IPL Buzz !!!

2011-08-27T10:22:00.001-07:00

John is a sales executive at ABC Company and he carried has sales figures in his laptop until he finally bought his new smart phone from XYZ. He literally had the world in his pocket i.e. in his smart phone. Since it has mobile email and mobile office the two most widely used applications at his finger tips his efficiency increased twice fold as his original problem of staying connected while flying ceased. With the presence of 16 Gig memory card and with his blue tooth stereo headset paired to his phone eliminated his need to carry a music player. Now he could listen to music while waiting for his client, answer and make calls and switch back to music all using a single button.

John was en route to NY head quarters via XYZ airlines from O’Hare Chicago to JFK NY. While having his lunch he checked his flight departure time with the email confirmation from the travel agent via his mobile office and clicked on the web link provided in email. This automatically opened a web browser and he was able to track his flight details on the fly. Touched the phone number that was provided in the webpage and it opened the dialer and placed a call. Since his Bluetooth was connected to his phone, audio path was routed to the head set putting the music that was playing in the background. While he was talking to the customer care, his wife called him, the phone put the first call on hold. He answered his wife’s call she wished him a safe flight and asked him call again before his flight departed. He then resumed his first call with the customer care after his wife hung up. Once both the calls ended the music resumed playing and continuing his sandwich.

He then launched browser and googled’ O’Hare taxi and from their website got the phone number. He touched the number and dialed the taxi service and scheduled a pick up couple of hrs before the reporting time. As part of preparation for the trip he connected his phone to PC
via USB cable and using the USB mass storage option transferred all his songs from his PC. While it was transferring he received a text from his old buddy who was working at NYC asking his plans and schedule. Using the call back number from the text message he called back his buddy and began talking to him. At the same time his Bluetooth headset drained out
and gave an option to switch the audio to phone. Once the audio switched to the phone he began talking to him while the songs were getting transferred. He also put his call on mute when one of his co-worker barged into his cube. After the conversation was over he ended the call and at the same time all the song transfer completed. He then changed the USB
connected to charge only and disconnected the phone from PC. He put his Bluetooth headset to charge.

While sitting in the taxi he launched youtube and watched his favorite sitcom listening in his wired head set. He then checked in his luggage and was on his way to board the flight. Once he sat in his seat he quickly called up his wife and informed her that he was boarding. At the same time his daughter who was studying in a different city called him. He merged the calls and all three spoke. Once he ended the call he received announcement from the air hostess that all electronic devices needs to be turned off, he turned airplane on. He turned his wi-fi on and connected to the special wi-fi that the airplane had. He turned his music player on and began listening via his 3.5 mm headset. As soon he connected to the internet his emails began to pour. Previously he used to take is mighty laptop out and every one around would stare at him. Now he could use his XYZ smart phone to answer email and even look at some reports. While working he receives a calendar alert on his personal email regarding paying his monthly credit card which he had set. So using that alert he logged onto his bank and paid his bills. After a while he closed his emails and downloaded a game from the market place on to his phone and began playing it just to kill time.

The flight landed JFK and he turned off the airplane mode and placed an outgoing call to his wife indicating that he had reached NY. He then began listening to music while is picked up luggage.
He liked the view from the airport and took couple of pictures from his 5 MP camera present on his phone. He even sent a multimedia message to his wife and some one email attachment to his co-worker. He then hopped onto the shuttle which took him to the customer service so that he could pick up his car that was pre-booked. As soon as he went there they asked for the confirmation number. He opened his email which had the confirmation and gave it to them. When he sat in the car using voice search in the maps he searched his hotel which punched in the destination address and stated the navigation. The turn by turn direction was so good that he reached his hotel right on time. He checked to the hotel room put his phone to charge and opened his laptop and began working on the presentation.

-- Random thought of a diminshed mind

IPL XI from cricinfo

2010-04-27T10:44:00.001-07:00

Jacques Kallis (Bangalore)
Sachin Tendulkar (Mumbai)
Suresh Raina (Chennai)
Ambati Rayudu (Mumbai)
MS Dhoni (capt & wk) (Chennai)
Robin Uthappa (Bangalore)
Kieron Pollard (Mumbai)
R Ashwin (Chennai)
Anil Kumble (Bangalore)
Lasith Malinga (Mumbai)
Doug Bollinger (Chennai)

Source: cricinfo.com - IPL XI, and it's a Chennai-Mumbai-Bangalore oligopoly

IPL 3 – Week 4: Except Punjab everyone has a chance !

2010-04-10T01:50:00.001-07:00

After 4 weeks the league table has become pretty close, one team with 14 points, two with 12 points and four with 10 points. Anyone of these teams can make it for four slots of semi-final.

Kings XI two wins against Mumbai and KKR made has made the tournament interesting.
Deccan chargers revived themselves by winning handsomely against RCB.

The major upset match was KKR beating Delhi on account of superlative performance by Ganguly.

Shane Warne was back in inspiring form when he executed the turnaround against DC when the latter was in comfortable winning position.

It was week to forget for RCB, looks like they peaked early in the tournament. Mumbai Indians are also tending to similar situation.

Off the field, Preity Zinta had a holy bath in Ganga to wash off sins. Is it too late for IPL 3.0 or too early for IPL 4.0

Kochi franchise is in sort of trouble as BCCI objected for not declaring details about ownership.

IPL 3 – Week 3: Mumbai at Top, Punjab at Bottom

2010-04-03T21:44:00.001-07:00

In week-three of the league there were a few upsets and turnarounds but Mumbai remained at top and Punjab at bottom with their only super-over win in week-2.

Chennai Superking made a remarkable comeback after beating RCB and RR in their home turf. Murali Vijay came to the party at right time.
All izz bad for Kings XI, even Jayawardane’s temporary captaincy could not change their fortune. Their strike bowler of previous season Brett Lee is out of shape from every angle.
Mumbai continued their juggernaut and still remained the only team to be bowled out in the competition.

Prince of Kolkata came back to his form of yesteryears as see at his best against Deccan’s “left arm spinner” Pragyan Ojha.

Match of week was the close match between Kings XI and Mumbai. In which Punjab gave too many runs in the penultimate over.

One of the expensive players Kevin Pietersen of RCB is back and proved his price by match winning knock against Kings XI.

Knock of the week was by Murali Vijay and the other best knock was century by David Warner. Who in the subsequent match made sure to contribute in the field also by being responsible for five dismissals ( 4 catches and 1 direct-hit runout).

All the teams are now in full strength with the conclusion of Aus-NZ series. And needless to stay every team is in spot of bother that whom to select for the slots of four international players.

Not so good things about IPL

2010-03-27T21:17:00.000-07:00

Due to so much money in stake and superlative marketing watching IPL will be somewhat annoying to general cricket followers. Rahul Fernandes of CNN-IBN has expressive it very comprehensively at 6 things I hate about the IPL.

His six things are

Aankhon-Dekha (Be)haal: The pathetic hinglish commentary by Arun Lal, Atul Wassan, Saba Karim and Co.
Environmental Tokenism: Double standards indeed telling green-green before start of the match and pumping huge volumes of smokes by bursting fireworks after the match
Karbonn Footprints: DLF Maximum, Citi moment of success, Karbonn kamal catch .. not sure how many are in the pipeline.

Lalit 'I Am Everywhere' Modi: over-enthusiastic single parent who won't take his eye off his child even for a nanosecond

Dugout Blues: franchise owners have no business sitting in the dugout

Aggrieved Party: Players have to now compulsorily attend after-parties in the company of some dishy women and, of course, ubiquitous team owners.

Will it be underdog again ?

