8th Bangladesh Games 2013 Poor planning excludes many athletes

                                                         8th Bangladesh Games 2013

                      Poor planning excludes many athletes

 

Parul Akhtar splits on the balance beam during a practice session at the NSC Gymnasium yesterday, ahead of the 8th Bangladesh Games which starts on Saturday. PHOTO: STAR

A great number of athletes from different disciplines will be deprived from any national level participation due to the hasty arrangement of the eighth Bangladesh Games which will be held from April 20 to 28.
 

Generally the federations do not hold their respective national championships in the year Bangladesh Games is held as the national championships of different disciplines are incorporated into the Games while giving opportunities to all the athletes to compete, but this time a big number of athletes will not get the opportunity due to the pattern of the Games.
Instead of ensuring participation of all athletes from across the country, the Bangladesh Olympic Association (BOA), organiser of the Bangladesh Games, put the ball to the respective federations’ courts to decide the pattern of their games and most of the federations prepared the participants list on the basis of the standings of their last national championships citing the limited budget allotted by Organising Committee of Bangladesh Games.
The Bangladesh Handball Federation held their last national meet with 36 men’s and 30 women’s teams, but the handball event of the 8th Bangladesh Games will see only 12 teams each in men’s and women’s section, resulting in majority of players missing out on national level participation.
Like handball, the hockey federation has chosen top 12 teams of the last national championship where 21 teams had taken part while the volleyball federation decided to hold their men’s event for the Bangladesh Games with 10 teams from among 31 teams that participated in the last national championship.
Disciplines like kabaddi, table tennis, basketball, cycling and chess have also cut down the number of participants, depriving majority of athletes from taking part in the country’s biggest sporting extravaganza whereas pre-planned measures from BOA could have ensured their participation in all disciplines.
 

“It is not possible to ensure the participation of all affiliated bodies in the Bangladesh Games with the budget that the BOA allotted for us,” said a hockey official yesterday, seeking anonymity.
He however believes that ensuring mass participation could have been ensured if BOA had instructed respective federations to manage their own sponsors to carry out a part of the expenditure.
An organiser informed that he was forced to keep four to five teams out of his discipline due to budget constraint even though those teams had a great enthusiasm to take part in the Bangladesh Games which is being held after 11 years.
 

The newly-elected committee of BOA, which has been in place for only two and a half months in office, has hurriedly arranged the Bangladesh Games, giving different federations little time to react which ultimately turned the games into an academic affair.

Sunrisers, Royals win

                                     Sunrisers, Royals win

 

Sunrisers Hyderabad’s Amit Mishra drives the ball during his side’s IPL match against Pune Warriors in Pune yesterday. Later the spinner took a hattrick to lead his side to an 11-run victory. PHOTO: CRICINFO

Leg-spinner Amit Mishra produced a stunning performance taking four wickets in five deliveries, including a hattrick, as Sunrisers Hyderabad pulled off an incredible 11-run victory over Pune Warriors in the Pepsi Indian Premier League at the Subrata Roy Sahara Stadium on Wednesday.
Mishra (4 for 19) took the wickets with his second, fourth, fifth and sixth deliveries off his final over as Warriors were bowled out for 108 in 19 overs while chasing a mediocre target of 120 runs.
In the second match of the day, Rajasthan Royals thrashed Mumbai Indians by 87 runs at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur.
Batting first, the hosts set up 179 for the loss of only three wickets, thanks to Ajinkya Rahane’s 54-ball 68 and a few supporting knocks from the other top order batsmen.
The Mumbai chase never gathered pace once they lost stalwarts Sachin Tendulkar (1) and Ricky Ponting (4) cheaply. Dinesh Karthik (30) and Ambati Rayudu (27) tried to resurrect the innings, but Australian paceman James Faulkner (3-16) made sure the innings finished in double digits.

SCORES IN BRIEF
SUNRISERS HYDERABAD: 119 for 8 in 20 overs (Patel 12, Samatray 37, Mishra 30, Ashish 19 not out, Kumar 3-18, Sharma 2-21)
PUNE WARRIORS: (Uthappa 22, Finch 16, Suman 12, Smith 17, Mathews 20, Marsh 14, Perera 3-20, Mishra 4-19)
Results: Sunrisers Hyderabad won by 11 runs.
Player-of-the-match: Amit Mishra.

