Champions Trophy Contenders (Group A)

In continuation to the previous post on India, I now try to list down the chances for all other teams in the last edition of the Champions Trophy. 

So here is the chances for every team, as I see it:

England:

They are the host of this edition and are playing in the home conditions. Obviously they will have in depth knowledge of conditions on all the venues, where the matches are being played. They have got a good ODI attack capable of exploiting the conditions in the early summer. They will  be starting as favorites, but they are heavily handicapped by the absence of their best batsman KP. 

They are also one of the few teams who will enter the trophy with lot of actual match practice besides South Africa and Pakistan. Not to forget NZ. But the way they batted today might not be good for their prospects. They have a good opening pair in Cook and Bell, but Bell has been struggling for runs for quite a while now. Their middle order reads Trott, Root. Morgan, Butler which is fairly inexperienced (Root and Butler, thanks to them).  

Their bowling attack of Finn, Broad, Anderson, Woakes is pretty strong enough to bundle out the opposition, provided the batsmen supply them the cushion of runs. As of now Finn is out injured, Broad is rested. Woakes was pretty ordinary in the first ODI today. 

If the batsmen get a good going, then England have a good chance to make it to the semis.

Australia

Australia are the defending champions for the past 2 editions and this time they come in with a new captain -- Clark in any ICC trophy.  Gone are the days of Australian domination in ODIs, not long ago they were top ODI side even through they had slide in the Tests. But off late that is not the case as well. 

Their batting looks fragile and inexperienced. They have been susceptible to swing and seam bowling. A 0-3 defeat to England in almost same time last year is an example of the fact how much they have slide in the ODI.  They have few players coming straight from a good IPL -- Watson, Faulkner and Johnson. To a lesser extent David Warner too. 

Their batting order might read : Watson, Warner, Hughes, Clarke, Bailey, Voges, Wade

The bowling attack is pretty good, but they need ample support from the batsmen who have been very fragile off late. 

They will need to have their batsmen fire every time if they want to make past the league stage.

Sri Lanka:

No chance.  They are team with 3 former captains, all past their prime, all coming in with a failed IPL. Their captain was a disaster in the IPL with captaincy and all rounder skills. So that provides them no hope. Their fast bowling resources are scarce except the Slinga Malinga.  

They have few young faces in the team followed by cushion of experience of the 3 former captains. But their record in England is not very encouraging.  The pitches are fast, swinging, seaming and the young batsmen shall be tested for the character, technique. 

The batting order might read :  Dilshan, Mahela J, Sangakarra, Chandimal, Thirrimanne, Mendis / Kusal Pareira (whatever the spelling is), Matthews, T Pareira,  Malinga, Kulasekra, Herath / Senanayake

Kulasekara and Malinga might enjoy the conditions a bit, but their spinners shall struggle. Again the success of the team shall depend on the big hitters. If they are able to score in 250+ every time, they stand a chance, otherwise its a good bye in the league stage as well.  

They might have a chance against Australia, against whom they have had an upper hand off late. 

Kiwis : 

Good bowling attack, but poor batting (till first ODI) gives them a very feeble chance, but in ICC tournaments they have often pulled over their weight. They might give a scare to the top teams in the league and again if their batsmen handle the conditions well, they might progress to the customary semi-final position as they always do. 

Semi - finalists:

England, Australia

Champions Trophy Preview : India

The last edition of the Champions Trophy is around the corner and it is in England.  In the swinging and seaming conditions, 8 top ODI teams of the world will compete in 17 day event to lift the trophy for one last time. 

Being the world champions, the expectations will be high on India, albeit the latest scandalous events back home surrounding the IPL and the BCCI chief might prove a deterrent. But it might also give the blue boys a kick in the backside to switch off the events and try winning the tournament to win back the faith and credibility from the fans. 

Last time India travelled to England, it was a sad sad story, but in ODIs, the close look at the results suggest a different picture. They lost 0-3, but all games were rain affected and they had to bat first giving England a good chance to see what they need to score to win. England did precisely that and they won.

Batting 

Most of the side from that series is unchanged minus the openers.  Dhawan and Vijay are inexperienced and less than useful pair. Nothing in comparison to the legendary opening pairs we have had in past 17 years. Temparament of both the players is a doubtful quality, moreso with Vijay.  They had a  good series vs Australia in Tests, Dhawan had a decent IPL and Vijay had horrible IPL. Especially that ugly hoick in the final. 

So if one of this 2 openers fail in 2 games in a row, then probably Rohit Sharma might be promoted to open and Karthik might play in the middle order. Dhoni confirmed the same thing. 

