Lord Jadeja and Sir Vinay Kumar are now Millionaires

Ravinder Jadeja and R Vinay Kumar, the two most hated Indian players, are now also most highly paid IPL players. More than Sachin Tendulkar and MS Dhoni himself. More than the likes of Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir. More than likes of Zaheer Khan and Irfan or Yousuf Pathan.

Life set for both this guys. Jadeja, as expected nabbed by MS Dhoni's CSK. Pune Warriors not taking part in auctions, serious fun for CSK.  Now he would be undroppable, immovable,  non-performing player for India. Who knows he might even make a Test debut soon.

R Vinay Kumar based on some hidden talent, which noone except Kris Srikanth and now Vijay Mallaya have seen, rode to a million dollar booty. If this big money really inspires him to put up a credible show on the field, is a million dollar question. The answer is known. NO. There is no talent, there is no variation, no pace in the guy. Yet he is amongst rich players of IPL.

There is no cricketing rationale or logic behind the high auction price for this 2 players who at the best are very ordinary and unbankable players. Yet their bank balance is all set to grow fat and fat. The patience of already frustrated fans would go more thinner and thinner to see this jokers  get chances ahead of more deserving Irfan Pathan and Umesh Yadav.  Why Umesh Yadav didnt play T20s is a mystery, but that's expected when you have Chennai Pooper Kinks boss and Brand ambassador heading Indian cricket.

Mumbai and Kings XI win

Mumbai prevailed over Bangalore yesterday with Sachin continuing his super run into this tournament as well. The best thing about his innings was he allowed Rayudu to take over and he was happy playing second fiddle. And the gesture to share the MoM award with him was even better. 

Zaheer was struggling and that was the difference between defeat and victory for Bangalore. Virat Kohli now needs to be little less innovative to find new ways to get out. 

In other game Praveen showed how dangerous he is when ball swings and how ordinary he is when ball stops moving.  Vijay and Dabri showed how good they are for IPL. Dhoni continued his superb batting run. No matter how many runs he makes now from this point, his super six off Kula would itch forever. That 6 got India the world cup.

Paul Valtathy hit a super 111 to see Kings XI home in a tough chase of 189 runs. Given the fact that CSK have been exceptional while defending scores of 180+,the effort from Kings was kingsman. They have had a brittle batting lineup, but today promoting Valtathy to opening spot was a master stroke.

CSK havent got going this tournament, but they are led by MS and thats the singlemost USP for them. As long as MS doesnt run out of the ideas, they are always in the contention to go the distance. 

Rajasthan, Pune and Mumbai are the only  teams to have won 2 games of 2. 

Virat Kohli, #7 go man

The # 7 spot in India's ODI team is up for grabs, the incumbents right now occupying the spots have not inspired any confidence. Yeah the great allrounder Ravinder Jajdeja, the spineless allrounder who cant hit, cant field and cant bowl. Enuf said.

RCB's campaign in CLT20 has thrown up a name we already know and he has in a way redeemed himself after disastrous SL tour.

Virat Kohli, my go man for # 7 spot for now.

Champions League update thus far

CLT20 is on in full flow and thats the Cricket Ka Asli Muqabla.  There are lot of new faces in the commentary boxes and thats a welcome sign. Saurav Ganguly is in the box and so are Shastri, Gavaskar -- India's finest. Good respite from the likes of Arun Lal, Shiva and company. On the flip side we also have Pommie Bangwa and Russell Arnold. The results so far are as expected.

