Weekend games

The weekend results of the IPL were expected with Chennai pitch suiting the franchisee with choke’em and win sort of play, Deccan expectedly lost. Mumbai struggled and KKR won something. But the compelling and enduring image to last for long times in the cricket followers is going to be the wild celebration from DADA when he bowled out KP and his allround performance got his campaign back on track.  Its never enough to see DADA  in action and its like revisiting those golden years of his and Tendulkar’s partnership at the ODI top level and then those countless partnership runs in tests. And not to forget his captain marvelous record!!

Great thing even today is how his lads respect him even being in the opposite IPL teams like Sehwag, Harbhajan etc and of course Yuvraj Singh providing him with some hair styling tips.  Nostalgia is at its peak when I watch Ganguly in action.

This IPL is proving to be most open in its history except the Dhakkan Dischargers who now seem to win nothing. Perhaps they wont win anything, cos  they are limited in talent and application.

8 of 9 teams have won minimum 3 games and no team has won more than 4. 4 teams are tied at 8 points and 4 at 6 (till the RCB vs RR game).  The next few games should give pointers to who’d be the top 4 to play in the “play-offs”.

IPL Team Review - 2

Another weekend begins in the IPL tamasha and this time it’s the turn of CSK, Pune Warriors, KXIP, KKR and Dhakkan Dischargers to play their games in addition to the much anticipated return of Sachin Tendulkar after being injured in the opener. Any action is too short to see Tendulkar in action, really even after 23 years of watching him play.

The IPL has seen a few teams like:

•       Pune Warriors
•       Royal Challengers

being inconsistent with their matches. Winning few, then losing a few. And then there are few evil teams who are hated more than they are loved:

•       Chennai Super Kinks
•       Kolkata Knight Riders

Whose every defeat is cheered and every win is greeted with boooos.

But the standout teams are:

•       Delhi Daredevils
•       Rajasthan Royals

Who are not only consistent, but also winning the games comprehensively. Its been a delight to watch the twin hundreds scored by the players belonging to this teams – Rahane and KP.  Especially those 6 fours in S Aravind’s over were awesome display of orthodox batting. Unfortunately they were 4s, not 6s, else Rahane would have been in the league of Yuvraj Singh (6 6s) and H Gibbs.  Media didn’t cover much of those 6 fours,  but Rahane has proved enough that he belongs to the highest level and he certainly should find himself making a Test debut soon replacing Dravid, who incidentally is his IPL captain. No doubt that Rahane would be benefitting a lot from Rahul Dravid in terms of wisdom and temperament by sharing the dressing room with him.

Mumbai Indians look insipid without the talismanic Sachin Tendulkar and Harbhajan Singh is too classy as a captain, something that baffles his fans (including me) the way he approaches few games. In one of those low scoring games against Delhi when they were blown away for 92, Harbhajan didn’t care to bowl and went with 5 pacers.  Unfortunately his best fast bowler had a back problem, so he didn’t play that game. He has been ineffective as a bowler this tournament thus putting a lot more questions on whether he can ever be the bowler he was a few years ago.   The team doesn’t have a replacement for Tendulkar at the top and though they have rotated a lot of openers with Levi, none of them has actually provided them the starts that would boost the scoring.

Tendulkar needs to return back sooner than later before its all over for the MIs.

Saurav Ganguly has led well, but has flopped as batsman and that’s hurting the Pune team. Though they have Ryder, Uthappa, Mathews, Steven Smith in their lineup, the team’d hope a lot more from their legendary captain to score more runs.  Ashok Dinda has again boosted his confidence playing in IPL thus proving a lot to his detractors that he is from the tribe that thrives in IPL (likes of Jadeja, Ashvin, M Vijay etc) but fail miserably in international arena.  Or may be Ganguly is handling him well than Dhoni did in those ODI tournaments.

Punjab team is more reliant on its foreign players and they don’t have quality domestic players. Hussey, Marsh and Gilly form the Aussie trio playing for this team, but till now none of them have come good and that’s hurting the team. Add to it the drama of the owner who had an ugly spat with the match officials over dismissal of Shaun Marsh in that game against KKR. 

