Pressure mounts on India’s old batsmen after Australia debacle

NEW DELHI: Pressure is mounting on India’s ageing Test batsmen to make way for fresh talent after the team sunk to the “lowest of lows” in Australia where they suffered a humiliating 4-0 series whitewash.

The eighth consecutive overseas Test defeat on Saturday — following an identical scoreline in England — left a battered India searching for a way to stop the rot.

Fingers were being pointed at underperforming batting stars Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Venkatsai Laxman — all pillars of the Indian lineup for more than a decade.

Tendulkar, the world’s leading Test and one-day batsman who turns 39 in April, was clearly burdened by the pressure of chasing his 100th international century, a feat which continues to elude him.

His highest score in the series was 80 and even though he made 287 runs at an average of 35.87, the milestone — which no other player has achieved — seemed to shackle his usually free-flowing batting style.

Dravid, 39, the second-highest scorer in Test cricket after Tendulkar, managed just 194 runs in eight innings at a poor average of 24.25 with one half-century.

And Laxman, 37, who has thrived against Australia in the past, looked woefully out of touch as he jabbed and plodded to 155 runs at 19.37.

Tendulkar will get another chance to make amends in the upcoming one-day tri-series against Australia and Sri Lanka, but Dravid and Laxman are not part of the limited-overs team.

With India not due to play another Test series until September, the senior players have time to ponder their future amid calls for an overhaul of the side.

“Indian cricket has sunk to the lowest of lows,” wrote Cricinfo editor Sambit Bal, who said the revered trio could no longer be banked on to deliver.

“In another time these very men… would have been relied on to forge a revival. But their time has gone now. Indian cricket has no option but to embrace the future, however uncertain it may seem.”

Even International Cricket Council president Sharad Pawar, a former Indian cricket chief, felt younger players needed to be thrown in the ring.

“The time has come for some changes in the Indian team,” Pawar told the CNN-IBN news channel. “One has to take risks and give an opportunity to the younger generation.

“Such a move might change the entire atmosphere in the team.”

But former India captain and spin legend Bishan Bedi called for an immediate end to the witch-hunt against the senior players.

“Please show some respect to the players who have served the country for so long,” Bedi told the Press Trust of India. “They don’t need our suggestions as to when they should retire.

“Someone will eventually take their places. But we will probably never be able to find replacements for these once-in-a-generation players.”

Bedi last week lashed out at what he said was the Indian cricket board’s obsession with the glitzy Indian Premier League (IPL), accusing it of ignoring the longer form of the domestic cricket.

“The board’s priorities are wrong,” Bedi said. “The Ranji Trophy (first-class domestic tournament) should be our most valued tournament, not the IPL.

“Mark my words, this IPL will strike a fatal blow to Indian cricket and that day is not far.”

The annual IPL, which started in 2008, features players from around the world playing Twenty20 cricket for private franchises, with multi-million-dollar fees for the top stars.

Meanwhile, Indian cricket chief Narayanaswamy Srinivasan defended the battered Test team, saying the one-day series could change the tourists’ fortunes.

“There is no need for a knee-jerk reaction,” he said. “We have faith in the team. We should not put pressure on the players. Only months back they won the World Cup.” AGENCIES

Justin Bieber Wants to be a Young Father

He is still just a teenager but 17 year old Justin Bieber already has his future mapped out and his five year plan includes being married and starting a family by the time he’s 25. Bieber revealed his future plans and feelings during an interview with Womens Wear Daily.

“Well, by 25 or 26, I want to see myself, like, married or start looking for a family,” he said when asked where he sees himself in five years. “I want to be a young dad. I want to be able to have done what I wanted to do — to be successful, to do a movie or whatever. But if the time is right, I definitely want to be married by 25.”

Although he quickly added;

“One thing — I’m not looking to get married now.”

It would be interesting to know what his current girlfriend Selena Gomez has to say on the subject.

US faces de-industrialization, joblessness

A serious warning that all is not well has come in the form of Friday s historic downgrade of its “AAA” credit rating by Standard & Poor, which was followed Monday by plunging global stock prices.

President Barack Obama said he heard the warning. “Our problems are imminently solvable. And we know what we have to do to solve them,” he said Monday, referring to the need to rein in massive US budget deficits.

He stressed his confidence in the US economy: “We continue to have the best universities, some of the most productive workers, the most innovative companies, the most adventurous entrepreneurs on Earth,” he said.
This patriotic statement, however, obscures some less pleasant details.

If, as Obama believes, investors around the globe still give the United States a “AAA” rating, the country must first retain its uncontested currency supremacy.
Supported by a domestic financial sector and the confidence of foreign central banks, the status of the dollar is virtually intact.

