Brad Arthur was typically upset with the way his team slackened off

At around 12.50pm on a hot Saturday afternoon in Mumbai, December 10, Alastair Cook called for an ambitious lbw review. At the same time, in Bangalore, Prema Nair, a teacher at Chinmaya Vidyalaya in Koramangala finished her walk back home. The replays were on when she entered. This was an offbreak from Moeen Ali, which her son, Karun Nair, playing his second Test, had looked to defend. The umpire saw the bat and pad close together, and also figured the ball was turning too much so ruled it not out. The odds for this getting overturned were long. Yet everything went right with the review: from round the wicket, the ball turned enough to miss the inside edge but not the leg stump.Here we go again, Prema thought. She doesnt watch Karun bat. She locks herself up in a room and worships when he bats. She watches the IPL games but not Delhi Daredevils batting. She cant bear to watch. She gets too nervous. So her husband Kaladharan tapes the games, and she watches them later. This Saturday review against Karun just reinforced the superstition for her.Kaladharan, 62, found it difficult to convince his wife, 59, to come to Chennai to watch her first cricket match, and had to play on her emotions to win her over. How will I go alone? How will you stay back alone? This is his first Test in south India. So finally Prema relented. Having seen - through moist eyes - her son bring up his first Test century, and then go on to make it only the third triple by an India batsman, Prema finally believes that she cant bring bad luck to her son. A son for whose career both parents - middle class with no back-up if cricket doesnt come off - have made a lot of sacrifices. How could she ever possibly bring him bad luck?The thing, though, is that luck has been a big thing in the Nair family. It has also been cruel. In July, having made his India debut in the limited-overs series in Zimbabwe, Nair went to Alleppey in Kerala to make offerings as gratitude for getting his India cap. The current in the river was too strong, and the snake boat capsized. Everybody swam for safety as you do in such situations. Karun made it, but only later did he realise that the relatives who had organised the trip couldnt.A religious trip for good luck had turned into something horrible. It was bound to affect Karun deeply, but his family and relatives tried to keep him distracted, and get him back to cricket. No matter what you do, though, if you are the superstitious kind, the following incidents can bog you down. On the A tour of Australia in August and September, he managed just 38 runs in four innings. On Test debut - which was a last-minute decision thanks to an injury to his good friend KL Rahul - he was run out by his captain Virat Kohli after some freakish fielding. In his second Test, he dropped Englands debutant Keaton Jennings before he had scored - Jennings went on to make a century - then fell victim to that improbable review on 13. It is difficult to break into the India batting line-up. In three years, they have handed out one cap to a batsman - Rahul. Karun was a week shy of his 25th birthday when he finally got the call. His batting is not as explosive as Rahuls. He is not a flamboyant person. He and Rahul are both friends, they have played almost all of their cricket together since the age of 11, but Karun is more subdued. I think he once felt like getting tattoos [like Rahul], but I said its not a good thing and he has stayed away, says Kaladharan. There are bound to be fears you are not cut out for international cricket, when the fates seem to be conspiring against you.All those fears have been quashed now as the Nair family and friends watch Karun race away to a double and then a triple-hundred in a match that he got because Ajinkya Rahane got injured in the final nets session in Mumbai. At one point, Karun looks to play a vertical sweep as left-arm spinner Liam Dawson fires a defensive delivery down the leg side. No, not that shot, says his father, there is a short fine leg in place. A friend next to him says, No, no, its okay, he is hitting down on it, into the ground.Like Sachin Tendulkar used to, says Kaladharan. He likes that and the reverse sweep.Kaladharan should know. He goes to every match Karun plays in Bangalore. A mechanical engineer who was posted in Jodhpur when Karun was born, Kaladharan moved to Bangalore and has also worked on the sprinkler system on the Chinnaswamy Stadium outfield. Karun knows his father is there in the stadium when he plays Ranji Trophy matches at Chinnaswamy but doesnt point to him when he reaches milestones. In Chennai he does. At every milestone, after acknowledging his team-mates, he turns towards the Pattabhiraman Gate End and points to Level 1 of F Stand.The proud parents are sitting there, living every moment of the innings, trying to come to terms with what has just happened. Their shy son, who doesnt speak much, who watched old videos of Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev when little, whose main pastime was PlayStation. Their prematurely delivered son, with weak lungs as a kid, who would keep falling down and crying as a baby. Their triple-centurion son. Cheap Jordans From China . Jon Montgomerys gold medal in skeleton at the Whistler Sliding Centre and his subsequent auctioning off of a pitcher of beer in the village square elevated him to folk-hero status. Cheap Retro Jordans For Sale . 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COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- The U.S. Olympic Committee and leaders of the effort to bring the 2024 Games to Los Angeles reached terms on a marketing agreement Friday, clearing a major hurdle nearly a year before those Olympics are awarded.The Joint Marketing Program Agreement would shift a majority of the USOCs marketing revenue over to the host city for a period surrounding the Olympics. The International Olympic Committee requires the agreement to eliminate crossover sponsorships -- for instance, the USOC pairing with one carmaker, while a host city pairs with another.The inability to reach an agreement on the marketing deals until the 11th hour played into the failures of both the 2016 Chicago bid and the 2012 New York bid.We didnt want it to become an issue, USOC CEO Scott Blackmun said. We made the decision, and realized that sooner is better than later.In some instances, host cities have received up to 90 percent of a national organizing committees sponsorship revenue.Most Olympic committees have been quick to sign the JMPA, knowing the surge in interest sparked by a home Olympics will lure new sponsors and, more importantly, that their national governments will step in too make up the difference.ddddddddddddBut in the United States, theres not as much room for growth in the sponsorship market, and the federal government has a long history of not providing funding to the USOC.That puts the USOC is a spot of not having any clear path to make up the sponsorship shortfall, which has historically accounted for between 20 and 30 percent of its revenues ($141 million last year) -- a good portion of which is used to fund Olympic athletes.So, the USOC has to reach a different sort of deal; in this case, it would likely sign over between 70 and 85 percent of its revenue to Los Angeles.The agreement wont be officially signed unless Los Angeles wins the bid at an IOC meeting next September. Its main competition is expected to come from Paris.The agreement figures to take a potentially fractious issue off the table, as Los Angeles enters the final stretch of the campaign.We talk repeatedly about what a high-quality partnership this is, and this is a demonstration of the quality of the partnership, USOC chairman Larry Probst said. ' ' '