Deccan Chargers have lost 4 games of 4, 2 of them in last over. They just don’t have personnel to arrest this slide and are expected to be wooden spoon winners this time around too (lastly in 2008).

The big letdowns:

•       Suresh Raina
•       R Ashvin
•       MS Dhoni
•       Praveen Kumar
•       M Vijay
•       P Valthaty
•       Virat Kohli

The top 3 of this list have been playing in the champion team of last 2 years and this season they are big flops. Though you never say “finished” for Dhoni, but I think its time up for Raina for time being. He’d be too valuable to be dropped from CSK, but unless he doesn’t turn the tide with some consistent and big scores, he would be finding himself out of the contention from the starting XI in any format of the game. And given his T20 reputation, he’d be a big loss given this is a T20I world cup year.

Praveen Kumar is a poor bowler after his injury and he has got hit for runs, pace has dropped, no wickets have come up too.    Pragyan Ojha and Rahul Sharma are better spin bowlers than R Ashvin, but CSK connections and royal backing from CSK folks, he continues to play every game India plays in every format. 2 wickets in 6 games are poor returns, given the highs of 2009 – 2011 he has had with this franchisee.

The positive points (From Indian perspective) are:

1.      Munaf Patel is among the wickets and though he is a creepy character too, but lot better than the likes of Praveen Kumar, Vinay Kumar and Ashok Dinda who bowl at same pace, don’t take wickets. So he should be one of the contenders to come back in the limited overs team.
2.       Zaheer Khan has played every. Better news is his fitness looks good.
3.      Umesh Yadav with economy  rate of  6 and S/R of 14.  And pace too.
4.      Ajinkya Rahane in batting.

IPL Review - 1

The IPL has reached a midway stage now or almost close to it and there are few teams who can claim to dominate it so far. Most of the teams have had a start stop kinda run so far and they haven’t been consistent altogether.  Deccan and Punjab franchisees have lost more than they won. Actually Deccan has won nothing. And the schedule is such that they don’t play another game this weekend.  Few players have emerged and few old warhorses have continued to charm the whatever audience that returns to see every game (including me).

Mumbai Indians are without their best batsman and they have looked shaky at the top. They are on the top of the tally for now, but they cannot be said to be the dominant team of the tournament so far. They won easily against Chennai Fooper Kinks, but lost to Warriors and then won the next 2 against Rajasthan and Deccan Chargers who can be renamed to Dhakkan Dischargers!! Sachin Tendulkar is still injured and his critics are either silent given they don’t have anything to harp to or they are scared what if he comes back strong or he doesn’t play at all.   Rohit Sharma has lived his reputation of being a classic one day and a zilch the next. His match winning assault against Dhakkans was breath taking, but he returned back to what he does the best in the next game. Harbhajan Singh isn’t getting wickets. Pollard is having best times in IPL as he always does and so is Lasith Malinga.  Boss DK doesn’t know how to bat now and he is actually missing his home town franchisee. But he is not going to go to CSK any more as long as MSD is keeping wickets.  Mumbai have to impose themselves to live up to their dollar value in the business and for that they need to have a stable opening pair in absence of the GOD of Indian cricket.  Munaf Patel in wickets is a good sign given the horror show put up by Indian “fast” bowlers recently.

Kolkata Knight Riders are inconsistent and again as they started their campaign with 2 losses and then bounced back to deflate RCB in their 3rd game.   The captain isn’t among the runs except a 50 and he was run out in the ongoing match too for 11.  Either he is opening or he is at 3.  He has batted successfully at 3 for Indian ODI team whenever Sachin and Sehwag have opened together in past few years. The most notable innings of course was 97 in that memorable World Cup final.  The owner of the franchisee continues to be in the news for wrong reasons and latest stuff is that he was detained @ Yale airport for some unknown reasons.  Most of the players are inconsistent till date and for them to start winning, they need to be consistent and identify core players who’d come good always.  Their big signings Pathan Y, Kallis and Baaz are still to explode and the bowling depends a lot on the slower bowlers like Shakib and Balaji (4-for in one game won him a MoM).

