Players unconvinced by pink ball for day-night Tests

SYDNEY: The Australian Cricketers´ Association says the pink ball is not ready for day-night Tests and have cautioned administrators not to rush into the concept.

Australia trialled night sessions using the pink ball during the domestic Sheffield Shield season and has mooted hosting a first day-night test against New Zealand in November 2015.

"The overwhelming majority of players believe the pink Kookaburra ball isn´t yet ready for test cricket," ACA chief executive Paul Marsh said in a statement on the association´s website on Tuesday (www.auscricket.com.au).

"They´ve told us that it went soft very quickly, didn´t swing, didn´t seam and didn´t reverse swing. As such it is a ball that is very difficult to get batsmen out with, but also difficult to score runs against because it gets soft quickly."

Only 11 percent of players rated last season´s Sheffield Shield trial a success and just a quarter felt it provided a fair contest between bat and ball. "These stats are significant because they challenge the notion that Day/ Night Tests are a fait accompli."

The enthusiasm some have for the concept is understandable, however, in the ACA´s view the possibility of improved short-term commercial outcomes should not be enough to force this on the game prematurely.

"Cricket Australia and other administrations have weighed the concept for a number of years, hoping to tap into the possibility of broadcast dollars from bigger television audiences at home and abroad.

Former England batsman Kevin Pietersen is among those far from bowled over by the innovation.

"Day/night Test cricket - what a joke! Hope all statistics start again then!" the South Africa-born player who was controversially dumped in the wake of England´s Ashes debacle earlier this year, said on his Twitter page.

"Public don´t watch cos there is too much cricket! And it´s expensive! Play less & public will be more interested!" wrote the 104-Test veteran, whose crowd-pulling aggressive batting is now confined to Twenty20 leagues and county cricket.

Pakistan workers fire ´Brazuca´ ball to Brazil

SIALKOT: She has no idea who Lionel Messi is and her home country isn't even playing, but Pakistani mother-of-five Gulshan Bibi can't wait for the World Cup -- because she helped make the balls.

When Brazil and Croatia kick off the tournament in Sao Paolo on June 12 there's a good chance they'll be using a ball made by Gulshan and her colleagues at the Forward Sports factory in Pakistan's eastern town of Sialkot.

Cricket-mad Pakistan might not have much of a football team -- 159th in FIFA's world rankings -- but Sialkot has a long history of manufacturing top-class balls.

Forward Sports has been working with Adidas since 1995 and supplies match balls to some of the world's top football competitions, including the Champions League, the German Bundesliga -- and now the World Cup.

In any case, assembling modern match balls is not simply a matter of sitting down with a needle and thread.

The Forward Sports plant stands barely a free kick's distance from the dust and chaos of the Grand Trunk Road, the great British-era highway that cuts across the subcontinent all the way to Kolkota.

In contrast to the baking, deafening road outside where ancient goods trucks, donkey carts and motorbikes overloaded with families and livestock compete to avoid potholes, order and efficiency reign inside the factory.

On the Brazuca production line, women in headscarves, some with their faces veiled, work briskly.

They start with flat white propeller-shaped pieces of polyurethane, add the Brazuca's distinctive bright colours and glue the panels to the ball's rubber bladder.

The seams are then treated with a special sealant and the ball is heated and compressed in a spherical clamp to give it the correct shape. The heat also activates the temperature-sensitive bonding compound that holds the ball securely together.

The whole process from flat panels to finished item takes 40 minutes -- speed is crucial to prevent impurities getting into the ball -- and the factory can produce up to 100 per hour.

It's a high-tech process for Pakistan, where much of the workforce is unskilled and poorly educated -- only around half the population can read and write.

Ninety percent of those working on the Brazuca were women -- unusual in Pakistan, where they are largely expected to stay at home with families, but they were more diligent and meticulous than their male colleagues.

Making the Brazuca was no simple matter for Forward, as Adidas gave the order at short notice when they realised their main manufacturer in China was unable to meet demand.

In just over a month, Forward managed to have the equipment it needed to make the Brazuca from scratch.

Pakistan workers fire ´Brazuca´ ball to Brazil

SIALKOT: She has no idea who Lionel Messi is and her home country isn't even playing, but Pakistani mother-of-five Gulshan Bibi can't wait for the World Cup -- because she helped make the balls.

When Brazil and Croatia kick off the tournament in Sao Paolo on June 12 there's a good chance they'll be using a ball made by Gulshan and her colleagues at the Forward Sports factory in Pakistan's eastern town of Sialkot.

Cricket-mad Pakistan might not have much of a football team -- 159th in FIFA's world rankings -- but Sialkot has a long history of manufacturing top-class balls.

Forward Sports has been working with Adidas since 1995 and supplies match balls to some of the world's top football competitions, including the Champions League, the German Bundesliga -- and now the World Cup.

In any case, assembling modern match balls is not simply a matter of sitting down with a needle and thread.

The Forward Sports plant stands barely a free kick's distance from the dust and chaos of the Grand Trunk Road, the great British-era highway that cuts across the subcontinent all the way to Kolkota.