2010-03-27T13:55:00.000-07:00

After KKR's victory over demoralized Kings XI, there's buzz around whether in this IPL too there will be emergence of an underdog and who go on to reach the pinnacle ? The star of the evening was Tiwari, as he ended up taking all three prizes in the evening Man of the match, Karbonn Kamal Catch and DLF maximum. Feel sorry for him to miss the bus for upcoming T20 world cup.

The bottom-line of the evening was that KKR looks to be pretty decent side on the field too. They have great variety in bowling and now with the inclusion of Chris Gayle and David Hussey in the line up the team looks very much stronger. On top of that their captain Saurav Ganguly got sufficient runs next to his name.

Before today's game, the team was virtually written off after their three consecutive losses. Will today's evening performance will be U-turn in the fortunes of most talked about and controversial team of the league.

If you go by the short history of the league, in the first edition Rajasthan Royals who initially criticized to be following a 'low cost model' went on to win the inaugural trophy. In the second season the bottom performer of the season-one i.e. Deccan Chargers emerged as champions. So Does IPL 3.0 belongs to KKR who finished last in IPL 2.0 ? Let's wait and watch as their unofficial star player Bredon McCullun is bound to join the line-up next week. He will be very much charged up to give a thumping reply to his criticism in season-two.

New-jersey, New Coach can make a lot of difference !

IPL 3.0 Week 2 - Too close to call

2010-03-27T03:49:00.001-07:00

After 2 weeks of IPL 3.0 there's no clear favourites for the semi-final. However a few teams Bangalore and Mumbai are already termed as favourites because of their consistent performance and also being on top of the league table for the whole week.

The match of the week, and so far of the tournament was the tied match between Kings XI and Chennai Super Kings. The latter choked horribly and screwed up the proceedings in the super over.

The battle of toppers Mumbai v/s Bangalore the latter emerged as winners steered by good performances of Kallis and Vinay Kumar.

Rajasthan Royals were back in limelight with hat-trick wins. They are still in the contest. With yesterday’s victory over Deccan Chargers they have definitely made a statement to their critics.

Preity Zinta turns philosophical and says “It’s the journey that matters not the destination”. Looks like she’s already given up hopes of her struggling team making into semi-finals.

The team to beat Bangalore Royal Challengers were beaten convincingly by rejuvenated Delhi Dare Devils.

Jacques Kallis finally got his average as he was dismissed for the first time CSK’s bowler Laxmipati Balaji.

It was a hopeless week for KKR and CSK as they failed to win even a single match.

The Karbon kamal catch of the week was by DDR’s AB de Villiers. It was absolute stunner when caught Praveen Kumar attempted ‘DLF maximum’ just feets away from long-on boundary.

The daemon of ‘team-selection” for T-20 was running over everyone’s head. Robin Utthappa was unfortunate to miss the bus but the biggest gainer was Vinay Kumar after his back to back good performances against Mumbai and Chennai. The 3-wicket over against MI, which in fact turned the match would have brought him under selectors microscope.

The other talking point of week was auction two new teams for season-4. Pune(Sahara group) and Kochi(Rendezvous Group) emerged as winners

IPL 3.0 – Week 1

2010-03-20T05:51:00.001-07:00

After all hype and dramas the third edition of the IPL was kicked off at the DY Patil stadium Navi Mumbai.
Following are the a few highlights.

Defending champions lost the inaugural match .. following the usual trend in major sporting events.
Mumbai Indians is the only unbeaten team so far. They have kept their feet on the ground so far along with their captain who has done the same throughout the career. Many people say this IPL belongs to Mumbai as Tendulkar is not only top of his batting form but also cricketing form,

The team which finished on top of the league table RR and Kings XI are on bottom of the table by losing their all their matches. Preity Zinta’s change-the-fortune salwar-kameez act could not any impact.

Warne’s intuition has gone horribly wrong. One can easily justify it after seeing RR 10 wickets loss to Bangalore.

In the first edition of IPL people used to say – “Yusuf brother of Irfan”. Now people saw “Irfan brother of Yusuf”.

Delhi Daredevils look to be in good form but they lost their last two matches. 2 loss and 2 wins. But lot of matches remaining.

KKR look to be a better team with their new Coach – Dave Whatmore, new bowling coach – Wasim Akram and of course with their new purple color jersey.

Old timers are have been best performers. Chamind Vaas with bowl and purple cap, Jacques Kallis with bat and orange cap. The latter is not yet dismissed in the tournament and hence to get an average next to his stats.

The major setback has been series of injuries, Dhoni and Ghambir being on top of the list being captains of their respective sides.

The major player missing in 3.0 is FakeIPLPlayer. Not sure what is he doing all this day.

After all speculations the revolutionary mongoose bat was put into act by Mathew Hayden and utilizing it effectively to win match for his team.

Mera Gaw Seh Mera Desh

2009-06-04T19:50:00.001-07:00

After the high profile IPL the focus now shifts from Rainbow Nation to the Nation when it always Rains, yes ENGLAND and with attention shifting to international cricket, it would a nice change to see players don their national colors. Playing for your franchise is one thing and playing for your NATIONAL team is totally different affair. The talks about value of a player, runs / dollar or wickets / dollars won’t dominate every time a player performs. Rather than having a faked City Vs City rivalry we now will have the real Country Vs Country rivalry. Matches like IND Vs PAK or AUS Vs NZ would bring back the tension and hype that existed on the field.

The IPL in rainbow nation with the local drummers and bugles’ along with the bollywood music played in the background created a carnival environment. Cloud and gloomy weather conditions in England compounded with “decent” crowds, who would either clap hands or sip bear, hopefully won’t take away the festival atmosphere that T20 brings along with itself. Bigger capacity grounds would increase crowd count.

There neither would be DLF maximums or CITI moments of success nor would the commentators thank the sponsors every 10 mins. Neither would Lalit Modi been shown talking on the phone every 15 mins. With no strategic timeouts, we would miss the glamour that was attached with Miss Bollywood South Africa and also the HEAT (Health Educate And Teach) convention which funded a lot of local student in SA. Players will miss definitely the hugging and kissing from their team owners.

Two things the players would carry from IPL; MONEY and INJURY. Money was all talked about throughout the IPL; injuries would now be talked about. No sooner would a player miss a game due to injury; an anti-IPL of statement of cricket overkill would be made. Already talks about Flintoff, Zaheer and Sehwag‘s fitness is being talked.

One thing that T20 lacked was and that IPL has provided is statistics or numbers; with so less T20 played prior T20 WC 2007 teams entered with an uncluttered mind, played mostly with instincts. Now with so many games and different scenarios and many unexpected results in IPL even the minnows would fancy their chances. 60 required in 4 overs, batting team would still fancy it, because they now have the right statistics to back them up. A sense of belief would seep in. And the memories of Rohit scoring the required 26 in the last over against Mortaza will give nightmares to every fielding captain when they arrive at a similar situation.

As they say attaining the top spot is easy maintaining that is tough, INDIA now face the burden of defending the World Cup title probably first time since 1983; this is something new to this INDIAN team. And in the recently concluded IPL we saw how Royals failed to live upto the expectation of defending the title. Hope the INDIAN team would be unfazed by the hype and would live by its expectation. Also like how Bangalore and Deccan bounced back one wouldn't mind Dutch or even England clinching the cup.
Let the focus shift on Mere Desh Ki Dharti from my Mera Gaw ki Chori.

Curtains for IPL 2.0

2009-05-26T07:31:00.000-07:00

The second edition of cricketing extravaganza ended on last Sunday with Deccan Chargers emerging as champs. Eventhough this edition didn't have the novelty factor there was more masalas on the ground, thanks to many close contests. And the final standings were even more amusing . The teams which finished at 7th and 8th in season-1 became runners-up and winners respectively in season-2 :) The nail biting final match was follwed by closing ceremony featuring Bollywood bombshell Katrina Kaif.