Dhakkan Dischargers are nothing to write about and they are just hopeless after they mysteriously transferred their best players to other franchisees during the trading window – P Ojha and Kevin Pietersen the examples.  Sangakarra himself is coming off a worst test series of his career, so its futile to hope much from the beleaguered team.

Chennai Blooper Kinks are inconsistent and they almost lost their 3rd game on Thursday until Morkel had a miracle with his 28 off 7 aided by some lame decisions by Vettori, the RCB captain.  Jadeja fired in game 2, but flopped in game 3 and then came good with winning runs in game 4.  CSK are the most hated and most applauded team given they manage to attract a lot of strong emotions from the fans.  They also come around as a stubborn team who refuse to change the personnel. They have gone in all 4 games unchanged and the players like Vijay, Ashvin, Badri have played all games despite failing in every game. Sad part is that culture seems to emanate into Indian team as well when there was no change in the lineup or the batting order or bowling in Australia’s disastrous tour.  Would be very happy to see the team lose and not make even the semis or playoffs whatever they call it.

Punjab are other weakest teams going around, though they manage to beat Pune on Thursday, they don’t have a big impact player who can rise above and deliver the goods consistently.  Last season’s find Paul Valthaty is a failure this season and Gilchrist isn’t the batsman he used to be. Another contender to finish as wooden spoon winners!!

Irfan Pathan wins it through his batting!!

SRK doesn’t seem to be stopping sometime soon to be the epicenter of jokes and being ridiculed over social media for his constant endings on the wrong end.  Ra.One and Don2 were disasters on the box-office and he got bashed up quite a bit for it. Plus the slapgate with one of the failed directors and now the disastrous start to the campaign in 5th season of IPL.  He for sure won’t be in the mood to dance and hug everyone for the next win, whenever it comes.

Today was a game which KKR should have won, but Delhi had some other plans. And KKR folks had no answer to Morne Morkel’s magic. Even the resolute captain Gautam Gambhir couldn’t help the matters for the beleaguered franchisee.   4 for 31 and then 7 for 55 was a poor reading even if it was a 12 over game.  Yet they managed to reach decent 97 runs in 12 overs, which was never going to be enough with Sehwag in the other team.

But the guy is running short of confidence and is finding new ways to get out. And today it was a slower ball, he got out.  Sehwag is key man to DD’s fortunes and also in the upcoming home summer against Kiwis, Australia and of course England.

The star of the show was Irfan Pathan who came in at # 3 and took the game away from Kolkata at one stage when it seemed 35 from 20 balls and the overs were easing out pretty quickly.  3 sixes and 2 fours meant Irfan Pathan took DD to victorious line riding on his batting prowess rather than bowling. He just bowled one over and was hit for 2 boundaries in the same over.

Shahrukh Khan now needs to get back to a huddle with the team and find ways to win more games than losing and that would be the best way to remain in limelight rather than jumping like a mad in the dugout and been seen with mavericks like Didi Banerjee and ending up as  target of more Ra.One jokes.

Lose Chennai!!

I was absolutely delighted to see Chennai Blooper Kinks lose the opening game for they are ruining the Indian cricket and I'd be even more delighted to see their campaign biting the dust this season. Though I feel a bit for their skipper who is also unfortunately India skipper and Suresh Raina, the other folks who have been holding their places in Indian team just cos they play for this fucktard franchisee. 

And the most delightful scenes were those 6 balls when Sir Jadeja was hit for 16 runs. How pitiful that the idiot never learns from his mistakes and ball after ball, he gives away enough room and length to the batsman to hit him for 6s. 

What a shame CSK paid 2 million bucks for a man whose value is not even 2 paise or 2 cents....

Go Lose Chennai!!!

Nostalgia on Friday's clash!!

Friday’s game of Mumbai vs Pune would be epical in the sense:

•       World’s best ODI opening pair would confront each other – Tendulkar for Mumbai and Ganguly for Pune.
•       Mentor and disciple would walk out for toss together – Ganguly for Pune and Harbhajan for Mumbai.