1. Out of the 10 playing teams 3 are from India and 2 of them have won the first games emphatically when they were supposed to struggle and flaunder in this conditions. The critics forget that it was in South Africa, that India has had their best run in the ICC editions of the World Cup and World T20. A world cup final in 2003 and World T20 win in 2007. So how the teams would struggle is beyond comprehension. This point of view has been pastered on us by Sanjay Manjrekars of the world who refuse to see anything silver lining in the dooms.  Sachin Tendulkar the batsman continued his good form and that pretty much almost covered his unusual errings in the field as captain. Kumble and MSD led their respective teams to victories with ease and they should be good for the semis if they continue to play the same way they did in their first games.
2. Wayamba is as useless as Mahelangakara's character rants. They failed miserably against Warriors and a lot of  that blame has to go on Mahila who fell for a duck. I guess the major reason they failed to win was that the character juice supply was in short and a lot of that did not arrive from Lankan godowns.  Only positive point of their team was old Kulatunga and young Pareira (there are so many Pareiras playing for Lanka, its difficult to track them all) with their positive batting. The praise ends here.
3. Australian teams have had mixed bag so far. South Australia RedBacks beat Lions (SA) by 19 runs on day 2 of the tourney and Victoria, the Aussie version of Tamil Nadu lost their opening game to Warriors who look  good to go the semis route at least.
4. Windies and Kiwis teams had horrible outings in conditions that should have suited them ideally.

As of now given the form RCB, CSK, Warriors and one of RedBacks/Lions look good to go the distance to the semis.

Kumble had figures of 1/10 in 4 overs against Guyana. Harbhajan could not take a wicket in the game against Lions.  When Kumble played Harbhajan often got wickets owing to the pressure built by Kumble from the other end. Since Kumble retired, Harbhajan has struggled in Tests and that has impacted further his ODI and T20 bowling.

Kallis is continuing his good run this year in CL as well and he came good with bat and ball in the game vs Guyana. Dravid had a 33 which was solid and flair of typical Dravid in his peak in ODIs. Unfortunately he grassed a few dollies which prompted few to call for his axing and a well tracked farewell. Uncalled for.

Sachin had a good outing in first game as batsman and his other big names failed. Dumniny, Pollard, Rayudu, Sathish were miserable. Except Malinga none came good in bowling. Sachin is too good a player to repeat his captaincy mistakes in the second game tomorow.

Indian players have had a good outing so far. Unexpectedly Junior Cheeka had a 42 which should fast track his place into national colors. That there are other deserving players than him to get the India cap is another story, he has that advantage of having DAD at high position backed by Nambiarulu Srinivasan, the CSK owner and powerful BCCI sachiv.

So if he finds a place in the ODI team as a replacement for great Sobers in making RavinderSing Jaddukha, it sould not be a surprise as Cheeka would have ensured a good entry behind the door.

Dabri had a good outing again and like his Chennai friend DK he would now come into contention for every team India plays and once in he would be back to usual scoring pattern of 10s, 20s and 30s.  Its good. It keeps our community (bloggers and twitterers) busy guessing who # 6 in Tests and # 7 in ODIs would be. Not to forget that the jokes would continue too.

PS : Thanks SoulBerry for mentioning that this blog is one of the good ones for IPL and CLT20. It means a lot when this blog has more distractors than admirers. Appreciate a lot.

CLT20 : RCB Preview

AirTel CLT20 kicks off on Sep 10th in South Africa in their earlier summer and 10 teams play in the 2nd edition of the premier tournament. No England and Pakistan teams here due to clashes with the domestic season and political reasons respectively. For England's absence blame it on the lack of the FTP window for IPL and CLT20.

There are 3 teams from India, 2 each from SA and Aus, 1 each from WI, NZ and SL.

Its MI, CSK and RCB for India. Only RCB made it to the first edition in 2009 where they failed to make it to the semis.

Let me start a series of preview for the teams I know of -- 3 IPL teams.

Starting with the team I shall support : Royal Challengers Bangalore. Just bcos its led by legendary Anil Kumble.

The squad of 15 is :

Anil Kumble, Rahul Dravid, Robin Uthappa, Manish Pandey, Praveen Kumar, R Vinay Kumar, Virat Kohli, Cameron White, Ross Taylor, Dale Steyn, Jacques Kallis, Dillon du Preez, B Akhil, Abhimanyu Mithun, Nayan Doshi.

There are foreign players in Cameron White, Ross Taylor, Dale Steyn, Kallis, Preez. No Boucher. Kallis, Taylor, White were eligible for playing their home teams too, but RCB has eased out its wallet to retain this key players.

