New England Patriots star tight end Rob Gronkowski has introduced his retirement from the NFL in a social media post. It ends a nine-12 months profession that protected helping the Patriots to another Super Bowl triumph in February after beating the Los Angeles Rams. “It all began at two decades old on a degree at the NFL draft when my dream came actual,” he wrote on Instagram. “And now right here I am about to show 30 in a few months with a decision I sense is the biggest of my lifestyles so far.” He delivered: “I can be retiring from the sport of football nowadays.” Gronkowski – a three-time Super Bowl champion – thanked the Patriots, his group associates, and fans in the publish.
“Thank you for everyone accepting who I am and the determination I have positioned into my work to be the satisfactory participant I might be. But now it’s time to transport forward.” He ended the prolonged publish using writing: “Cheers to all who’ve been a part of this adventure cheers to the past for the notable recollections, and HUGE cheers to the uncertain of what’s subsequent.” A four-time First-Team All-Pro and five-time Pro Bowl choice, Gronkowski stuck 521 passes for 7,861 yards and 79 touchdowns in one hundred fifteen video games from 2010-18. He delivered 81 catches for 1,163 yards and 12 touchdowns in 16 postseason contests.
OPINION India-Pakistan tensions: the controversy across the Indian cricket group carrying army caps on the sector to pay homage to its troops has reignited many years-vintage debates over the combination of politics with sports. India’s national side got here below scrutiny for “militarising” the sport after its gamers wore navy camouflage caps at some point of a suit towards Australia in the Japanese Indian town of Ranchi. The gesture, earlier this month, changed into in solidarity with the Indian paramilitary law enforcement officials killed in a suicide attack using a Pakistan-based group inside the disputed Kashmir area and to improve donations for the National Defence Fund. But analysts and sports international relations specialists wondered about the Indian cricket group’s move, pronouncing it did “no favors to both national security nor game.”
Who received the battle of perceptions? By using Ajai Shukla, “It’s fine to raise money for the troops so long as the fundraising happens off the sphere,” Mukul Kesavan, an Indian creator and historian, instructed Al Jazeera. Pakistan, which got here to the edge of warfare with India in the aftermath of the February bombing in the Pulwama district of Indian-administered Kashmir this yr, criticized the Indian team for “politicizing” the game. “We agree with that cricket and sports activities should not be used for politics, and we’ve got said this very actually,” the Pakistan Cricket Board chairman, Ehsan Mani, stated whilst revealing that he had lodged a formal protest in a letter to the International Cricket Council (ICC). “Their [India] credibility in the cricketing global has gone down very badly.”
An ICC spokesperson instructed Al Jazeera that the Indian cricket board – the BCCI – asked for prior approval to put on the olive-and-black caps “as part of a fundraising pressure and in memory of infantrymen, which become granted.” “Given the reality that it came about in the aftermath of the India-Pakistan border skirmishing, it simply appears pointed in a manner that has no business on a cricket field,” said Kesavan. J Simon Rofe, Global Diplomacy program director at the University of London, said the budget might be raised “while not having an overtly visible dimension.” He noted the yearly ‘Pink Test’ assisting breast most cancers and the World Cricket Tsunami Appeal suit held in Melbourne in 2005. “There are ways of expressing help for a great purpose without it is having an overt army, let alone political connotations,” Rofe, writer of Sport and Diplomacy: Games within Games, advised Al Jazeera.