Some thoughts about the league:

Off the ground the most controversial team was Kolkata Knight Riders(KKR) first it was due to multi-captaincy theory and later part of the tournament it was because of FIP's - Fake IPL Player's insider story hilarious blogposts.
The venue was shifted to South Africa in last minute due to security concerns in India due to schedule overlap with Indian Lok-Sabha elections. So with respect to venue the event was essentially International Premier League.
According to Times of India report this time all the franchise are in green despite the fact there were losses due to last minute shift in venue. The following table sums up the things in detail.

So it's curtain for the week.. We will be blogging occasionally in this space about stuffs directly on indirectly related to IPL

Captains and their Theories

2009-05-25T01:54:00.000-07:00

It’s Monday morning and I tuned into cricinfo and realize that IPL 2.0 actually over, boy it would take some now to get out of this IPL hangover. Let me just cool off myself by taking a look how captains have fared in this IPL. Not long before the second edition of IPL started Buchannan proposed his unsuccessful multiple captain theory of having different captains for each game; but it ended up being a Ganguly ousting theory. Let’s spend some time on looking at IPL 2.0 from a captaincy perspective.

Cricket is a team game and Jumbo has shown what inspirational captaincy can do to a dull n dying team. A lot has talked about Warne’s captaincy much so because of the glamor he adds. One just can’t stop admiring Gentleman Kumble and his captaincy skills, took RCB from ashes where KP had left and almost struck gold but for drunken batting from their middle order. Kumble’s captaincy doesn’t have the glamor and poise that Warne possess, but it is simple and straight thinking coupled with bold decisions. He has shown what it means by taking the attack to opposition and leading from the front. His tactical move to bowl himself the first over against Gilly was truly sensational. As the saying “It’s all in the mind” and Kumble played with Gilly’s mind; this one among a few decisions that was a hallmark of his captaincy.

Dhoni can actually outplay QuickSort in finding a pivot player in a team and divide the team into young and old; this time blaming young players for their inability to throw the ball from the deep. He can always find a scapegoat but never would take a responsibility for the teams defeat. If Kumble had a depleted team Dhoni a bunch of match winners much like Ponting of Australia, all he had do was put them in order. But Dhoni’s ego coupled with poor team selection cost Super Kings the semis. Only Dhoni can answer why Raina didn’t bat at number three when he has been the best in that spot for the whole tournament, that why Ntini didn’t get a single game when CSK weakest link had been their bowling. And the idea of stuffing team with all-rounder looks too cliched when things don’t work out. Bad news is that he is going to screw up T20 WC because of his ego.

Attack is the best form of defense and this is what Gilly’s used to inspire his team; especially against Delhi in the semis. He tore Nannes apart by scoring 21 run in the first over and within 6 over the match was over atleast psychologically. And being the second highest scorer helped the cause. A year of no cricket had really charged up Gilly this time around, his team selection especially the phoren babas was a balanced one, 2 batsmen, all-rounder and a bowler. His selection of a genuine quick bowler (Edwards / Harris) to compliment RP’s swing saw spot on. With Gibbs, Symonds and Rohit fielding allowed him to use even his part-timers along with Ojha and Rohit to attack the batsman.

Peter Roebuck theory of T20 having no auto-pilots was definitely true this IPL as the Pilots were definitely in control.

Fake IPL player on video !

2009-05-21T03:35:00.000-07:00

Initially I thought it's some fake video on the fake player. But listening to content I changed my opinion :) Well, it's posted on FIP blog too !

Road to T20 World Cup Looks Bleak

2009-05-18T21:44:00.000-07:00

I wouldn't brag like Sanjay Jha for the tournament being too competitive, neither would I complain of IPL being a family Entertainer and Test match killer nor would I complain of people getting richer. My only concern as an INDIAN cricket fan would be the abysmal performance of the members of INDIAN T20 quad. One expected Sehwag or Gauti or Yuvraj or Rohit to be in top 10 run scorers, baring Raina others have lost their plot. Hatrick Hero Yuvraj has picked up ball after his father had handed him a Cricket Bat snatching those skating shoes. Dhoni is busy with his Netagiri giving big statements, theories and fundas, he all set for 2014 Elections.

Raina has been in the form of his life, invariably scoring at a strike rate in excess of 150 and consistently, ideal for a number three; can carry on the good work done by the opening pair. But the biggest problem has been Viru n Gauti’s form which is abysmal this IPL. They haven’t had a decent run yet, with both batting like Kal Ho Na Ho (as if there is no tomorrow) making Raina’s role doubly important. With Fragile Yuvraj and Dhoni to follow a lot of onus rests on the shoulders of Rohit to give a good finish, who has been a Bevan in the making; in the last couple of games he has shown that he is as good a finisher as anyone. Yusuf Pathan was a sensation last IPL, he looks out of touch this season with a couple of match winnings knocks here and there hasn’t done justice to his talent and might fight for a spot with his half brother Irfan. Though has been hit for a lot of runs, he has bowled some crucial overs this IPL; Especially the one against Chargers. He continues to be a riddle for the captain.

Bowling looks equally bleak, T20 specialist Harbhajan is neither finding his line nor his length. He has been the worst spinner of this IPL so far. Zaheer didn’t look comfortable even before shoulder injury this IPL, and without Zaheer's prior experience in T20 WC makes RP’s job a touch tougher. RP Singh who currently holds the Purple cap (for the highest wickets) is a find of this IPL, rediscovering his swing and bounce. Our Little John Ishant is a mixed bag so far, being the front line bowler for KKR hasn’t lived upto the expectation. Praveen Kumar looked totally lost this IPL not sure where to pitch the ball gets driven of fullers ones and pulled of the shorter ones. Neither has pace nor has a bouncer in his armor and his angry young man attitude doesn’t help either. English weather might come to his rescue.

With Yuvraj, Rohit and Raina having a decent IPL with the ball, it gives Dhoni lot of options when the main bowlers get hammered. Inform Ojha might consider himself unlucky if he doesn’t get play a single game, which is highly likely unless Bhajji fares horribly. He flights the ball, gives it a tweak and has a good temperament. Jadeja a good bad, decent bowl and a great fielder could be a floater filling in if one of the all rounders fails or gets injured.

Munaf and Balaji who have actually bowled well after the squad announcement should feel unlucky to miss the flight and exotic England summer.

Tight Thrilers Leave Some Nailess Some Hairless

2009-05-15T00:26:00.000-07:00

The complaint of IPL being a lengthy tournament is getting erased with each of these nail biting and hair plucking matches. After 45 games we just have one of the fantastic four, Delhi Dare Devils heading the table with 16 points. If things go as expected Chennai Super Kings stand in with close second. Third and Fourth spot is still up for grabs, Deccan, Royals, Mumbai, Kings and Challengers are in the hunt. Mumbai’s chances look bleak after today’s hair plucking loss and Challengers chances look good after sneaking a low scoring nail biting thriller.

Captain Kumble has shown the world what it means leading from the front; he literally bowled the first over of the match. Chennai looked puzzled like Abhimanyu of Mahabharata failing to come out of chakra view ha once Hayden departed. Take away Hayden’s 60 from a total of 129, Chennai’s score looks as bad as a sari clad bikini model.
[image source http://iplt20.com/]
Me, My Readers and The World must have been fed up with Bangalore’s opening combination and my ramblings on it, so let’s leave it alone. Dravid was caught between hitting the ball and tapping it, ended up placing it to point. 30 for 3 and you have the two most unreliable batsmen at the crease; this time both had a point to prove. Murli continues to show that he is still a Fattu, who can only bowl between 8th and 16th over. Merwe’s match fees should be docked off for not grounding his bat; that’s basics mait. In the end madness prevails as both the batsmen watch the ball sail towards third man boundary despite a dive from the fielder without bothering to run. Umpire waves his hand in the end to save the blemishes as Bangalore win this tight nail biter.