So probably the batting order could read:

Dhawan, Vijay, Kohli, Sharma, Dhoni, Raina

Allrounder:

The #7 spot will be another headache for India. Its England and playing 2 spinners will be costly idea. And since there is already Ashvin in place, so it might be a good idea to play Irfan Pathan over useless Jadeja. At any given time, in any conditions, Pathan is a better allrounder than Jadeja in terms of batting and fielding.

Bowling:

Pace attack seems to be better suited to the conditions. And if Pathan plays, then it will be a 4 prong pace attack with top 3 being Yadav, Ishant Sharma and Bhuvaneshwar Kumar. Especially with 2 new balls, Kumar and Pathan could prove handful. Not to mention the pace of Yadav. Ishant Sharma might be difficult to predict, which side of him will turn up, but looking at his IPL numbers, he should play ahead of Vinay Kumar. 

So the bowling attack will be

Pathan, Ashvin, Yadav, Kumar and Sharma

Weakness:

If Gautam Gambhir would have been in the team, India would have been strong favorites, but with a feeble, inexperienced and volatile opening pair, the task for guys like Kohli and Raina becomes a tad more difficult in the middle order before Dhoni can launch his attack. 

Rohit Sharma continues to be useless and unless he makes runs consistently, that opinion shall prevail. His IPL numbers dont matter.

India has played 7 ODIs this year, won 4 and lost 3.  A series win of 3-2 vs England and a loss of 1-2 vs Pakistan. That results are in India. 

India should find it easy to win against South Africa who are without their 2 best batsmen in this competition and their vice captain is fresh from an injury. If they can counter Dale Steyn and AB DeVilliers, they can make a great start to their CT campaign.

West Indies might prove to be unpredictable opponents in England, but they are more of a banana skin. If India play them cautiously then no reason why they can't beat the lowest ranked team in this competition. 

And then the biggest match in the competition. vs Pakistan.  Surely the Pakistanis are already making noises about the big game, but let them not forget this is England and they will be under extra spotlight for what they did in 2010.  So guys, focus on flying out of England without getting arrested or caught up in wrong practices as in 2010. 

Prediction :

If India can make it to the semi-final, then they have a good chance to win the trophy. They have got bowling attack to succeed in English conditions.  If the middle order can make up for the weak opening pair, India's chances are pretty good.

SRH's fancied debut in IPL

SunRisers Hyderabad are almost through to the play-offs after the comfortable win against stunned Royals. Only if RCB wins hands down against Chennai and they lose badly against KKR, they go out. Else they are very much in the play-offs. 

If RCB lose tomorrow, thats it. Sunrisers go through. If RCB win, even then SRH shall know what to do to get through. A simple win in that case would be enough, but if they lose, they need to ensure they dont loose bad to hit their NRR, which will come in picture then. 

To be a team of no good batsmen and no settled captain, a place in play-offs shall be a good debut in the IPL. They must be thankful to the bowling attack though -- Steyn, Mishra, Ishant, Thisara Pereira, their core attack.  On the batting front they have struggled, but their bowling has helped them defend even low par scores. 

Any such luxury shall be unavailable for them in the play-offs. And even they shall need to bolster the batting lineup and it shall make sense for them to bring in Sangakarra. 

Media coverage of spot fixing - IPL saga

There have been floating stories in the comments sections of some articles and on twitter that this IPL is pretty much fixed. 2 specific teams shall play the final and one of them shall win, a team that has not won IPL yet, but have won the CLT20. 

The other team that shall be in the final will be the usual culprit that always finds a place in the final no matter how badly or good they start their campaign. A team owned by 2 of the most powerful men in Indian cricket. 

PS : This are just tall claims from the IPL skeptics who have belief "See we said it the IPL is a breeding ground of all corrupt practices". 

The best thing out of this mess shall be a massive cleanup from top to bottom, clean out the dirt in Indian cricket.  And it shall be very interesting to see what comes out of the BCCI meeting on Sunday. Will they take up this opportunity to clean up the system or as usual they will dust everything under the carpet and be an ostrich. 

The media frenzy in India also suggests there are 2 more RR batsman under scanner for a game in IPL 2012.    One of them is an Australian and the other is an India batsman who was recently dropped from ODI team, but made a Test debut at # 6 after being in the team for long time. 

Of course, this stories have to be baseless, for there is a competition between the channels to gain the maximum TRP coverage out of this mess and for that they have even thrown up names like " MS Dhoni provided clean chit", "Shaun Tait name not in the suspects"  and stuff like that. 

Some media reports also suggest that the players have confessed to the wrongdoing in the police questioning. 

• This one

• NDTV

And then also at the toilet paper of India, the same reports are mentioned. 

The sources business is very dangerous in the electronic and print media, none knows how credible the sources are and what is the base of the information, on which the sources provide the news feed to the limelight hungry channels. 