RAJASTHAN ROYALS: 179 for 3 in 20 overs (Rahane 68, Yagnik 34; Harbhajan 1-26)
MUMBAI INDIANS: 92 all out in 18.2 overs (Karthik 30, Rayudu 27; Faulkner 3-16)
Result: Rajasthan Royals won by 87 runs
Player-of-the-match: AM Rahane

Md Mustafa Kamal Complete in Master of Arts

Bowlers take the stage

                                   Bowlers take the stage

Rubel Hossain bowled their hearts out on the opening day of the first Test at Harare yesterday. However, both Bangladesh pacers were denied their fair share of success by some sloppy fielding and a glaring error of judgement. PHOTOS: AFP

With the batsmen enjoying unprecedented success on the tour of Sri Lanka, the focus had shifted to the bowlers and the fielders ahead of the Zimbabwe Tests. A spate of injuries to Bangladesh’s bowling stocks, and a series of dropped chances in Sri Lanka justify concerns over whether a weakened fielding outfit can take 20 wickets on the Tigers’ current tour of Zimbabwe.
Perhaps the weakness was on skipper Mushfiqur Rahim’s mind when he won the toss and chose to field, trying to give his pace attack as much advantage as possible out of a pitch that had a tinge of green. What followed was a case of ‘morning shows the day’. In the very first over, Robiul Islam, after bowling five good-length deliveries, surprised Zimbabwe debutant Timycen Maruma with a lifter on off stump which the rookie edged straight to first slip, only for Shahriar Nafees to drop a sitter.
 

Robiul, hugely impressive in the first session, took the early mishap in his stride and continued bowling an incisive line outside off stump while generating appreciable away movement. He soon had his reward, uprooting Vusi Sibanda’s middle stump with a screaming yorker, before trapping the debutant in front to have Zimbabwe reeling at 22 for two.

Robiul Islam bowled their hearts out on the opening day of the first Test at Harare yesterday. However, both Bangladesh pacers were denied their fair share of success by some sloppy fielding and a glaring error of judgement. PHOTOS: AFP

The pace bowlers were highly effective in the first session, with Robiul especially looking like taking a wicket every time he ran in to bowl while Rubel Hossain kept up the pressure with unerring accuracy. The result was that Zimbabwe could only score 50. Bangladesh’s own ‘Mr. Cricket’ Nasir Hossain, who is better known as an off-spinner,  also bowled an impressive, disciplined spell of medium pace to keep the pressure on. But fielding lapses cost the Tigers, who could have been in a much stronger position at the end of the day had Nafees and Mohammad Ashraful not combined to drop three chances.
 

Nafees dropped eventual centurion Brendan Taylor when he was on 35 as the Zimbabwe skipper had a rare rush of blood against Enamul Haque Jr, hitting the ball in the air to the left of Nafees at long off. Nafees got to it but could not hold on. Even his earlier drop, which may not seem to have caused much damage as Maruma was out after adding just 10, was in fact costly. As Rubel’s strike late in the day with the second new ball to remove Malcolm Waller proved, it is imperative that the pacers get every little benefit while the shine stays. If that catch was taken, there was a chance of Taylor coming in earlier, which would have exposed Zimbabwe’s best player to the moving ball while he was still vulnerable.
Waller was dropped when on 21, by Ashraful who spilled a looping, low chance off Enamul Haque Jr at point. That drop proved costly too as Waller formed a 127-run fourth wicket partnership with his skipper.
 

The bowlers bowled admirably on the first day, sticking to their lines even as Taylor played a classy hand. But as has happened so often in the past, the fielders failed to support their colleagues which saw Bangladesh finish on even terms with the hosts, instead of in the ascendancy. The old malaise remains, and it is one that Bangladesh will have to manage well if they are to register their first win in Harare.

Bayern crush Wolves

Bayern Munich striker Mario Gomez celebrates one of his three goals against Wolfsburg during their German Cup semifinal in Munich on Tuesday. Photo: Reuters

High-flying Bayern Munich kept alive their dreams of becoming Germany’s first team to win the treble by booking their German Cup final berth with a 6-1 win at home to VfL Wolfsburg in Tuesday’s semifinal.
 

Having already won this season’s Bundesliga crown, Bayern are bidding to become the first German side to win the European Cup, cup and league titles as they face Barcelona at home in the Champions League semifinal next Tuesday,
Bayern will discover their opponents for the cup final, which takes place on June 1 at Berlin’s Olympic Stadium, when Stuttgart host Freiburg in Wednesday’s other all-Bundesliga semifinal.
Swiss midfielder Xherdan Shaqiri, in for suspended France winger Franck Ribery, impressed as he set up three of Bayern’s goals for Mario Mandzukic, Arjen Robben and Mario Gomez, then scored one of his own.
 

But Gomez was the star of the night as he warmed up for Barcelona by coming off the bench to score three goals in six minutes to double Bayern’s tally in the last 10 minutes.
“You could see that we have three top strikers, I’m really pleased for Mario that he managed a hat-trick,” said Bayern coach Jupp Heynckes.

How Gecko does it

How Gecko does it

Tik Tiki Thik Thik. Does this sound familiar? During this hartal season, people might have spent lazy times lying on bed staring at lizards’ crawling towards each other to fight over an insect prey. I am sure someone must have thought of walking up the wall or the ceiling, like the lizards, with the head hanging down to drop a bomb at the opposite political party headquarters! Then being tired, the person must have fallen asleep!
 

