IPL Buzz !!!

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.

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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.

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