I presume CLT20 also allows IPL teams to play 4 foreign players and in that case the RCB has 5 foreign players to chose from. Not sure about du Preez who he is and what his credentials are. This could be the starting XI for RCB in their first game:

*
Kallis
*
Pandey
*
Uthappa
*
Taylor
*
Kohli
*
Dravid
*
White
*
Praveen
*
Steyn
*
Kumble
*
Vinay Kumar / Mithun

White and Kumble would be the spinners. Kallis, Steyn, Praveen and one of Vinay and Mithun would be the pacers. Having Steyn and Kallis in the team and playing in the home conditions actually helps RCB.

Prediction : I'd assume RCB would make it to the semis given the golden run they had in SA conditions in 2009 IPL.

They are in group B ranked 4th with Mumbai Indians as top rank team.

The other teams are Guyana (WI), MI (India), South Australia (Australia), Lions (SA).

What IPL scandal means to the end user

The IPL has taken a huge blow in its credibility and the trustworthiness.  There are some murkier details coming out every hour in the media, many of which could be true or many of them just could be the word in the mouth in the media.  This is a huge story for the publicity hungry media and they are leaving no stone unturned in the coverage of the IPL scandal.   The scandal claimed Shashi Tharoor and now it threatens to claim Lalit Modi too. There have been reports of betting and match fixing in the Times of India where in its being said that Modi is the face behind it. It also mentions that Modi has few of his friends and family members invested in the 3 franchisees and the company that hosts the mobile rights for the tournament.

The government is also behind the BCCI and IPL for the so called tax evasion and there have been noises from the political leaders to overtake the cricket administration and ban the IPL.   

There have been already some noises made in the Australian, English and Kiwi player associations over the blasts in Bangalore and there are many who dislike Modi. This controversy is a god gift to those entities who allege that BCCI is the root of all evils in the subcontinent.

What beckons for the end user who watches cricket in any form and format ? Will he be turned off from the iPL as it did from cricket in 2000 match fixing scandal ? Or would it wait for the dirt to settle out and then come back to the IPL with zeal same as last 3 seasons. A lot of it depends on how things turn up in next few days. The build up to the World T20, more significant than the IPL , is not very ideal for Indian team.  Its not playing any warmup game in the carribean. The same place where it lost 2007 world cup.

I would not bother much about the iPL right now since this version is almost at the end and anyways I am not a big fan of intrusion of Bollywood and other irritating factors in the good ol game of cricket. If the ongoing investigation gets to the root of the evil and cleanses the entire system thus shunting out the objectionable stakeholders, then the IPL-4 could be a new beginning for the BCCI and it could go well in the history of the board that would mark the start of much needed transparency and accountability in the system.

The answer  to this well could be the ouster of Lalit Modi and Shashank Manohar taking over his place. 

Improper balance of money and performance in IPL

Poor fielding, insipid captaincy, alleged rude behavior from Australian coach, Lankan camp in dressing room and lastly rift between 3 of the bigger players of the franchisee has led to yet another Bollywood team bite the dust in IPL.

Last season it was SRK's KKR and this time its Zinta babes KXIP who's left no tide unturned to make a mockery of themselves. 

Till there are coward owners like Ness Wadia who reportedly ran to BCCI's arms when Yuvraj contemplated moving to grandfather led team, the team cannot be expected to make tough decisions.

Whats the use of retaining a player who is not interested in playing from a franchisee ? Just money ? If so then no player would have contemplated moving to other team. 

This corporate and Bollywood bigots hardly know a thing or 2 about the game, all they know is money and returns. If they had knowledge of the game then the likes of Uthappa, Ishant Sharma, Sreesanth, Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina and Praveen Kumar could not have been that pricey that they are.  Add RP Singh to that list for this season as well.

Anil Kumble is not even an iconic player for RCB and their iconic player has little to do this tournament, yet the man is more successful than all of this so called young new bright stars of Indian cricket.  The likes of Sachin Tendulkar and Saurav Ganguly are top scorers of IPL from country edging past the likes of MS, Yuvraj, Raina and Sharma who plays(ed) well only in IPL.