The saying “The captain is as good a team” is being proven wrong again and again by Warne, as he continues to get best out of his mediocre troop. Who would have thought that Munaf would bowl the last over and pull off a sensational victory for the Royals? Royals have a different hero with the bat every day, today it was Quiney and Jadeja taking them to a defendable 145. Mumbai seem to have followed Bangalore’s failed strategy of trying different openers every time. Sanath and Sachin found themselves battling against the guile of Warne; who eventually out played both of them. Few nasty blows from Nayar saw Mumbai in striking distance and that back away DLF maximum towards covers was simply sensational.

At this point it was a contest between Mumbai Gods Vs Rajasthan Gods as prayers from Shilpa Shetty and Nita Ambani grew deeper and deeper. Bouncer followed with a leg stump Yorker saw the end of Dhaval, direct hit from Pathan sent Nanda back to the where he belonged. A dive and good throw at the stumps from Warne sealed the deal for Royals, which left Mumbai Indians plucking their hair in despair.

In the end faces of silent Nita Ambani and Jumping Shilpa Shetty told the entire story.

IPL toons - [source unknown]

2009-05-09T07:55:00.000-07:00

Nice IPL cartoons from an unknown artist. Have a look at them and enjoy!

From IPL toons

The tale of two Hat-tricks

2009-05-09T01:44:00.000-07:00

One of rarest feat in annals of cricket is no longer like climbing 'the Mt. Everest' in Indian Premier League. This judgment one can make after witnessing two hat-tricks by part time bowlers Rohit Sharma and Yuvraj Singh. Similar things had happened edition of IPL also in which some bowlers who no where in limelight came to the party with a hat-trick. And incidentally it was their only take-away from the tournament.
[image source: Cricinfo]

Why suddenly hat-tricks have become so common. Throwing a thinking hat we came up following reasons for these part-time Hat-trick.

Apart from the two IPL 2.0 hat-tricks achieved by a part-time bowlers other evident thing is that both were taken over two overs. The hat-trick ball was the first ball of second over. Historically in cricket batsmen have played the hat-trick ball very cautiously. While playing the first ball of the fresh over the batsman in bought occasions might not have thought consciously about carry over hat-trick.
T20 is slam-bang. In T20 format batsmen try to score maximum runs in every ball. This happens mostly in last few over of first innings or when the required rate is very high while chasing. So batsmen won't really care whether they will be favoring the bowler to earn a hat-trick.
Casualness while playing part-time bowlers. There were many theories in cricket that part-time bowlers or say non strike bowler get major share of wickets. If one can remember golden days of Pakistan's bowling attack when in a match Abdur-Razzaq, Azhar Mehmood, Shahid Afridi together used to get more wickets than total tally of Wasim Akram, Shoaib Akthar, Saqlain Mustaq. i.e. batsmen will have a big relief while facing a part-time bowler and try to compensate for less scored against strike bowlers. The same reasoning can be given for two hat-tricks of IPL 2.0

There can be more reasoning .. let's wait for more hat-tricks in IPL 2.0.

Uncertain Winners and a Certain Loser

2009-05-05T13:55:00.000-07:00

As the saying goes the only thing that is certain is uncertainty, which has been the nature of this tournament. As the tournament is moving forwards surprises like Royals defeating Kings by a huge margin, Challengers beating Mumbai Indians by 9 wickets are following us. With winter setting in it has affected the fielding (even though there is no correlation)and more matches played in the northern part of the county bigger targets are being chased with ease, though credit has to be given to the batsman. One of the reasons being the top order of each team that is firing; be it Smith n Ojha for Royals or Kallis n Uthappa for Challengers, Gauti and Warner for Delhi. There is nothing like picking top order wickets to stop the flow of runs, but the opposing teams haven’t done that consistently.
[image source: Cricinfo]

No team is clear favorite’ even though CSK have looked THE team, but they rely heavily on top order i.e. Hayden and Raina, much like the last years Delhi and we all know what happened to them. And all their victories have come batting first. Delhi has a good balance good top order solid middle order and a decent bowling attack; they need Sehwag to click if they want to look formidable. Royals are peaking at the right time, Smith played his best innings so far and Warne is getting best out of his brigand, arrival of inform Watson would be a huge bonus.

Kings again depend heavily Yuvraj to fire, bowling is a mixed bag, Piyush n Abdulla are their stars, Sreesanth inclusion could be dicey. Challengers look a different team after KP’s departure their opening is the surprise each time. Kumble had found two unsung heroes in Dillon n Merwe. Mumbai boasts to have the best bowling attack along with most brutal opening pair; neither of them is winning them matches as expected. They are heavily dependent on Sachin to anchor the innings as it falls apart towards the end. With Sun beating down Chargers need to recharge their solar batteries before it drains out. With openers failing the middle order looks too bleak, without Edwards bowling looks weak.

Only thing that is certain is that SRK isn’t going to come back as Kolkata Kite Riders have found ways lose games. Lack of good match winners in the first place, (sorry if Gayle n McCullum were match winners then WI n NZ wouldn’t be where there are today) compounded with bad breath among the team, they haven’t found winning ways. It looks as if they have a point to prove, that good coach do need good players to perform. The only positives being the humorous FakeIPLPlayer’s blogs; which has bought much interest among the print media. Blame it on Buchanan’s multiple captain theory which was rather a Ganguly sacking strategy or Gayle n McCullum compound debacle or Ishant n co’s inability to take wickets upfront or even on the drop catches KKR don’t look like a team.

As they say there is no I in a team, but there too many I’s in KKR.

Yuvraj King at Kingsmead, Challengers emerge as Emperors

2009-05-01T19:07:00.001-07:00

Heard about Déjà vu? The experience of witnessing a new situation previously encountered; in today's double header Kings XI found themselves in exact same scenario as KKRs found themselves earlier in the day. Both the teams chasing a score of 149 and 146 fell short of 9 and 8 were undone by Malinga’s and Kumble’s penultimate over respectively. Both the overs yielded just 4 runs and wicket, when 23 and 17 were needed of the last two overs. Both the defeats had a common denominator; leaving too much for little people towards the end. Both the teams could take a leaf out of Dilshan’s batting; in exact similar situation Delhi chasing 149 needed 17 of 2 overs. Penultimate over was bowled by over animated Edwards; but was thrashed for 17 in just 4 balls. All the three scores look similar but Punjab’s match was far more exciting and entertaining as it actually went down to the wire.

The day didn't start well for the new skipper Kumble as yet another opening pair fails to get past the first over, Ryder edged it to Jayawardene. Bishnoi pulled every ball he faced and got some handy runs before yielding to Abdulla, soon Goswami decided let me GO swami. Uthappa and Kallis played well until they decided “Its Durban let’s make it Yuvraj's day”. Uthappa mishit one to Katich, Kallis undone by the skidder which crashed into off, Boucher made sure he was part of history, first hatrick of IPL 2.0. Then came Roelof Merwe with his 'looking London hitting Tokyo shots'. Everything is perfect about his technique high elbow, good foot work, body moving in the direction of the shot just that ball travels orthogonally. Swing towards mid on and ball goes to third man, swing towards square leg and ball going towards long off. Can’t call it ugly but scored crucial 35 and took the score to 145 Abdulla’s did pick up 4 for 36, Pathan managed 2 for 19. Kohli's needs to watch "Anger Management" movie, to cool him down. He is always angry with either his bat or shoes, keeps hitting it to the ground.