“The US economy has its own problems, that we highlighted with the downgrade,” said John Chambers, S&P s managing director and head of its sovereign ratings committee.

But he added that “the dollar will remain the key international reserve currency under any plausible scenario.”
Judging by its value, though, the dollar may be losing its luster. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in its annual report on the US economy in July that the dollar is now at its lowest level in decades against the currencies of major trading partners.

One problem the United States faces is a loss of competitiveness, something Americans encounter every day as the vast majority of the products they consume bear the words, “Made in China.”
“They re really starting to worry that America has lost its competitive edge. Jobs are going overseas,” said New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

According to the World Trade Organization, the US share of world exports for goods fell by 12.1 percent in 2000 to 8.4 percent in 2010. More than 10,000 factories have closed in the United States since 2003, the trade publication “Plant Closing News” reports.

The loss of manufacturing jobs, in turn, has helped open growing income gaps between college graduates and unskilled workers, between regions and between ethnic groups.

To be sure, the US economy is still the queen of the service sector, and of finance in particular.
In an interview with The New Republic in February, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said he had no enthusiasm for

“trying to shrink the relative importance of the financial system in our economy as a test of reform, because we have to think about the fact that we operate in the broader world.”

IMF chief economist Simon Johnson called this a fundamental error. “It is a deeply disturbing vision, one that amounts to a huge, uninformed gamble with the future of the American economy,” he said, recalling the trials of Iceland and Ireland in their financial globalization.

Increasing the finance sector s influence is a way to mask an economy of debt, a main product of banks, say certain economists. And the financial crisis showed that credit can be harmful.

In the United States “you have a big private debt overhang, in this case households,” said economist Carmen Reinhart Saturday on the Bloomberg TV channel.

Asked what that means for the future, she said “stubborn unemployment issues” and “growth that is not on par with other recoveries.”

Pakistan’s poor dying in Karachi violence

KARACHI: Life stopped for Pakistani cab driver Ghulam Mohammed when his seven-year-old daughter was shot dead on her way home from school, a victim of senseless political and ethnic violence sweeping Karachi.

Shumaila was Mohammed’s only child, born after he and his wife struggled for 12 years to have a baby. It took two stray bullets to bury all the hopes and dreams they had for the future.

“She was the one who gave meaning to our life. Now we have no reason to live,” said the tearful 36-year-old, a resident of Qasba Colony, one of a series of troubled neighbourhoods in western Karachi turned into a battlefield.

Shumaila was one of 300 people whom the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) says died in political and ethnically linked shootings in Karachi last month and one of the 800 killed since the start of this year.

She was carrying her books when the bullets pierced her abdomen and splintered a rib. Seriously wounded, she was eventually picked up by an ambulance after medics struggled to access the street under gunfire.

“Someone told me my daughter had been shot and I rushed to hospital despite all the risks, only to find her dead in the morgue,” Mohammed said.

Many link the killings to rising tensions between the Mohajirs, the Urdu-speaking majority represented by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), and Pashtun migrants affiliated to the Awami National Party (ANP).

Karachi is Pakistan’s financial capital and, with a population of around 18 million, its largest city. Helped by its Arabian Sea port, industry in Karachi is thought to account for around a fifth of the country’s GDP.

But authorities appear powerless to stop the bloodshed, human rights activists say, pointing out that most of the victims are innocent civilians.

“People have been killed because of their political affiliations, but it seems most are killed because of their ethnic background,” Zohra Yusuf, chairwoman of the HRCP, told AFP.

“The majority of them are poor and destitute.”

Shumaila was Pashtun. Her father arrived in Karachi from the northwest 20 years ago looking for work and then settled down and got married.

Today the northwest is on the frontline of Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked bomb attacks and the migrant flow to Karachi is even greater.

Shumaila’s bereaved parents live on a congested street in a neighbourhood of Urdu and Pashtun speakers, where trigger-happy gunmen from both sides can quickly reduce the area into a battlefield.

HRCP says Karachi suffers political, ethnic and sectarian “polarisation”.

But the government blames vague mafias involved in land grabbing and drug pushing for the killings, and for creating “misunderstandings” among political parties and ethnic hatred.

“It should not be called ethnic violence,” said Sharfuddin Memon, an official in the home ministry of the southern province Sindh, of which Karachi is the capital.

“The mafias are killing people in such a manner that rival communities and parties are left with the impression of an ethnic war which is not there. The mafias do this to get stronger and weaken the writ of the state.”