So whats their price tag all about ?  Performance or hype?  Sangakara is worth 675000 $, he has not even made 675 runs in 3 seasons included. Ditto for Mahela Loserawardhene. This lads are very good speakers, show a lot of sophasticated vocab when they speak, but when it comes to execute they show a forlorn face. 

The owners of the franchisees would need to evaluate the player potential before bidding for them in wild amounts. Kemar Roach, Andrew Flintoff, Mortaza, KP, Keiron Pollard and Shane Bond's performances have shown that they are not worth the price tag they have got. Murtaza was signed for 650000 $ but he has not even turned up to play a single game for KKR......

Seeing the mad money IPL generates there would be more such cases of splashing money on players who play one bright knock of 10 innings and then encash on that for the rest of the careers. Now if today Rohit Sharma does not get selected for a Test or ODi team for India would he care ? 3 seasons of IPL would have given him good enuf money to move from Borivali to Colaba or Nariman Point and own a posh flat over there.....

Punjab disgrace again!!

What was Bisla thinking when he scooped Kumble ?

Or When Sangakara gave up gloves to be as a fielder and ground a skier to kick it with his legs for a four, I m sure with this kind of pyrotechniques we would not see Sanga again in IPL next season ownwards.

7 defeats out of 8....What a captaincy by Sangakara.

RCB now jump back to the 2nd spot and almost seal the semi final place.

Its now between Deccan, Rajasthan and Kolkata to fight out for the possible 4th spot in the semis soon. And today's game is crucial for Deccan as they take on rampant Mumbai Indians.

Semis race hots up!!

With Delhi beating Rajasthan and Chennai beating Bangalore, the race for semi final spots has hotted up again. If that was not all yesterday Ganguly smashed his best T20 innings and won a game for Knight Riders to bring them on 5th spot. 

Mumbai and Delhi are almost there. Today Blore would step one inch closer to the semis spot by humbling Woodanga's team.

Watch out for Yuvraj Singh who is now hurt at the media reports over his insipid IPL performance this year which is actually good for India, he would fire in World T20.

Dhoni has a weak time at his disposal and he cannot always rely on Vijay or Callypso to bail his team out. If Dhoni would want to play good innings then Callypso would run into him and run him out. In this process he might earn captaincy of his home city IPL team......

For now its going to be Kumble's day today who would edge out speaking poker from Lanka who is posing himself as a Punjabi!!!!

KKR lose one and RCB win one

KKR were brought down in a game against Chennai Super Kings a match in which Dhoni dominated right from the 15th to the final ball of the 20th over. 

33 ball 66 ensured that CSK posted 165 runs and quick wickets of the heroes of the 2nd KKR game ensured that the CSK were never in the chase. 

In the end they tasted their first defeat of the season and leaving  the skipper Ganguly much to be desired. He looked out of sorts , something which would baffle his old time followers like me.

In the other game veteran Kallis showed he is a T20 pro too with his best IPL score of 89* with the help from Manish Pandey and Robin Uthappam.

RCB ensured that they win their first game of the season and dent the hopes of KXIP who have now lost 2 games under the inspirational captaincy of pig faced poker.

Sangakara, what a change he has brought in the team. Despite scoring 200 in the game and the other team which never crossed 200 in its 30 odd games chased it out with 7 balls to spare.......

Sangakara truly is a genius and hero of men.

And the other flip side of their campaign is that Yuvraj Singh is seemingly looking out of sorts. May be loss of captaincy to a fake Punjabi would have made a curd out of his mind.

Predictions for IPL day 5

Today's predictions :

CSK vs KKR : KKR

KXIP vs RCB : RCB

The legends of Indian cricket would prevail over a team led by a poker and MSD.

Bash India

All this years since Jaggu revolutionized cricket finances the world (read western) dreaded India as evil force and BCCI as masked daemon.

In short "Gangotri" of all evils.

When ICL came and IPL took T20 revolution a step further, the same forces got more vociferous in Indian bashing.

Now that India has won T20 World Cup, been # 1 in ODIs for a while and now are number 1 in Tests, the same forces crib on high runathons, results oriented picthes (2 of 3 Tests in India this year yielded results) and freelancings inspired from cash rich T20 leagues.

