20, 2012, 9:09 am
By HARI KUMAR

The anticorruption activist Anna Hazare said he will not back the formation of a political party by a group of his young supporters, marking a formal split with the former members of Team Anna.

Led by Mr. Hazare, the group of activists, lawyers and former government officials had mounted a tempestuous crusade over the past 18 months to create an independent anticorruption agency. Last month, Mr. Hazare announced the dissolution of Team Anna, leading some political analysts to speculate that he would be forming his own party.

On Wednesday, Mr. Hazare made it clear he would not be doing that. “I will not go for party politics. I will not go for political campaigning at the time of elections,” he sa id after a daylong meeting with his supporters in New Delhi.

He added: “Please do not use my name and photo. I do not like this. You do whatever you want to do on your own.”

Mr. Hazare made his statement in the presence of a grim-looking Arvind Kejriwal, one of his leading advisers, who was in favor of forming a political party.

“We respect Anna-ji a lot,” Mr. Kejriwal said Thursday in New Delhi. “He is like our father, our guru. Yesterday's decision is very shocking, very painful and very unpredictable to us. It is very unfortunate also.”

On Twitter, Mr. Kejriwal continued to express his support for Mr. Hazare, saying, “Anna's 5 principles are foundation of our party. Anna's photograph & name are printed in our hearts. V will keep seeking his blessings”.

The split is widely viewed as a serious setback for one of the most powerful anticorruption movements in the past two decades in India.

Ashuto sh, the managing editor of IBN 7, an independent news channel, who wrote a book on the movement, said on Twitter that Mr. Hazare and Mr. Kejriwal complemented each other. “One without other will not be the same,” said Mr. Ashutosh, who goes by one name.

Mr. Hazare, 75, along with Mr. Kejriwal, 44, started the anti-corruption movement in April 2011, demanding an ombudsman to investigate corruption in the government. The movement gained nationwide support last year when Mr. Hazare and Mr. Kejriwal were arrested at the beginning of a protest.

A two-week protest in New Delhi after their arrests, involving tens of thousands of people, resulted in a promise by India's Parliament to form a law to create an anticorruption ombudsman.

But soon after that, differences cropped up within Team Anna. Mr. Kejriwal favored aggressive demands and strong political statements, and he attracted many young followers who demanded fast results. Other members of Team Anna, like the retired Supreme Court justice Santosh Hegde, the retired police officer Kiran Bedi and the environmental activist Medha Patkar were aiming instead for a nonpolitical civil society group.

By December, there was a sense of fatigue within the movement. Attendance at a Mumbai protest that month was less than expected, drawing only a few thousand.

Mr. Kejriwal, along with his band of young supporters, became more aggressive in his demands and staged frequent demonstrations that sharpened his attacks on the political class and political institutions, even holding them in front of politicians' houses. His followers rallied supporters through social media.

After the government presented a weak anticorruption law in Parliament in December, which failed to get approved by Parliament, Mr. Kejriwal eventually declared that forming a political party was the only solution.

Many senior team members and activists opposed going into politics directly, and the dif ference could not be bridged.

The bitterness of the split was evident. Mrs. Bedi said in a Twitter post after the meeting Wednesday: “Feel Anna was being expected to support political option when he was never inclined. Was it a case of misjudgment on the part of some?”



Afghanistan Falters Against India in Cricket Match

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Afghanistan gave a spirited performance against former Twenty20 world champions India but dropped four costly chances during a 23-run defeat in their opening World Cup Group A match on Wednesday.

Virat Kohli profited from one of the missed chances to score 50 from 39 balls in India's 159 for five.

Suresh Raina (38), who added 46 runs for the fourth wicket with Kohli was dropped twice, and Yuvraj Singh was missed once while scoring 18 from 20 deliveries. Yuvraj was playing in his first major tournament after cancer treatment.

India then bowled out Afghanistan for 136 runs in 19.3 overs with Yuvraj and Lakshmipathy Balaji capturing three wickets each.

Afghanistan, who chose to field first, contained India's aggressive top order in the power play with pace bowler Shapoor Zardar removed both Gautam Gambhir (10) and Virender Sehwag (eight) to limit India to 22 for two off 4.1 overs.

However, Kohli's partnerships with Yuvraj and Raina helped India post a total that was just out of reach for Afghanistan.

Kohli's 50 included four boundaries and two sixes, while Raina struck six fours.

Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni hammered 18 off nine balls at the end of the innings.

Afghanistan reached 75 for two after 11.1 overs, but the dismissals of Karim Sadiq (26) and Asghar Stanikzai (6) off consecutive balls by Yuvraj helped turn the tide back to India.

Left-arm spinner Yuvraj finished with three for 24.

Balaji also captured three wickets but India's primary bowler Zaheer Khan struggled, going for 32 runs without reward off three overs.

Middle-order batsman Mohammad Nabi top scored for Afghanistan with 31 off 17 balls, including two fours and two sixes. The top three batsman all got decent starts but could not carry on.

(Reporting by Shihar Aneez; Editing by Josh Reich)



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