Three front line spinners and Yuvraj decides to open the innings; fair call!!!, he briskly moved to 50 of just 33 balls with some of his elegant pulls. He then decides to take Kumble to midwicket finds Kallis on the way, 70 for 1 at halfway stage. Call it either the spin of Merwe or the curse of tactical breaks Kings lose Goel, Australian sexy cricketer of the year Simon Katich soon followed him. The two Sinhalese managed to have a decent partnership but the run rate was hitting the roof. 51 required of 30 you got to back the batting team to win from here, Jayawardene yet again proved that he is King when bowling is mediocre. Merve’s bad over left Kings chasing 17 from 12 balls, exactly the same equation Delhi faced a day earlier. Kumble did exactly what Edwards didn’t do other night, kept his cool and got through the defenses of Sangakkara. 4 runs and a wicket of the 19 over, can’t ask for anything better. It was a brave move to bowl PK after he had been hit for 14 of his previous over. Even after been hit for boundary picked up Pathan and Chawla and sealed an important win for RCB.

Not many people pick up a hatrick, score 50 in 34 balls, get a match of the match award and all in the losing cause, Yuvraj found himself in that position. Probably the Déjà vu theory is either overrated or there aren’t too many Dilshan’s to win you a match out of thin air.

Images Courtesy Cricinfo

D for Dilshan D for Daring D for Delhi DareDevils

2009-04-30T15:15:00.001-07:00

D for Dilshan D for Daring D for Delhi DareDevils, well that has been the mantra for DareDevils this season. Even without Mcgrath, Maharoof, Asif contributing with the ball, Sehwag and Gambhir batting firepower like the last IPL Delhi look a complete team. The fact that Mcgrath is warming the bench shows how good their bowling attack is. Dilshan, M & M and Karthik have been a gem with the bat, stealing victories from the jaws of defeat twice in a row now. The way Dilshan punched in the air after pulling Edwards for a boundary showed the intensity with which he played his cricket; he possessed a true Dilli arrogance much like Gambhir possesses. Edwards could have put in his effort in bowling in the right areas rather than fighting with umpire or staring and using adjectives with the batsman. All it did was charge Dilshan.

It’s nice to see 3 left arm seamers bowl in a team after a long time; Nannes reduced the Chargers to 19/2 picking both Gibbs and Gilly. Bikhalia and Rohit played some good cricketing shots and kept the momentum going. Mishra and Vettori bowled in tandom pegging back Deccan to 53/4 in the 10th over. Then came Devon Smith man with a mission, “mission to swat every ball to the leg side” and he did it successfully. All he played was the midwicket slog and yet scored 48 in 28 balls; he tore Mishra and Vettori apart. Vettori never came back for his fourth over. Sangwan and Nehra came back well and picked Smith, Suman and Venugopal. Nannes bowled a brilliant 18 over just one run without a single Yorker, couple of runouts and what looked like a 160 odd at one stage ended up being 148.

Delhi got their best start of the season 30; soon they were 49/3 in the 8th over. Dilshan and Karthik yet again played the ODI kind of innings, knocking around for singles and getting the odd boundaries. We saw tidy 4 over spells from Ojha and Shoaib. 17 runs off Venugopal proved be the over which brought DD back into the hunt. With 17 needed of 12 balls it took only 4 legal deliveries for Dilshan to get those runs and also get his 3rd 50 against Edwards who was their best bowler. All Edwards did was shout, kick the turf and put his hands on in head and appreciate Dilshan’s efforts. He is the same Dilshan with a round hat who has won n number of matches for Sri Lanka in similar fashion. He now has 3 consecutive 50s at a good strike rate all in the wining cause making him a true match winner or the crisis man. Even though Nannes was awarded MOM Dilshan was not far behind.

IPL 2.0 weekly-update-1: It's a surprise bag

2009-04-29T22:08:00.000-07:00

The second edition of Indan Premier League started off on April 18th exactly on the same date of the first edition. Like the first the second season will definitely won't have the novelty factor. However different country, different conditions have changed the equations. Also, there have been a few surprises in the script so far. The team which finished at the basement in first season "Deccan Chargers" are on the top with 100% winning record. Last year's champs Rajasthan Royals have experienced mixed season so far. But their trump card Yusuf Pathan has already scripted two awesome victories.

Some highlights of last two weeks.

The first day belonged to veterans. Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid came out with flying colors with solid batting and ensuread victory for their team. Anil Kumble made a difference by his extraordinary bowling figures 5/5.
Spinners are key players in bowling attack. Anil Kumble, Piyush Chawla and Yusuf Pathan are keeping batsmen on their toes. Even part time spinners like Suresh Raina are able to check the scoring rate. In yesterday's match RCB v/s KKR, 15 overs of RCB were bowled by spinners. Who had speculated this before the start of the tournament ?
Malinga has been the best among pacers. The Sri-Lanka bowler representing Mumbai Indians has been a tough customer to handle with his toe crushing yorkers.
Gilly and Hayden are still the best. Former openers of world beating Australian team have been major scorers in the tournament so far. Their breezy innings had given solid foundation to their respective teams.
Rains have been major villains in this IPL. Two games were completely washed out. Also results of two matches of Kings XI were decided using D/L method. On both occasions Kings XI were on receiving end.
Super Over is a super idea! The first tie of IPL was the match between RR and KKR. The winners were decided using a new format super-over, a format in which both teams will given an over each to score maximum runs. KKR scored 15 runs and RR's Yusuf Pathan chased the runs in just 4 balls! The format has been welcomed by many cricketing experts.
Ajantha Mendis is not a mystery anymore. The KKR bowler who had been nightmare to batsmen is no longer a mystery bowler. The bowler gave away 16 runs in just 4 balls in a super-over decider. In other match againt Mumbai, the opening combo of Sachin and Jayasurya dismissed his deliveries to stands several times. In yesterday's match the mystery bowler was out of playing eleven.
International T20 stars may not be IPL stars. The major example for this Robin Uthappa. The T20 specialist who RCB had exchanged from Mumbai in place of Zaheer Khan is yet to bat beyond first over in the tournament. Not only batting he had been sloppy in the field too. In the match against DDD he dropped a catch at crucial juncture. At that point the match could have gone both ways.
One anonymous blogger has created flutters in the blogosphere and entire cricketing world by posting many funny inside stores of team KKR. The KKR team management is yet to find out who the mole is. It is some internal person or an enthusiastic bloggy on cyberspace. Still a million dollar question ...
Last but not the least - Strategy breaks! .. Lalit Modi's marketing brain's idea has received tons of criticism. On several occasions batting team has lost a wicket within first over after the break. For the viewers too it's a patch in the entertainment quotient of watching a T20 game.

[Image source: cricinfo.com]

Snatching Victory From The Jaws Of Defeat

2009-04-29T20:52:00.000-07:00

Even though Mumbai Indians lost the match by 3 runs & RCB won it with a ball to spare it wouldn’t be wrong to say that cricket was a winner today, one tasted a unique flavor of T20; low scoring thrillers. The beauty of T20 is its ability produce nail bitters, IPL 2.0 is no different, and a nail bitter is more intense if it’s a low scoring one. In the end some tidy bowling and some shoddy batting saw Kings XI win by 3 runs. Lack of good bowlers and some shoddy performance by KKR saw RCB snatch victory from the hands of defeat.

119 was what Kings XI managed on a tired surface of Kingsmead which had already produced a low scoring chase in the afternoon. Mumbai Indians have the strongest bowling attack in this IPL 4 ODI specialist or rather T20 specialist. Malinga is a revelation this season, all he does is fires in toe crushing Yorker; batsman try to survive rather than score. At any instant it’s either ball or the bat of Yuvraj bat that moves; this time ball moved. Sangakkara anchored the innings to a respectable 119 even after some good death bowling from Malinga; the Yorker to Chawla was a treat to watch, right on the money. He now heads the purple cap for the most wickets in the series with an avg of 5 and econ of 4; that’s some numbers.