And I’d so desperately want the lads who partnered at the top the BEST than any other pair in ODIs to come good to silent the critics. And this is a delightful moment to see the GOD of offside in action again, in whatever form, for whatever duration.  Doesn’t matter if the format doesn’t suit Ganguly as much as ODIs or Tests, but its still a delight to see   him in the action after being in the awe of him for 12 years starting 1996 till 2008.

IPL is back!!!

The IPL monster is back and so is the time to forget the Indian team blues off late. 8 overseas defeats and first round exits in CB series and Asia cup sound distant things. Though one thing was common with those debacles. Non-existent bowling attacks.  The bowling attack that reads 5 spinners, 3 faster ones, 2 traditional ones. All trying to spin the ball. Poor stuff. But that talk now gets pushed out for at least 55 days, we can get back to those talks in June when we gear up for another neverland trip for Test team – SL.

But for now, its IPL time. And this time with 9 teams and 76 games, 2 less than last year or more than last year, I don’t care. But a lot of things have changed since last IPL.

       Shane Warne has retired for good from cricket on the ground.
       Kochi has been terminated, the players have been scattered to different franchisees.
       MS Dhoni is no longer the midas,  this days whatever he touches, he loses. Last time this year or vice-versa he was in captaincy form of his life.  World cup win, 2 IPL titles and a bald head.  This time lets not talk about it.
       Sachin Tendulkar is no longer MI captain and he has scored 100 tons. He has refused to retire thus sending his critics to a very busy time ripping him apart.
       Symonds is gone.  No Yuvraj Singh this IPL for health reasons. God willing, he should be back soon to the field. Most urgent thing India needs this time for its cricket.
       Ganguly has been back as a captain and this time for PWI, all those drama from Sahara not withstanding.
       Dravid has retired from international cricket. And Laxman has found no takers.
       Of course the Chennai Super Kinks has grown thicker in its bunch of useless players who are just eating up Indian places and resulting in the debacle after debacle. Latest one – Jadeja. He is a 2 million dollar player and his skills are not even worth 2 cents.  What an irony!!

And of course all of that razzmatazz from the filmy pepool and the ill brigade of after parties are existent in this season too.

So we are being told this year that this is going to be the most definitive IPL season, which would decide how worth IPL is, or lets say how good the IPL has remained to be.  IPL is the punching bag that takes the hit for every Indian defeat be it in any format or for any useless debate on country vs club in any country. So it has to be seen if the TRP rating continues to be high as first 3 seasons or it takes a continuity from the 4th one last year.

IPL is going to be one of the most important tournaments for a few players in Indian mainland especially for folks like Harbhajan Singh who has to come back to the Indian team.  A good outing in this IPL would make it strong claim for the # 1 off spinner in the country.   R Ashvin isn’t the # 1, that’s proved. He comes  good against selective countries and is almost a liability on the field given his athletic skills and running.   Besides the tournament would also matter a lot for folks like Pragyan Ojha,  Rohit Sharma, Rahul Sharma and it needs to be seen if any new fast (literary meaning) bowlers emerge. And yes count Umesh Yadav too in that list please.

I sincerely wish and pray that folks like

        R Ashvin
       M Vijay
       R Jadeja
       S Badrinath
       Anniruddha Srikanth
       And of course Boss DK.

Fail miserably so that they don’t force a way back to the Indian team on the name of youth or transition or injury replacements.

IPL would do a good to the Indian cricket if it unearths some serious talent especially in fast bowling department, where we seriously need a fast bowler who can bowl pace and take wickets.  We don’t need another Vinay Kumar or Praveen Kumar or Munaf Patel or Ifran Pathan in terms of pace or Sreesanth in terms of attitude. We need somebody who is skillfull as Zaheer Khan, a 10 % capacity at this stage would suffice.

By the time I write this, the Vijay guy has been dismissed and that’s a good news for start.  And Boss DK has just fluffed something.   Harbhajan Singh hasn’t got any wickets in his 3 overs till now.

Let the tamasha begin, or that has already begun.

My support : Mumbai Indians for Sachin Tendulkar and Sahara Warriors sentimentally for Sourav Ganguly, though I dislike anything related to PUNE.