The reports also conflict that Kundras might be questioned or they might not. No issues with them being questioned or not. But no such disgrace should be brought to the man of utmost integrity and honor, their captain Rahul Dravid. He must surely be under lot of distress and pressure to deal with this crap and also focus on the play-offs ahead. For sure they will be playing the eliminators after having lost to Sunrisers  today. 

This saga is far from over and surely there will be few more skeletons tumbling out of the cupboards in coming few days in immediate future.

Expect little to improve in Indian cricket even after the spot fixing scandal in light

At the time when we all thought that the IPL has evolved and finally settling in a mould where we have seen some very close finishes and some breath taking hitting in past few days, the disaster struck.  The spot fixing has raised its ugly head once again and this time the culprits are:

1. Sreesanth
2. Ajit Chandlia
3. Ankeet Chavan

The first of them is a world cup winner. For all things he might do from now on or he might have done in the past in his cricketing career, that tag of world cup winner was best he had. And not one, but 2.  He also had a reputation of one of the few pacy bowlers in Indian setup and the one who had talent to swing the match single handedly when he desired. 

But he also had lot of tantrums and idiotic acts up against his name, most famous of which was the Slapgate. But what he did in IPL-6 is nothing in front of his achievements and his idiotics.  He bloody well fixed a game of cricket in IPL-6, playing from a team captained by none other than Rahul Dravid.  Really ? Was he so short of money that it needed him to get in touch with the bookies and do spot fixing ? Didn't his team qualify for play-offs already and he would have received a share of prize money, no matter what place the team ended finally. Not to forget the contract money for playing in IPL.  Still ? And despite knowing what happened to the 5 idiots last year and to international players like Salman Butt, Asif and Mohd Amir from Pakistan ? Did he forget that this is the age of technology and nothing can go uncovered.  

Delhi police might be inept in stopping crimes against women, but they are leaders of the pack in picking up the fixing -- spot or match irrelevant.  Neeraj Kumar might have saved his job after all the flak he received from the December 16 crime and the latest one last month against a 5 year old.  But that's irrelevant here. He displayed everything he had with him as proof to show the involvement of the 3 idiots of Rajasthan Royals team, which had been romantics' favorite, given the way Rahul Dravid has led the team so far. 

Without a doubt he has been devastated. He has been the man of ultimate honor, integrity and respect. Playing under him and getting a chance to come back in the national fold was the best thing to happen to this Kerala player and he blows it all away.  Indeed he is Appam Ch*****. Even bigger than that.  He should be banned for life and not allowed to step on any cricket field. He deserves the harshest punishment that will serve as a deterrent to the players in future. 

Ankeet Chavan, I read somewhere, was leading Mumbai spinner in their 40th Ranji triumph and he was the go-to man of the bookies involved in this scandal.  Ajit Chandalia, another bigot who earned the distinction to dismiss Sachin and Ponting in a single game and also had an hattrick last year, is the 3rd in this list.  None of them should be spared. 

BCCI's reaction has been disappointing as well. And they keep ranting "zero tolerance", "everybody guilty will be punished". Biggest question they need to be asked is after all the sting of last year's IPL, how come spot fixing again happened in this year's IPL  right under its nose ? Perhaps Srini was busy scoffing at other IPL owners to pave a way for his  team to win it again this year.  He has been already termed as "most destructive figure " in world cricket after the Sivramkrishnan - FICA episode.  And there is little doubt that he will do anything to clean up this mess.   

Lalit Modi has harped on twitter about this episode and he would enjoy this no doubt whatsoever after the way he was ousted in 2010.  

Shashi Tharoor has termed Sreesanth as "pride of Kerala " and "innocent until proven guilty". Of course he will find all sorts of excuses to term Sreesanth as a martyr and gain some political mileage out of this. He is a part of the government, which is the most corrupt and inept in the history of Independent India.  So yes, this type of stereotypical statements are expected. 

The need of the hour is an extensive cleanup operation of Indian cricket, find the guilty players, deal with them very strictly, ban them for life, throw them in jail, demolish the bookie network (wishful thinking) and moreover, the most important thing, develop an educational framework for young uncapped Indian players to keep them away from corrupt practices and any luring offers from the bookies. Also help them report any such instance to the authorities without their career and position being compromised. 

Having said that, this is India. The country which strongly believes in "Chalne do" attitude. So expecting any fruitful action out of this shocking saga will be waste of time and wishful thinking.  And if only Shilpa Shetty and her husband would have kept tight leash on their players instead of jumping jhapak and dancing on every single 4 or 6 or a wicket, a lot of this embarrassment to Rahul Dravid could have been avoided.