Chasing 120 on a slow pitch is quite tricky, and gets tougher when you lose Sanath of the first ball; he really is having a torrid time this IPL. Sachin followed him the next over to yet another Debutant; one needs a count on number of times Sachin has fallen to a Debutant. Abdulla’s toe crushing Yorker to Dhawan reduced MI to 12 for 3. Bravo got sucked into Powar’s flight and scooped into the deep. Duminy n Nayar did try to steady the sinking ship before Pathan punctured by rattling Nayar’s leg stump. Chawla’s penultimate was the key, the ploy of leg spinner against legside favored Bhajji worked out quite well in the end. And one can never take away the accurate and canning last over by Abdulla. Duminy finally fell to Abdulla’s variations slow bouncer caught at deep midwicket. Finally MI fell short by 3 runs after some good out fielding by Powar.

Earlier in the day KP’s RCB stole a nail bitter with a ball to spare. It was a historical day in T20 as 15 of 20 overs were bowled by 4 spinners and staring with spin at both the ends, reminding us the spin quartet of the 70s’. IPL 2.0 so far ironically has belonged to the spinners; Royals, Kings XI & now Challengers have started off with spinners. McCullum’s unforgettable nightmare continues as he fell for a golden duck to KP. Kumble is getting better with each game, KKR’s reached a defendable 139.

For the first time in IPL RCB have an opening stand of 69, Goswami’s run a ball 43 was vital, KP’s and Kohli’s wicket made sure that we have a nail bitter. Some hammering from Boucher made sure that SRK wouldn’t book his return ticket; and has wowed not to return until KKR starts winning, which means he won’t return. Ishant’s spell of 2 for 15 was the only silver lining. Late bashing from Boucher saw RCB win with a ball to spare.

Both the teams Snatched Victory From The Jaws Of Defeat.

The Mumbai INDIAN Chewed the Calcutta Mitha Pan

2009-04-27T21:43:00.000-07:00

They say a number is worth thousand pictures and a picture is worth thousand words. Sachin’s 68 of 45 balls neither does it give you the right picture nor do I have the right words to describe it. Even though he scored at a strike rate of 150 there wasn’t a single rash slog nor were there any mistimed shots looping in the outfield. It was like watching highlights of 2003 WC, the six against Ishant reminded us the one against Caddick. It felt like a 16 year old trying to woo his female classmates in the crowd. Gavaskar sahib would have been a very happy man seeing those high elbow and straight bat shots.

At the end of the day Mumbai’s 187/6 doesn’t reflect how well Sanath and Sachin played; if Sachin took the initiative to start with, Sanath played second fiddle. Once Sachin cooled down Sanath began to explode. At 111/0 in 11 overs there wasn’t scope for even damage control from the KKRs. It looked like Mccullum’s team had given it up, just going through the motions. As a bowler one could feel like a candle burning from both the ends. If Sanath bludgeoned over the infield, Sachin caressed through, both complimented each other very well. As a bowler you had to pick between getting caressed by Sachin or clubbed by Sanath.

When batsman start getting used to the pace and bounce of the wickets, generally one needs to take the pace off. Mendis, Gayle and Hodge did that but the ball travelled even further into the boundary, couple of them even saw the Port Elizabeth city. One has to just feel for KKR’s bowlers, there wasn’t much difference in the bad balls and good balls bowled; everything reached the fence, only probably difference was the speed at which they reached. Shukla ji bowled with a lot of heart picked up both the wickets of Sanath and Sachin. Bhajji did pinch on KKR wounds, rest of MI made us realize that there was something called pitch and conditions which affected the scoring.

Chasing 188 against the likes of Malinga, Zaheer, Bravo and Bhajji is a tough task and a touch tougher when Malinga starts with a Yorker. Gayle and McCullam’s opening seems overrated; Hodge and Ganguly did try to accelerate but got sucked up by Nayar’s variations. With lack of batting power the KKRs stumbled to a cliched score of 95 all down in 15 overs. Had SRK invested in same low cost players rather than a 600K Mortaza who hasn’t featured yet, it would have done KKR some good. The future for KKR this season as last season looks dark as their jersey.

One can confidently say that the MUMBAI INDIAN chewed the Calcutta Mithi Pan.

(Dare)ing Dilshan take DareDevils home

2009-04-26T10:38:00.000-07:00

Last time Delhi’s biggest problem was the inability of the middle order to step up when the top order failed, but this time things have changed for good. Dilshan has been a revelation this season; he is one of the better finisher in the modern era due to his ability to hit the boundaries at will. He has shown that he has in him the temperament to pace the innings. Coming in at the 2nd over he used his experience to nudge around initially building partnerships with AB, and finally some good hitting along with M&M (Mithun Manhas) he made sure DareDevils achieve the desired target without any hiccups.

I might sound like a broken record but RCB’s biggest problem is their opening pair, it doesn’t last more than an over. We now have 5 ducks in 5 games from a combination of openers, Ryder twice, Kumar, Kallis n Uthappa ones. Basically RCB’s no 3 is trying building an innings, while their counterparts are trying to keep up the good work done by their openers. And the biggest problem is that neither Pietersen nor Jennings have a solution to that. Like the famous bollywood movie doctor’s dialogue “Inhe Dawa Ki Dua Ki Jaaroorat Hai” is quite apt for the Challengers.

Today for a change our Dum Slog Millionaire did score some runs along with Taylor. RCBs were 73 at the half way stage, it was a good score considering the bad start they had. Blame it on the tactical break or good bowling, Mishra got Taylor. It came at a bad time for RCBs as they had just lost KP before the break. How many times has this happened that a team doing well till the 10th over suddenly loses a wicket right after the break? These strategy breaks are becoming the talk of the town. The batting teams quickly need to come up with a strategy to counter these strategy breaks. Good hits from Boucher n Kohli took Challengers to a respectable 149. Once again IPL 2.0 has shown that spinners do have a role here and a big one, Mishra’s 1/19 from 4 was instrumental in keeping the pressure.

Chasing at 7.5 an over for DareDevil’s even against depleted RCB wasn't all that easy, especially after losing Sehwag early. Double strike from Pankaj and good tidy bowling by Kumble restricts DD to 64 in 10 overs. As did other slow left armers KP Appana did flight the ball that dipped, turned and knocked AB’s leg stump. “Mandir ka ghanta” Kallis did prove costly again this time; he has been the new Agarkar -- the run daata. 51 runs in 30 balls seems daunting but as Bopara did it other day Dilshan did make it look ridiculously easy. Bowling towards the end has also been Challengers problems, yorkers n slower ones were missing and the length deliveries were deposited on the stands. Clean hitting by Dilshan and M&M (Mithun Manhas) saw Daredevils home with 4 balls to spare.

With Dravid out for couple of games and KP leaving RCBs need some Divine touch if they plan to stay in the hunt.

SINGH is KING at KINGsmead

2009-04-24T15:01:00.000-07:00

Ravi Singh Bopara showed that even in this age of T20 - fatafat cricket; slow and steady could still win the race. He showed that it’s not just veterans who can play the old fashioned innings in chasing big targets in T20. Nudging around, playing at run a ball and accelerated towards end, it was a good combination attack with defense. The credit of chasing 170 with 3 down in with an over to spare should go to Bopara.

There is some connection with RCB and good starts rather lack of it; they don’t seem to go hand in hand. Kallis and Ryder were off to a decent start even after the early loss of Uthappa for a golden duck. Both played some high quality risk less fabulous cricketing shots. Some classic cover drives and some powerful pulls. When things looked pretty good RCB were pegged back by Abdulla’s double strike. KP is going to give Mallya uncle a heart attack if continues this way; every flop of his is going to hurt Mallya by 100k USD.

