đ Courts & Balconies
Dipika Pallikal's triumphant return, Yuzi's shocking bullying tale & an athlete who finds inspiration in DragonBall Z
Our episode with Axar Patel is now streaming worldwide. Itâs a conversation with a lot of heart, filled with fun stories right from the start. Excuse our poor attempt to rhyme, grab a toast and give BwC some of your time.
The Queenâs majestic return to court
Dipika Pallikal, what are you made of?
Six months after giving her birth to twins, she won two Gold Medals at the World Doubles Championship in Glasgow on Saturday. No Indian has ever won a gold in this tournament but Dipika managed to win two in the space of a couple of hours. Itâs a staggering feat considering that her last professional appearance came in 2018.
"For any regular athlete, returning to competitions after four years can be a shock to the system. Doing so post-motherhood can only be doubly tough. It was a bit of a slow start early in the week but she got into the tournament groove pretty quickly. The World Doubles was supposed to be a sort of preparatory tournament. Now that it's come with a historic title, it's a bonus,â said Saurav Ghosal, her mixed-doubles partner whoâs also her brother-in-law, to ESPN.
A ridiculous notion exists that pregnancy signals the end of a womanâs career and Dipika has now added herself to a long list of women whoâve quashed this claim.
But why are we even surprised? Be it on the court or of it, Dipika has never hesitated from raising her voice against gender stereotypes. The prime example of this came in 2011, when she noticed the massive discrepancy in prize money between men and women at the National Championships. The men received between 1.5-2L INR while the women received between 20K-30K INR.
Dipika was just 20 at the time; 2011 was her first time at the Nationals and sheâd won the tournament. But in protest of the prize money discrepancy, she boycotted the tournament for the next four years. In her Miss Field interview, she spoke of how taking a stand has no effect unless youâre delivering on court and her achievements in that four year period only strengthened her protest. She became the first Indian to enter the World Top 10 ranking, won a Gold at the Commonwealth Games and a bronze in the Asian Games and received the Arjuna and Padma Shri Awards.
The squash federation eventually relented under pressure and made the prize money 1.25L for men and women. Dipika returned to the Nationals in 2016 and spoke of feeling added pressure going into the tournament - if she didnât perform well, she worried that people would think she only fought for the money. Needless to say, she won the tournament.
The sad reality is that the struggle for gender parity continues even today. â Dinesh Karthikâs wife Dipika Pallikal powers India to HISTORIC World Doubles Squash C`ships titlesâ screamed the headline of a leading daily in the aftermath of her win.
Dipikaâs racquet will have to continue making a racket.
Cricket, Bullying & Yuzi Chahal
Yuzi Chahal has taken to life at Rajasthan Royals with aplomb. At the time of writing, he holds the Purple Cap with 11 wickets at an economy of just 6.5. Eye-catching performances have been aplenty - the three wickets on his RR debut, the four-for in a match-winning spell against LSG, the havoc he wreaked against his former employers RCB and his runout of Kohli.
But Chahalâs most explosive performance in the pink of Rajasthan came in a video posted by the franchiseâs YouTube channel last Thursday.
In the video, Chahal, Ashwin and Karun Nair were narrating incidents from difficult periods in their lives and the lessons theyâve learnt from it. Yuzi recounted a harrowing tale from his time with Mumbai Indians in 2013, when a player in a drunken state hung him out from a 15th floor balcony. He was dangling with his hands around the playerâs neck and a tight grip was the only thing preventing him from a fall. The situation was brought under control by the people around him and Yuzi was taken care of after having fainted. âMain jaathe jaathe bach gaya/I just about escaped from dying,â Chahal said of the incident.
The clip has caused an uproar on social media and while Yuzi refrained from naming the player, fans and former players have called on the BCCI to launch a formal investigation.
This incident brought to light another equally horrifying one from his time at MI, that Chahal spoke of on an episode of The RCB Podcast that came out in February. In the celebrations that followed their Champions League triumph in 2011, a drunk James Franklin and Andrew Symonds tied up Chahalâs hands and legs and covered his mouth with a tape. They were in such high spirits that they completely forgot about Chahal and left him in that state for the rest of the night. He was discovered the next morning by the housekeeping staff. The two didnât apologise to Chahal and said they were so drunk that they didnât even remember doing this to him.
Symonds and Franklin have received massive backlash in the last few days. Durham, the English County team where Franklin is the Head Coach said in a statement - "We are aware of recent news reports surrounding an incident in 2011 which named a member of our staff. As with any matters involving employees, the club will speak privately with all parties involved to determine the facts."
Interestingly on Breakfast with Champions, Chahal has spoken of the closeness he shares with Symonds and how heâs a misunderstood figure.
Reacting to the balcony incident, Ravi Shastri has said that if something like that were to happen today, the guilty party should be banned for life.
"You do not want an unfortunate incident for you to wake up, if something like that happens, you have to step up and tell the people concerned. Just like you are told by the Anti-Corruption Unit when there is an approach made by someone or the other when it comes to fixing, it is your job to approach the authorities to let them know," he said.
Shastriâs sentiment is reflective in BCCIâs stance on the issue. In 2017, they released a player handbook called âHundred Things a Professional Cricketer Must Knowâ where they actually went into detail to cover what bullying and ragging entails.
The handbook states that if a player is on the receiving end of bullying or ragging, he/she must report the incident to the coach or a responsible official. It is to be seen how the current situation plays out.
Person of Interest
Last Wednesday, sprinter Amlan Borgohain of Assam broke the 200m national record that had stood four years. His timing of 20.52s saw him qualify for the Asian Games in Hangzhou later this year.
It was a drastic change in fortune for the sprinter, whose poor showing in the heats the previous day had left him âdepressedâ. In his time of despair, Borgohain turned to an unlikely source for inspiration - DragonBall Z
"In the series, Goku is someone who keeps improving himself when he fights until he finally achieves ultra. I felt I have to be like Goku. So I have to step out on the field and be a brave guy," he said to ESPN.
In real life however, Borgohainâs idol is Cristiano Ronaldo and wanted to follow in his footsteps and became a footballer. To his credit, he did make it to the national stage but discontinued the sport after repeated injuries to his ankle.
Footballâs loss was athleticsâ gain and weâre hoping that Borgohain is able to unlock his âultraâ mode at the Asian Games and bag a medal.
Direct Hits
Shreyas Talpade and cricket is a winning combination. Kaun Pravin Tambe isnât as ethereal as Iqbal (honestly which film is) but itâs one of the better sports films thatâs been released in recent years.
Itâs easy to go over-the-top with Pravin Tambeâs journey and the makers deserve credit for grounding it in reality. You may think you know his story but trust us, you donât. Itâs a dense story and it deserved to be told.
Question of the Week:
Name all the IPL teams Pravin Tambe has played for.
Reply to this email with your answer and stand a chance to be featured on our social media. Send us your IG/Twitter handles with your answer so that we can tag you!
In last weekâs edition:
The Lankan resurgence in the IPL
Deepika Kumariâs woes post the Olympics
A Guide to the Junior Women Hockey WC
Read it here!
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