Who is the freelancer ? Any Indian ? Nope, the English man. The very English who have been the custodians of the game all this years.

Who is the highest paid cricketer in IPL ? Ten ? Viru  ? MS ? Nope. The same freelancer and his friend whose alter ego costed him the captaincy of the national side and IPL team almost out of the tourney before a desi took over and almost won the IPL.

Any Indian who defected to ICL from international cricket ? Nobody.

Any Indian who cries foul on UDRS ?

Any Indian who pointed fingers to the umps to raise the fingers to win 17th test in row thus killing the spirits of the game ? Nobody.

And yet anything Indian is filth.

PS : Inspired from SP's post "Growing racism". Just could not hold back.

RCB through to Eights.

Alrighty. The Challengers are through to the next round. The so called pathetic Indian iPL teams went through. The flat track bullies of Uthappa and Kohli along with super Kallis and peerless Bumjo (AK) powered RCB to 2nd round albeit with no points.

2 Indian IPL teams now in Super 8. One Aussie.

Tomorrow one more Aussie team would be in the Super 8s. SL and NZ would end their campaign soon.

Character kings would have got some experience in India, so lets see how they play in their upcoming tour to this country.

Uthappa should find his way back to the team in Blue to play his original scoop shot which was hijacked by Dilly Billy.

Great stuff. Robin should play now in place of Yusuf Pathan in the ODIs and prolly in T20s too. Its just 6 months for the T20 WC and for India to regain their title. :P

Bangalore take on Cobras

Anil Kumble swings back into action today in CLT20. I fancy him to win the title which he could not in the IPL.

And he plays in his own home town, own home ground. One more time after 2008 when he last played Test against Australia and went wicketless.

Get in Anil, would be a pleasure watchin ya again. After all habits of 19 years dont go away in a year or so.

My money for CLT20...

Champions League...

4 days to go.

My money on :

1) Delhi Daredevils : Good platform for VS to get back to the form before the Aussie series. And then further demolition of Mendis and Murali in the series.

2) Royal Challengers, Bangalore : For historical reasons : Seeing Anil lead once more, if he plays. He fell short last time in IPL-2, perhaps playing in home crowd would motivate him to win the T20 award too.

Besides I dont have much info on the foren teams, but I have learnt that one of the teams has 11 international players and many players are from other IPL teams in that foren team. Notably one from KKR, one from Kings XI Punjab. Most prolly he was pissed off on not to have received Preity's hugs.

Another player supposed to play for that foren team is playing now for Delhi Daredevils, the same man who invented the ice cream Dilscoop shot. By the way he winning the T20 award of the ICC has sent angry signs in Boom Boom's country.

Dilli would be expected to repeat the heroics of World T20 for Gambhir;s team too. And if he does that the top 3 of DD would read a dangerous look. VS, GG and TD.

Mr Final

2003 World Cup Final

Opponents : India

Gilchrist fires Australia to a great start. A quickfire 66.  Australia scores 2/359. Indian dream crashed.

2007 World Cup Final

Opponents : Sri Lanka

Gilchrist with squash ball in his gloves fires the highest score(140 odd) in a world cup final. Australia win the world cup. Lankan dream crashed.

1999 World Cup final 

Opponents : Pakistan

Gilchrist gets off to a quick start in pursuit of 133 to win the world cup. Pakistani dream crashed. Australia win the world cup.

2009 IPL - 2 Final

Opponents : royal challengers bangalore

Though the importance and scope of this tournament final isnt as grand and wide as  the 3 world cup finals, the man remains same.  Whats he going to do today? Mr Final.

RCB favorites for the finals.

Royal Challengers have been the unlikliest of the entrants in the finals. And theirs has been the cindrella story. Languishing at the bottom of the table in the mid way stage, they have scripted a turnaround in their fortunes. Won 7 out of 9 games. Moved apart the hyped teams, hyped cities and hyped players. The team did basics right, the openers got runs, the middle order fired at times. Bowling clicked and moreover the captain had a great attitude. He didnt have to prove it to anybody his capacity or his mentle.