Yet again Dravid had to come to save the wrecked ship at 48/3. Just because they call him the wall, it doesn’t mean that Dravid has to rebuild the innings every time. Taylor along with Kallis did stitch the innings together towards the end. 4 wickets from Abdulla and 3 for Pathan curtailed the innings to respectable 168. Efforts of Puyush gets unnoticed in these kinds of games, he is the bowler to be watched out.

168 is a decent target to chase especially with a short boundary on one side, plus one can’t forget Yuvraj and Durban connection, Yup the full Monte 6 6s of Broad. Kings were off to a good start 50/0 of 6 overs. A brilliant runout brought Sangakara in. Runs kept flowing from Bopara’s bat regularly slowly and steadily, he wasn’t unfazed by asking run rate which always kept creeping. Dravid didn’t help the RCBs by dropping a sitter, which was crucial at that stage, finally Sangakara yielded to Kumble who was by far most the best bowler. 5 overs to go 60 to get with 8 wickets in hand match evenly balanced. When Yuvraj starts playing his shots bowling or pitch doesn’t matter. With Styen not playing RCB didn’t any a good bowler, forget about death bowling.

I guess it wouldn’t have matted the way Bopara n UV smacked around. After reaching his 50 Bopara revealed the wild side of calm face, it began to rain sixes in Durban. KP could nothing but watch the Kings XI sail over with an over to spare. Win meant that the SINGHs were off the mark.

Bopara showed that SINGH is still the KING

Royals Ryde the Super K(Night)

2009-04-23T13:50:00.001-07:00

It took 20 overs and one super over for the royals to register their first win in IPL 2.0. The two most uninspiring teams pulled out one of the most exciting matches of the IPL so far. Frankly after the high scoring Chennai Delhi game I wasn’t all excited about the clash of minnows, but the Royals pulled out a tie out of thin air and then Pathan blasted 16 from 4 balls in the super over. Last time around Gayle had blasted 25 in the super over against Vetori’s NZ. Super over is far more exciting than the bowl out in case of a tie in T20, as its far more challenging n exciting.

Spinners have always played a big role in T20’s; Mendis was no different, picked up key wickets of Smith and & well set Pathan. Scoring 42 of 21 balls Pathan gave Royals much needed momentum. Agarkar is one of the few bowlers who would never completes his quota of 10 overs in ODIs; the trend is following even in T20. Late fireworks from Raut took Royals to a defendable 150.

150 was a good total to defend on a Newlands ground, but no ground or total is big when Gayle starts swinging, he makes it look ridiculously easy. Runs looks easy from a set batsman’s bat, pitch and conditions only start to matter when you lose him. Dada marshaled the innings up until the penultimate over, after which drama started. 7 required from 6 only I team that could have lost it was RR, but the match ended in a tie, thanks to wonderful last over by the tornado Kamran Khan. Owe it to the team spirit or captain spirit, Royals have the knack of pulling out victories out of thin air. One has to feel for Ganguly who almost took KKR to victory.

It takes great courage & guts to hand over the super over to a rookie, but that's Shane Warne, he gets the best out of the ordinary. 15 runs was good target of 6 balls. KKR missed the trick by using Mendis, probably a fast bowler would have been a better choice against Pathan. Now KKR have lost 2 out of 2 in the presence of Gayle, I just wonder their fate after Gayle's departure. Buchanan has to quickly convert his theory into practice, right now they neither look Knights nor the Ryders.

Royals Ryde the Super K(Night)

Alcohol Yeilds to Print Media

2009-04-22T20:17:00.000-07:00

Sunshine at Capetown was good enough to recharge the Deccan Chargers, owe it to the change of colors or change of venue, they look a team determined to prove a point. After a day of rain hitting the pitch at Durban, it was Gilly belting the ball to all parts of the Sahara Park, Newlands. Anything pitched short was cut past point & the fuller ones were bludgeoned over the bowlers head. He showed that he is still one of the better strikers of the cricket ball. They say the best way to bowl at Gilly is to give him a single & put him of strike, RCB failed in doing so & had to pay the price. With Kumble bowling & Uthappa behind the stumps one witnessed some of the kannada words like KAL MURI (Leg-break), SUTTU TANE (he is going to swing), BARATTE (going to come), HAKI (put), ONDE (only one).

It took a brilliant catch from Kohli to finally dismiss Gilly, by then most of the damage was done. Rohit began to rub salt on RCBs wounds; his hunger for runs in this format of the game is increasing day by day. The way he belted Kumble for 3 towering sixes showed that he has come a long way, he definitely can give Raina a run for his money in the ODI squad. With some late fireworks Chargers reached tournaments highest score. PK needs to learn to bowl in batsman friendly conditions, otherwise he would end up being an English bowler grumbling all the time.

The first ball Edwards bowled was an in swinging yorker rattling Ryder’s ofstump; in contrast RCB bowled just one in the entire innings. RP just relishes conditions in South Africa. Kallis's bowling has been like a mandir ka ghanti; Jyo bhi aata hai baja ke jyata hai. KP is proving that he indeed is the Dum Slog Millionaire, as the English crowed once claimed & he has made no plans of erasing that. “Rahul Dravid walks out to save the follow-on.” was a nice comment on cricinfo, which explained pace at which RCBs were going. As said earlier Dravid is the only one who looks in good nick, he showed that T20 can also be played with conventional shots. He rightly earned the orange cap for leading the run score in the competition. With some charismatic shots from Kohli RCB ended 24 shots of the target. Well the only positives from this game would be posting 160 in 20 overs, which I guess is their highest score.

In this contest United Beverages Yielded to Deccan Chronicle.

CSK win the Cauvery River battle at Port Elizabeth

2009-04-21T08:25:00.001-07:00

After a weekend of ball dominating bat, cricket returned to normality as bat dominated the ball. Cricket is a batsman's game & is always exciting to watch batsman score 6s and 4s. Runs from Hayden's bat is always nice, even the one without a makers name. IPL so far has shown that when set batsman starts playing their shots pitch conditions don't really matter.

Hayden showed that he didn't lose any fire power after his retirement; he was at his bullying best. The walk-down-the-track to blast the quicks, the muscular sweeps against the spinners & daft touches behind the wicket were pretty amazing. Parthiv and Raina did their part to keep the momentum going. Dhoni is losing his fire power like a bottle of opened soda; he is just upping his numbers. Freddie did show a glimpse of his million dollar paycheck. Good bowling towards the end just pegged back CSK to 180 which looked like 250 at one stage.

Scoring at 9 an over isn’t RCB’s forte, not even with the revamped & rejuvenated team. Like an old wine in different bottle, old problems of collapses persist even under the new captain. Royal Challengers have problems up front, they are under a myth that they need an opener for each bottle. Settled opening pair is a key to success of any team, sooner they realize that lesser the embarrassment they would have to face.

By the time Murali came into bowl the match was already slipping away from the RCBs. Virat Kohli has been given enough opportunities, he is nothing more than an arrogant little spoilt brat. Kumble did show that he is still the best bowler in RCB. When Dravid arrived at the scene, there wasn't any foundation laid on which he could have built his wall. RCB collapsed for a paltry 87, perhaps it was an ad for AEROPOSTALE.

CSK have convincingly won the Cauvery River battle at Port Elizabeth.

Veterans Day Out

2009-04-18T18:58:00.000-07:00

In the era where so much emphasis is on young blood, veterans Tendulkar n Dravid showed that "its not age but mileage that matters" even in today's arena. Clinical Sachin showed that why he is called the master blaster. Rahul picked up from where he had left from last year, he was the only person scoring runs and scoring fast for the RCBs. Kumble & Warne showed that spinner are like wine, get better with age. If Warne showed that age has never come in the way of his drift, dip & spin; Kumble show that accuracy still is his middle name.

