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BBC World Service – The World Today Weekend

Join the World Today Weekend each Saturday and Sunday morning for a breakfast news show with a difference.

Every programme one of our presenters is joined by two distinguished guests.

Politicians and diplomats, writers, journalists, scientists, philosophers and comedians have all been on our panel.

We dig behind the headlines to ask the questions that are missed in the daily rush to deadlines.

Whether it’s an important newsmaking interview, the latest insights from the worlds of business and sport, or a bit of music and poetry, we find a different way to bring you the weekend’s news.

In this programme, presenter Fergus Nichol discusses, among other things, the loss of the original Corinthian spirit in sport, internet privacy and China’s growing influence in Africa and across the world with Mihir Bose ; Kate Crawford, deputy director, Journalism and Media Research, University of New South Wales; and sports correspondent Seth Bennett.

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Click here to read more about The Spirit of the Game

PlayUpCricket

Mihir Bose says IPL is not the reason for India’s demise in Test cricket. India should have implemented a process to blood young players so they don’t get stuck with a team of aging batsmen. Bowling attack is under par.

Outlook – Opinion

A wealthy Board, wealthy players, but a poverty of strategy and ambition—and a ‘cool’ captain who’s clueless

Indian cricket is in the classic position of the rich man who finds that money does not bring success, let alone happiness. To anyone brought up on Bollywood films, that is hardly a surprising script, but it’s the grim reality that stares Indian cricket in the face. What makes it worse is its predictability. The easy thing would be to fault the IPL. It is more than that. The sad situation is the result of years of mismanagement and any lack of strategic thinking. This is a problem that goes beyond cricket to what may be called the national psyche.

I was made aware of this back in 2002. India had just won a Test in Trinidad—the first Test they had won in the West Indies since that epic victory, also at Trinidad, back in 1976. After the victory, captain Sourav Ganguly kissed the turf of the Queen’s Park Oval; I felt it epitomised the new India. Yet the next Test in Barbados saw Ganguly run out Rahul Dravid and an abysmal batting collapse. Far from looking like victors, Indians looked a deflated team waiting to go home. A perceptive critic defined it as the poverty of ambition. India had won one Test in the Caribbean; what more was required? Indian cricket has always suffered from this syndrome.

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Times Now

In a debate moderated by TIMES NOW’s Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami, panelists — Mihir Bose, former Sports Editor, BBC and Author; Boria Majumdar, Cricket Historian; Kunal Pradhan, Deputy Editor, Mumbai Mirror; Arun Lal, former Test Cricketer; and Atul Wasan, former Indian Test Cricketer — discuss the issue of India’s cricket team being humbled by Australia in 2nd Test match as well and whether the Indian team simply lost the magic touch or is it because Dhoni’s XI are tired warhorses.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Evening Standard

Man of power: Lord Condon, outside the Houses of Parliament, spent a decade with the ICC. Image courtesy of Evening Standard.

There can have been few observers of cricket’s spot-fixing trial who have a better knowledge of the threat the issue poses to the game than Lord Condon.

After all, in 2000 he set up the ­International Cricket Council’s anti-corruption unit, which he chaired for a decade.

We meet in the wake of the convictions of the three Pakistan cricketers, Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir, who conspired to bowl deliberate no-balls during the Fourth Test with England last year.

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