The Urdu-speaking family of Anwer Ali, 22, say he was walking to work when unknown gunmen shot him dead.

“He was the only bread earner for his mother and two sisters,” said his cousin Mohsin Ali.

The family rent a one-room house in a squatter settlement near the area of Katti Pahari, a flashpoint for the most recent violence, and are deeply frightened about the future.

It is not just shootings. People have seen everything they own go up in smoke, with their houses, buildings and vehicles set alight by arsonists.

Despite the deployment of extra police and paramilitary forces, residents complain that the security personnel do nothing to help.

Leaders in the MQM and ANP have blamed each other.

“Mafias are involved in the killings, but armed wings of political parties have played a big role in creating the mess,” said Tauseef Ahmed Khan, who teaches mass communications at Urdu University.

The armed wings work to maintain party influence, prevent rival groups from infiltrating their territories and force people to remain loyal, he said.

“There are killings on ethnic grounds while most of the victims are poor people who don’t know the reason why they are being killed,” Khan said. AGENCIES

‘Housewives of Atlanta’ star debuts baby, wants more

TrendPK.com: ‘Real Housewives of Atlanta’ star Kim Zolciak is showing off her new baby boy with Kroy Biermann and talking about her future.

Zolciak showed off her almost-one-month-old son to ‘Life & Style,’ states TooFab. “I’m just so crazy in love with K.J. I’m always kissing his big old lips,” Zolciak said about her little boy.

And while she is loving her new baby, she is already thinking about more: “I definitely would like one more child.”

PCB Concerned About Future Tour Program

PCB has some concerns about the future tour program. In the FTP Pakistan are left to play with limited countries and there is not much cricket for Pakistan against countries like India. In the FTP Pakistan has to tour West Indies for full tour and this will be first tour of Pakistan in six years. After that tour Pakistan will visit Zimbabwe to play series.

After foreign tour Pakistan will end the year by playing the home series against Sri Lanka and England. These series will be interesting. As there is no cricket in Pakistan so the series will be held at neutral venue. The venue for the series is yet to decide. The PCB’s chief operating officer Subhan Ahmed said that there is still gap in Pakistan tour program from now to 2012 and there is a still chance of Indian series to fit in it.

Subhan Ahmed said that they are negotiating with different cricket boards to get international cricket back in Pakistan. He said that security assurance is the main issue and the back of international cricket in Pakistan depends upon the security situation of Pakistan. The negotiations are on FTP program are going on between different board and it is hope that there will be some positive results of it.

Karachi: open interest of stocks increase by Rs. 230.80 million

An increase of Rs. 230.80 million has been witnessed in the open interest rates of the future trading in the stock market, trendpk.Com reported on Sunday.

Open interest of future counter increased by 33% to reach 940.70 million rupees. Future spread augmented by 1% to become 8.910%.
The volume of futures increased by 33% to become 7.1 million shares due to increased trading in Ready market.

Deals of PSO, POL, MCB, National Bank, ENGRO and Nishat Mills remained prominent. The collective share of all these companies remained 76% in the open interest.

No pilgrim will face difficulties in the future: Malik

Staff Report

KARACHI:There seems to be no end to the plight of pilgrims. Interior Minister Rehman Malik said that no pilgrim would face any difficulty in the future.

Rehman Malik, while going to Islamabad from Karachi airport, said that he heard the complaints of pilgrims himself. He told media persons that all involved in corruption would be arrested. The arrested Director General Haj is also being investigated.

Replying to a question, Rehman Malik said that special security measures have been taken to avoid any terror activity during Moharram.

Terror-hit Shershah scrap market reopens

Staff Report

KARACHI: Shershah’s scrap market has reopened this morning after remaining closed for 12 days.

The market was closed after unknown gunmen killed at least a dozen people, including shopkeepers and buyers, in a deadly ambush.

Police say that a special security plan has been devised to provide security at Shershah Market.

Expressing joy at the market re-opening, shopkeepers hoped that the new security plan would prevent such attacks in the future. Trend Pk

KSE: trade value declines by 6.5pc

At the last business weekend, a decrease of 6.5 percent was witnessed in the trade value in the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE), Dunya News reported on Sunday.
According to a report by Invest Cap, the future trading value remained 920 million rupees after a decrease of 60.60 million rupees at the last weekend in the KSE which is 6.7 percent less than the last weeks trading.
Rate of spread on trading increased by 1.29 percent during the week whereas trading volume augmented by 19 percent to reach 550.20 million shares. 72 percent of the total investment in future agreements was done in PSO, MCB, ENGRO NML and OGDCL.

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