The day-1 of IPL 2.0 saw surprises, both losing team were finalist of the first edition. This indicates that equations have changed. The tournament is played in a different country, hence different testing conditions. Because the bowl does a bit raw players who were successful in India may find it difficult to get adjusted to new conditions. Lack of technique & temperament might cause ones downfall.

Twenty2O is tricky format; 20 overs might looks too small to begin with; if you go bang bang n lose 2-3 wickets quickly then it just look herculean task to achieve the desired target. It might even trigger a chain reaction for fall of wickets. So one does need a player to anchor the innings at a good pace. This is where likes of sachin,rahul kallis,hayden would come into play. So the ideal old fashioned strategy would work here, keep wickets in hand and throw at the kitchen sink towards the end.

Just a back my theory up we have already had 2 collapses in RR & KKR with in the first weekend. So Veterans keep those gutsy innings coming; slow and steady will win the race in this IPL 2.0.

X Cited about Eye PL

2009-04-17T11:00:00.000-07:00

The IPL 2.0 kick starts on 18th April in the “Diamond country” South Africa. As the wickets in SA would offer pace & bounce, it would be a contest between bat and ball eliminating the slam bang cricket. As a batsman you would need decent technique to negotiate the seam movement,& as a bowler you have a chance to exploit the weaknesses of the batsman. It would be an acid test for our domestic flat track bullies. Also since 24 of 59 matches are played in Durban of which 12 would be 4:30 pm starters, so there might be possibility of “win the toss win the game” kind of scenario if the “tide factor” of Durban comes into play; i.e. ball swings prodigiously under lights in Durban due to tide effect.

Rajasthan Royals owe all its success to Tanvir’s opening spells and Watson’s all round performance backed up with captaincy skills of Warne 2.0, with now their services unavailable Warne would have to come up with a Warne 3.0 in rebuilding the empire. Smith & Yusuf Pathan would hold the key again; Munaf has improved in last couple of months, watch out for the Tornado Kamran Khan.

Chennai Super Kings might emerge as the IPL king this time. Hayden’s fulltime service; Raina’s ability to pace innings, Albi Morkel’s hard hitting skills, Dhoni’s netagiri, Goni’s ability to hit the deck hard, Ntini's home adv, Murli’s guile could be fatal. Flintof's presence would be felt. Hope fully baccha patel & jogger Balaji won’t screw up this time around.

Kings XI Punjab’s marched into the semis thanks to Marsh and Hopes, now with their availability looking bleak coupled with absence of Brett Lee and Sreesanth onus would be on UV and Desi bowlers to step up. One can only feel for a team whose strike bowler would be Irfan Pathan. No wonder UV is already complaining.

Delhi Daredevil’s success story was no rocket science; won all the matches when the top 3 fired. And this time around Gauti is far more consistent & Warner would be an ideal replacement for Dhawan, Owais Shah and Collingwood would be handy. Addition of Delhi lad Nehra would bolster their pace attack along with McGrath and Maharoof. De Villier’s home experience will be useful. Absence of Shoab Malik would be a blessing in disguise, Karthick has left some unanswered questions.

Mumbai Indians probably have the best opening pair in Jayasuriya n Tendulkar; either of them can win the match single handedly. We all know about Bravo’s contributions with bat n ball. Hopefully Duminy’s 950k would be justified, Zaheer, Bhajji, Malinga, Dhaval &Co hopefully would fill the void in Pollock’s absence.

Bangalore Royal Challengers this time won't be Royally Challenged; first they got to wipe off the test team tag under their captain KP. It would be nice to see how KP would gel with Chanderpaul around especially after their verbal spat. Ryder and Taylor would give them a bit of fire power; Kallis needs to get out of his test match mood.

Kolkata Knight Riders will have ride on Mccullum n Gale. They will miss the services of Aktar,Gul,Hafeez,Ponting,DJ Hussey who played a crucial role last time. Not sure how much Mortaza can find his way. Buchanan would eventually find 4 decent players through his 4 captain theory. Poojara would be the player to watch out.

Deccan Chargers need to recharge their batteries as they look like a overpriced minnow team. They will need Gibbs,Gilly,Rohit,RP to fire each and every time if they want to stay in the competition.

So tune into SETMAX (INDIA) Saturday 4 PM and Enjoy Chennai Super Kings take on Mumbai Indians & KP's RCB muscle the spin on Shane's RR at 8 PM

Relaunching IPL Buzz

2009-04-17T10:29:00.000-07:00

A day before the start of second edition of the IPL we re-launching this blog. Stay tuned for updates, masalas and gossips on cricket's biggest fiesta.

Nothing Official About It!

2008-03-02T11:00:00.000-08:00

There is this official website of Indian Premier League by BCCI. And when you have a official site for any tournament, you are bound to think that you will be getting all the info about the latest happenings of the tournament from that site. But here, you are in for a surprise as the latest information in this site is only of 15th Feb 2008, saying 'The Player Auction will be held on the 20th of February'. Auction of the players is already over but the official word about the same on the internet is yet to be spoken! With innumerable sites raking in moolah from the latest buzz in Indian sports, BCCI is yet to catch up on this field.

Apart from that, the official site is yet to sport the logo of the T20 tournament in its pages. Also, no information is available about the players of the 8 teams participating in the tournament. What is currently available is the list of players available for IPL before auction. Also there is the schedule of matches being played in the inaugural edition of the cup. The pdf file of the match schedule from this site, has been doing rounds in the techie circle through e-mails!

Well, BCCI could pull up its socks for making this official website truely official by giving it a more professional look with the latest information. Also it can toy up with the idea of having its own staff of official bloggers too. When the auction of IPL players was going on, the latest news was only available on cricinfo blogs. With less than 2 months to go for the tournament, BCCI has its task cut out and netizens would like to see the real official IPL site!

Tickets for IPL matches

2008-02-25T09:13:00.000-08:00

Watching IPL matches in stadium of duration 3 hours will as good as going to a movie. There is no need to dedicated a entire day, so one can expect a huge demand for tickets for the actual matches.

As per previous experience, standing in a queue at the stadium will be a tedious task. For IPL tickets BCCI had tied up with world-renowned ticket-sellers Ticketpro. Not only there will be online booking of tickets, but there will be booking through mobile phones as well.

Let's see how much this system will be transparent. With the amount of money involved in the league one can expect a lot nexus between franchise, sponsors etc. I have already heard many rumours that the minimum price of the ticket will be around 5000 INR.

IPL: A right product at right time

2008-02-25T06:53:00.000-08:00

After Indian cricket team being crowned as champions of inaugural T20 world cup, there is a lot of enthusiasm to watch T20 cricket in India. To make revenue from this interest the Indian board BCCI has come up with a Indian Premier League, famously known as IPL based on the lines English Premier League(EPL) and NBA.

Why a format like IPL took a long time in India to implement ? Well, the major reason for this is that Indians follow cricket like religion, relative to any other sport. The traditional cricket i.e. test cricket, majority of times is boring and many a times even after 5 days of contest, there won't be a winner. Also, the one day format(8-10 hr duration), apart from occasional sparks is generally boring. So there wasn't a guarantee of consistent viewership.

In 2003, to increase spectatorship, England came up with an idea of having a 20 over a side contest. The contest twenty-twenty(T20) cricket was a decent success. But the Indian board(BCCI) was a bit skeptical about T20 format and declined to conduct a tournament stating that it is not real cricket. Though, there was a low profile domestic tournament last year but the skepticism persisted.

Things have changed with the success of inaugural T20 world cup in South Africa. A bell rang in Lalit Modi's mind, T20 cricket is a breakthrough product, then why not have a T20 cricket league in India on the lines of EPL ? Then, with the backing the of ICC, Indian Premier League(IPL) was launched in September 2007 and the rest is history.