In contrast to the baking, deafening road outside where ancient goods trucks, donkey carts and motorbikes overloaded with families and livestock compete to avoid potholes, order and efficiency reign inside the factory.

On the Brazuca production line, women in headscarves, some with their faces veiled, work briskly.

They start with flat white propeller-shaped pieces of polyurethane, add the Brazuca's distinctive bright colours and glue the panels to the ball's rubber bladder.

The seams are then treated with a special sealant and the ball is heated and compressed in a spherical clamp to give it the correct shape. The heat also activates the temperature-sensitive bonding compound that holds the ball securely together.

The whole process from flat panels to finished item takes 40 minutes -- speed is crucial to prevent impurities getting into the ball -- and the factory can produce up to 100 per hour.

It's a high-tech process for Pakistan, where much of the workforce is unskilled and poorly educated -- only around half the population can read and write.

Ninety percent of those working on the Brazuca were women -- unusual in Pakistan, where they are largely expected to stay at home with families, but they were more diligent and meticulous than their male colleagues.

Making the Brazuca was no simple matter for Forward, as Adidas gave the order at short notice when they realised their main manufacturer in China was unable to meet demand.

In just over a month, Forward managed to have the equipment it needed to make the Brazuca from scratch.

 

Khan bowls another no ballKhan bowls another no ball

ISLAMABAD: The European Union Election Observation Mission’s report on Pakistan’s 2013 elections reveals facts that belie the claim of Imran Khan and Shireen Mazari, the

Information Secretary of PTI.

The report measures election coverage in multiple categories, including: a) rallies and press conferences; b) time allocated to political actors during Prime Time programming; c) direct speech/quotes within news; and d) political advertising.

The EU’s report shows that in rallies and press conferences category, the PTI got the highest coverage from Geo News, which is almost twice as much as the second channel in this category — Express. (Approximations from graph shows: Geo 6,250, Express 3,500, ARY 3,000, Dawn News 2,750 ).

In time allocated to political actors in Prime Time programming category, again the Geo News gave the PTI the highest share compared to all other satellite news channels (Geo 21%, ARY 18%, Express 17%, Dawn News 16%).

In the category of time allocated to political actors in news, the Geo News gave the PTI the highest share, doubling almost the figure of the second highest. (Geo 32%, ARY 17%, Express 16%, Dawn News 16%)

In the category regarded direct speech within news, the news channel which gave the highest share of its coverage to the PTI was Geo News with 25%.

However, in the last category measured by the EU — time allocated to political advertising, the PTI gave more advertising air time to Dawn News, ARY, and Express than Geo News. Though this could be because of Geo’s rates are higher as its viewership is also higher.

According to third party ratings agencies, Geo News has three times the net viewership of the second most watched news channel of Pakistan for which there has historically been a tie between three channels. If one takes into account the net ratings and net viewership impact, it is safe to say that the PTI got most of its message out during the elections courtesy Geo News.

However, Shireen Mazari, Information Secretary of the PTI, for some particular reason, is convinced that Geo was involved in rigging the elections 2013 against Imran Khan.

Imran Khan on May 20 tweeted a graph, rallies and press conferences category (mentioned above), which was from the same EU report. Imran alleged that Geo gave more coverage to the PML-N than the PTI and referred to Geo’s bias. However, the very same graph shows that the PTI itself got more coverage from Geo than any other channel.

Also regarding the PML-N, it can also be seen from the same graph that every channel gave more coverage to the PML-N in that category, including Dawn, ARY, Express and others. The reason for this could be multiple, including the organisational skills of the party at the time, quality and number of candidates, experience and how it was polling in survey after survey at the time. Khan did not, however, tweet the other graphs mentioned above in the EU report.

The EU Elections Observation monitored the media outlets from 8th April to 9th May from 18:00 to 24:00 daily.

I was bankrupt during Monster Ball Tour in 2009: Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga: I had three million dollars in the bank to my name and I threw it all in to make my stage.

Pop star Lady Gaga has revealed that she was bankrupt during her Monster Ball tour in 2009.
The 27-year-old singer was left broke after spending her entire fortune on the show’s elaborate production, she explained in the upcoming EPIX documentary, reported Ace Showbiz.
“I had three million dollars in the bank to my name and I threw it all in to make my stage. So I was bankrupt during the show,” Gaga said.
The singer explained that she was forced to reassure her family after they were left confused by her financial troubles.
“I remember I went home and I was with my dad and he said, ‘I don’t understand. ‘Bad Romance’ is out. You are all over the radio. Everyone is talking about you and you don’t have a pot to piss in’.
“I said, ‘Just let me do this. Let me just put it on the stage because I think if I can do this I can get Arthur Fogel’s attention.’ And I did.”
The ‘Do What U Want’ singer revealed that her gamble paid off when Live Nation CEO Fogle offered her a lucrative deal. ”I remember he called me and he said, ‘We want to do this’. And he got Live Nation to write me a USD 40 million check. And it changed my life and the life of my whole family,” Gaga said.