Manish Pandey, Ross Taylor, Jacques Kallis, Mark Boucher, Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble have been the stars for RCB. Ross Taylor's innings against KKR(most prolly) turned around the things.

They stand favorites today for the title. and if they win, its just going to be another feather in the cap of Anil Kumble, the fighter and hard spirited cricketer we know. The one whose attitude was the best in the team alongside his batting great peers.

Go RCB.....Purely for delight RD, AK bring watching them.

Manish Pandey

Manish Pandey, you beauty.

Mumbai Indians' loss is RCB gain, the dude played for MUMBAI last season. Today he scores first hundred of IPL-2 (correct me if i m wrong).

Brilliant innings.

The likes of Rahane, Nayar, Takle and Raje Gaje should learn from this lad. Same age group, talent, but the difference in application.

This inning could almost see RCB to the semi final.

Bye Bye Preity. Bye Bye Sreesanth. Cmon Bombay blogger, blog about Pandey....

Semi-finalists and Rameez's commentary

Delhi and Chennai are almost there. Kolkata and Mumbai are nowhere. Rajasthan are on brink. Punjab are inconsistent much contrary to their fighting nature. Deccans are new South Africans in South Africa -- chokers. Bangalore are dark horses despite Kumble and Dravid are fair players and are no horses.

Saurav Ganguly has seen it all, done it all. Can he do it today ?

A shievering Shiva is down there for us.

A stammering Rameez is sucking us.

MS Dhoni, Mr Kewl. Yeah yeah the same man who beat somebody 4-1 and 3-2 in last 2 ODI series :)

Sorry for off the topic. Rameez 's verbal potshots. Sounding almost similar to Mbangwa. Huge time, big time, big time, huge time. Mbangwa style.

So the semis are eye wide open. Delhi vs CSK is tempting proposition for final. Batting might of CSK and misfiring Viru and Gauti. Question is who are going to be other 2 ?

1) Rajasthan are 13. If they win against KKR they go 15. Still no guarantee.

2) Deccan Chargers are 14 with positive NRR. 1 game left to play RBC on last day of league games. One win and they are 16. If they lose, they are on brink as well.

3) KXIP have a game against CSK, their final game after today. I fancy CSK. KXIP should win a game to be in race. If they lose they go out.

4) RCB, they have 2 games left. Must win both to get through. DD and DC. Can fancy beating DC. DD are beatable too. I believe they could make it. If RCB win both games they go in. DC depend then on Royals result against KKR, which they should win.

So my pick:

DD
CSK
RR
RCB

Rameez, you are now stinking. Ganguly, subcontinent player finds tough to go in SA, eyes blinking, trying to concentrate on job. He s got lot of nervous energy Siva.

My ass Kameez, did you even know Ganguly's record in SA ? 2003 success in world cup, 2006 Test series, 2001 tri series. Go check the record mate.

McCullum seems in good nick in chasing 189. Ganguly stuggling and Rameez stinking. Rameez Kameez go away.

RCB hold breath to win making tourney wide open!!

Whadda match we had. IPL thrown open again. RCB to number 4. Batting collapses, but they kept their cool and finally Taylor heroics see them through. Whosoever wins the next game, would be 4th and RCB would be 5th. They would keep the top 4 on edge and so would the intensity of IPL remain strong.

In a match where batsmen seemed to be in a rush to run to dug out, the Bangalore batsmen kept their cool and Anil Kumble who led the team so well in the earlier part was a happy man. Peerless Kumble.

Heart goes to MS. Fielding just doesnt get better, though the catches dropping reduced, the ground fielding remained poor especially last ball when Balaji ran the opposite way of the ball.

MS was innovative, he didnt give up and he led from the front. And finally in 129 runs, 63 from Hayden were crucial. What a form he is being in. Superb player.

Can I get rid of Pommie Mbangwa? He speaks as if somebody is keeping a gun over his neck and saying "shoot the shit". Following people suck :

1) Fernando as ever
2) Danny Morrison
3) Pommie Mbangwa and to an extent
4) Robin Jackman

MS is candid as ever. India is superbly safe in his captaincy. No captain can be as candid as he is. Way to go dude.