Apna Pakistan

Toronto Raptors forward Chris Bosh is averaging career highs of 23.3 points and 10.7 rebounds per game this season.

One of the hottest teams in the NBA heading into the all-star break, the Toronto Raptors hope the layoff didn’t kill their momentum as they charged up the Eastern Conference standings.

The Raptors are back in action Wednesday night — their first game in a week — hosting the Cleveland Cavaliers as they look to win their ninth consecutive game at home.

Toronto tops the Atlantic Division (4½ games ahead of the New Jersey Nets) with a 29-24 record, and fourth in the Eastern Conference (just two games behind Cleveland and the Indiana Pacers).

After losing eight of their first 10 games this season, the Raptors, who set a franchise record with 10 consecutive victories spanning the 2001-02 and 2002-03 campaigns, rebounded by going 27-16 to solidify their place as one of the top teams in the East.

“A lot of people counted us out. A lot of people said, ‘Here we go again,’” Toronto forward Morris Peterson said. “But if you look at our schedule we started out with the toughest part of our schedule.”

The Raptors played six of its first 10 games away from Toronto, including a season-high five-game trip before posting a 95-87 home win over Cleveland on Nov. 22. The victory over the Cavaliers sparked the club’s turnaround. “When we were 2-8, coming back from that trip, playing Cleveland, nobody thought we had a chance that game and we won it,” Raptors coach Sam Mitchell said. “Not only did we win it, we played very well. It’s just something about those guys, they won’t quit.”

Leading the Raptors has been all-star Chris Bosh. The power forward is having a breakout season and has benefited from two pass-first point guards (T.J. Ford and Jose Calderon) who know the offence runs through him.

Bosh has also added an element of decisiveness and consistency to his game, which has translated to huge stats — he is averaging career highs of 23.3 points and 10.7 rebounds per game this season.

Bosh is expected to put up 20 points and 10 rebounds nightly, and it’s rare when he doesn’t deliver. Those MVP chants at the Air Canada Centre may be a tad premature, but Toronto fans should keep practising — they may get to use them for real very soon.

The Raptors have grown increasingly stronger with each passing month and, barring any major injuries, there’s every reason to believe that the team will be back in the post-season for the first time since 2002.

Of Toronto’s 29 remaining games, 15 will be at the Air Canada Centre, where the team boasts a 19-7 record.

Toronto hosts Indiana on Friday night.

Found this article London Free Press:

TORONTO — This is not meant to be funny: The Toronto Maple Leafs are an injury or two away from being Stanley Cup contenders.

You can look it up. The more people get hurt, the better this team plays.

It’s almost unexplainable in this unexplainable season turning good, except for one small point. It also happened last season. When the great John Ferguson Jr. signings — Eric Lindros, Alex Khavanov and Jason Allison all went down — the Leafs went up.

Only there wasn’t time then to make the playoffs. This season there is time and opportunity. So long as the Leafs continue to play short-handed at full strength.

Consider these numbers:

- Mats Sundin misses seven games — the Leafs collect nine of a possible 14 points in that time. That’s 105-point pace over an entire season.

- Darcy Tucker misses 19 games and counting — the Leafs collect 23 of a possible 38. That’s a 99-point pace.

- Pavel Kubina misses 16 games — the Leafs collect 20 of a possible 32 points. That’s 110-point pace. One more Kubina injury and who knows, maybe a President’s Trophy.

And the numbers are almost identical for the 23 games Kyle Wellwood has missed and the 22 games Michael Peca has been out.

Which, if you’re scoring at home, means the Leafs at various times have been without a $6-million player, a $5-million player, their second highest paid centreman at $2.7 million, their top offensive youngster and their soon to be wealthy (just how wealthy?) gritty, annoying, power-play scoring winger.

This says a few things — imagine that, nice things — about these Leafs: 1) This has become one resilient hockey team; 2) If he hasn’t already become a candidate for coach of the year, Paul Maurice is about to be mentioned prominently; 3) The pickups who could have (or did) clear waivers in September — Bates Battaglia, John Pohl, the currently injured Boyd Devereux, Chad Kilger and you can include Jeff O’Neill, who would have gone unclaimed — have all become significant contributors to a team playing playoff hockey two months before the playoffs begin.

“I wish I knew why,” said Sundin, who would never point to himself because that isn’t what he does. But Sundin has never been more of a leader, more of a factor than now.

When O’Neill and Alex Steen seemed on the verge of disappearing, the two teamed with Sundin to become a powerful, if not short-lived line.

When Nik Antropov was out — and isn’t that redundant — and Alexei Ponikarovsky was trying to find himself, the two were teamed with Sundin and suddenly they looked unstoppable.