Well, some scientists rather woke up from sleep in understanding the mechanism of the lizard’s clinging upside down. They did it because such knowledge might be applied on the shoe of an athlete to run faster, or make reversible glue to use in say, surgery, or to give one the ability of a “spiderman” walking up the wall!
 

From such pursuit of knowledge we now know that there are millions of tiny hairs, called setae, under each tow of the lizard, also called gecko. The tip of each seta is split into hundreds of tinier flattened tips in the shape of a spatula whose widths are smaller than visible light wavelength! This splitting tremendously increases the surface area, bringing the molecular van der Waal’s forces to play. Scientists found that a tip’s adhesive power to the wall is so strong that it each seta could hold an ant (20 mg). With all of its setae, a 150-gram tokay gecko has the theoretical ability to support 14,000 grams, explaining how it clings with a single finger alone! Surface adherence is achieved by pulling the setae towards the body, an opposite action releases the foot. In January 2012 students at UC Barkeley demonstrated by making robots and computer simulations that movement of the tail helps a gecko stabilize itself during jumping to its prey (Nature 481:181).
 

With such knowledge at hand, engineers and chemists worked with biologists and made very thin (millionth of a millimeter), gecko hair-like structures. They were able to hang a few kilograms of weight with a synthetic hair! Inspired by such success, Nike is investing to create better bouncing balls and other sports gears. Wall clinging toys are already in the market. Other potential application of the knowledge is a non sticking gecko-glue to be used in space because sticking glue does not function there. Automobile tire with better traction is another possibility.
 

Glue-like property of the setae made other scientists think too. Biologists noticed that some forest gecko can cling or walk across water- submerged leaves. Students at the University of Akron, Ohio, conducted some simple but clever experiments that was published on April 1, 2013 (PNAS DOI 10.1073/pnas.1219317110). They tied a tape around the lower body of a 14-inch tokai Gecko, and allowed it to walk on four wet and dry surfaces of glass (wetting, hydrophilic), plexiglass (partly wetting) and coated, transparent plastic (hydrophobic, similar to the wet surface of plant leaves) and Teflon (hydrophobic). As the gecko tried to walk on these surfaces, a pull on the tape measured the force of the grip on the surface. A thin water layer between glass and gecko’s toe (hydrophilic interaction) weakened the grip while the plexiglass and transparent plastic having leaf-chemistry created air pockets between toes and the surfaces allowing good grip. The scientists concluded that gecko adhesion is highly dependent on surface wettability and the presence of water or air between the toe pad and the contact surface. They expect their data can be used to create a water-resistant adhesive.

 

NKorea demands end of sanctions if US wants dialogue

A North Korean soldier looks out of the window of a guard tower, on the banks of Yalu River, about 100 km (62 miles) from the North Korean town of Sinuiju, opposite the Chinese border city of Dandong, April 16.

North Korea demanded an end to UN sanctions against it and a US pledge not to engage in “nuclear war practice” before any dialogue with Washington, its most explicit conditions for talks after weeks of tension and threats of war.

North Korea’s top military body also said the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula would begin when the United States removed nuclear weapons that the isolated state claims it has deployed in the region.

“Dialogue and war cannot co-exist,” the North’s National Defence Commission said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency on Thursday.

“If the United States and the puppet South have the slightest desire to avoid the sledge-hammer blow of our army and the people … and truly wish dialogue and negotiations, they must make the resolute decision,” it said, before listing its conditions.

The United States has offered talks, but on the pre-condition that they lead to North Korea abandoning its nuclear weapons ambitions.

North Korea deems its nuclear arms a “treasured sword” and has vowed never to give them up.

Nevertheless, US Secretary of State John Kerry, who ended a trip to the region early this week that was dominated by concern about North Korea, stressed his interest in a diplomatic solution.

South Korea which is conducting military exercises with US forces, to the anger of North Korea, has also proposed talks.

North Korea stepped up its defiance of UN Security Council resolutions in December when it launched a rocket that it said put a scientific satellite in orbit. Critics said the launch was aimed at nurturing the kind of technology needed to deliver a nuclear warhead with a long-range missile.

That was followed in February by its third test of a nuclear weapon. That triggered new UN sanctions in March, sharply toughening existing measures, which in turn led to a dramatic intensification of North Korean threats of nuclear strikes against South Korea and the United States.

“Firstly, the sanctions resolutions by the UN Security Council that were fabricated with unjust reasons must be withdrawn,” the North’s top military body said in its statement.

“The denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula can begin with the removal of the nuclear war tools dragged in by the US and it can lead to global nuclear disarmament,” it added.