SST should not have been sent to Zim tour

Its being argued that Saurabh Tiwary should have been sent to Zimbabwe tour. I dont think so that was a wise move.  Naman Ojha was sent to that tour too and he did not play until the last game of the series which was anyway inconsequential for India's fortunes. He made just 1 and was removed from the team to Asia Cup. He did not get his chances. M Vijay played 3 of 4 games and he would still play the T20Is to follow.

If SST was sent to Zimbabwe he would not have got a chance ahead of greats Dinesh Karthik and MVijay and he would have been dumped just the way Naman Ojha is dumped without adequate opportunities to prove himself.

Its a strange irony if you dont hail from chief chef's state then you get dropped for one failure and if you do then you keep coming in every time like Dinesh Karthik does. And if captain believes in you more than required then too you are untouchable (as in from being dropped). Jadeja is an epitome to that.

Hypocrite Mr Srikanth and his bunch of jokers.  Have same yardstick for everyone to judge the performance even if the player is not from the high profile cricketing states of MP or Jharkhand or from states which does not send temparamental selection heads to the top. 

Naman Ojha gets stronger

The case for Naman Ojha just got stronger today over Dinesh Karthik for him to be in the team for ODIs or T20s.

A strong case for Naman Ojha

Naman Ojha is a guy from an ordinary town of MP. MP in 90s was a strong Ranji team under Sandip Patil and then Chandu Pandit. In 2000s the team lost its strength and now lies in the plate league. So weak that even Himachal beats it in the Ranji league.

One season Hrishikesh Kanetkar, the Dhaaka bounary guy captained MP and it was thought that it would lead to some change of fortunes for the team, alas that was wrong. Narendra Hirwani, the guy who took 16 Windies wkts in only Test Shastri captained for India in 1987-88 is the most famous Test cricketer of the state in modern era.

Not to forget that the city of Indore gave India its first Test skipper in CK Nayadu in 1932 tour of England and since then till the Independence the Holkars had a strong team that often posed challenge to Mumbai team (then Bombay).....

So Ojha has shone in this IPL and has played 2 blistering innings. He is a wicketkeeper and can be a very good backup to MSD....Only if he is strongly represented by Hirwani and Srikanth, the Tamilian croon who pushes a TN player in national side out of nowhere listenes.

He is far better than Dinesh Karthik, a lot is being written on him on this blog.  However this blog is not optimistic that Ojha would get a decent chance at the top just like the other players from MP have got. Khurasiya, Hirwani and Rajesh Chauhan are the only players in last 20 years to play for India from MP....Agreed the talent was not there, but then the likes of R Sharma and Dinesh Karthik have been given longer run than they deserved. Then why not Ojha ?

Royals score a royal victory

Whoa, whata win. Royals are truly back and how. Highest score of the tourney. And who scored the max. Smithie and naman Ojha. Yipee. He is my hometown guy. He has come big. Way to go Ojha bhiya :). the city would be happier tomorrow. Celebrations have begun back home and the media frenzy would be soon reaching ur place......

5 sixes. The opening partnership was the key and boy they scored the max in the tourney. Smith fired the way we know him. And then jadeja celebrated the inclusion in the team with a 12 ball 33. For KXP nobody except Yuvraj fired and thats where the team lost. No biggie from SL fired, no Katto, nobody fired.

Warnie continued his magic. And who is A Singh. 3 for 9 in 4. Awesome!! Royals go to # 2 with this win and the IPL looks like last year with last year finalists occupying top 2 spots. However if DD win their game against disgraceful KKR, they go on the top with 10 points in 7 games. No Veeru and Vettos today.