“A big part of what’s happened here is our leadership,” Maurice said.

Leadership from Sundin. Leadership and a strong vision from Maurice.

You could watch Saturday’s game between the now floundering Edmonton Oilers and the surging Leafs to illustrate the difference in two teams of unequal talent playing at two completely divergent levels.

The Leafs are ,desperate, going to the net with passion — everything the Oilers represented in last spring’s playoffs.

The Oilers are spectacularly disinterested, too easily satisfied, too often unwilling to do what coaches call “pay the price.”

Both Sundin and Maurice point to Pohl as Exhibit A of the development of this club. Pohl began training camp, in Maurice’s words, “on the fifth line.” By the time the season began, he’d advanced to the fourth line. Lately, it’s the third line with power play privileges.

“He’s really stepped up his game,” Sundin said. “He’s shown he can score in this league too . . . The last few weeks. The younger guys are pushing the older guys to be better.”

“There’s very little arrogance in the room, but there’s starting to be a little confidence,” said Maurice, a far cry from the frail team he started with in September.

Another pathetic performance from the Pakistanis - choosing to bat first this time and were not able to impose a big total at all.

After winning the toss Inzamam elected to Bat first. Shaun Pollock strucked in the first over when Hafeez got out for 0. Imran Nazir and Younis Khan tried to solve out the trouble, but Pollock was too good for them. Pollock first removed Nazir, then after a few overs Younis was bowled out too.

Middle order of Pakistan crumpled too. Mohammad Yousaf’s skills and form was useless in front of Pollock today and failed to put an enormous total on the board. So did Inzamam fail, worst of all, he couldn’t even score a single run. First 5 of the wickets were all taken by Shaun Pollock. He finished with really impressive figures of 5 wickets for 23 runs,
in 10 overs with 3 maidens.

Other batsmen couldn’t add much to the scoreboard either. Shoaib Malik tried his best to extend the total of Pakistan to a reasonable one, but he failed in his mission also because other players did not help him out in the trouble. Shoaib Malik went not out for 43 and Pakistan were all bowled out for 153.

Game was pretty much over for Pakistan because it was quite impossible to get South Africa out on a track like this for a total under 150.

When South African openers came out to bat, Smith was sent back to pavillion in the first over by Asif. It seemed like a game-on at that point. Rao also bowled a couple of maidens that caused the South Africans to struggle. But after 8 overs, the massacre started when Kallis and AB de Villiers picked up the pace and took the their team towards victory. Naved-ul-Hassan couldn’t perform well this time either, he bowled with a run rate of 8 in 5 overs.

Proteas finished the game in 29th over, winning by 9 wickets. Both of the batsmen played innings of not out 71, each. With this win, South Africa won the series over Pakistan by 3-1. It was a convincing victory for them and they go in to the Wold Cup with high morale, after beating 2 of the subcontinental teams, in time-span of 3 months. Whereas, Pakistan will once again go in to the World Cup with pathetic form.

Till World Cup there is no action for both teams. However, they will see each other before the World Cup in a warm-up game. That would be an opportunity for Pakistan to take revenge of this series loss. Pakistan has about 1 month time to prepare for that game. Let’s see if Pakistan will be able to bounce back!

1. Bill Gates earns US$250 every SECOND, that’s about US$20 Million a DAY and US$7.8 Billion a YEAR!

2. If he drops a thousand dollar, he won’t even bother to pick it up because the 4 seconds he picks it, he would’ve already earned it back.

3. The US national debt is about 5.62 trillion, if Bill Gates were to pay the debt by himself; he will finish it in less then 10 years.

4. He can donate US$15 to everyone on earth but still be left with US$5 Million for his pocket money.

5. Michael Jordan is the highest paid athlete in US. If he doesn’t drink and eat, and keeps up his annual income i.e. US$30 Million, he’ll have to wait for 277 years to become as rich as Bill Gates is now.

6. If Bill Gates was a country, he would be the 37th richest country on earth.

7. If you change all of Bill Gate’s money to US$1 notes, you can make a road from earth to moon, 14 times back and forth. But you have to make that road non-stop for 1,400 years, and use a total of 713 BOEING 747 planes to transport all the money.

8. Bill Gates is 40 this year. If we assume that he will live for another 35 years, he has to spend US$6.78 Million per day to finish all his money before he can go to heaven.

Last but not the least:
If Microsoft Windows’ users can claim US$1 for every time their computers hang because of Microsoft Windows, Bill Gates will be bankrupt in 3 years!!!!!!! !!!!