MSD the Batsman saves the day for MSD the ODI captain

Dhoni, the captain was saved today by Dhoni, the ODI batsman. And he is a master class in ODIs batting.  Ice cool, soaks up the pressure, doesn't allow the things going around him affect him, doesn't even allow unreasonable plays from Ashvin and Jadeja batting around him. 

And today he has won India a game through his batting after long time, probably first time after that historical and forever cliched in memory the World Cup winning six. But probably it doesn't take away the question marks around his selection of the playing XI. 

Continued inclusion of Jadeja at 7 and rotation of openers is haunting the team even though it has been winning the last 2 games. But those games have been won too late and in first place they should not have gone this far after the knocks from Delhi lads. But Raina and Sharma have not been able to convert their starts to big ones. And probably once the tournament progresses and if this lads are not able to make big scores, then one of this lads will have to be dropped to accommodate all 3 openers

The bowling attack too looks predictable. Zaheer and Umesh have been top class, but the rest have struggled. Ashvin is inconsistent, Vinay Kumar ditto. And less said about Jadeja, the better. He just has nothing to prove that he deserves this prolonged run in the team. He has played 52 games and till today he has been on the mercy of captain, chief selector and BCCI chief to intervene and book #7 spot for him. He cant hit, he cant run, he cant bowl. Just fielding is decent asset for him. Gives long hop, gives away too many 6 hitting deliveries, no variations, no spin, short dolleys -- thats all he has got. 

And its futile to expect Irfan Pathan or his brother to comeback to the team soon. Any day he is better bowler than Vinay Kumar and Ravinder Jadeja. He is a good fielder and a good batsman too. Not to forget he was often promoted to # 3 spot in ODIs and Tests too and he has scored 50s and 1 Test 100 as well. He might not have pace, but he does have a lot of variations, lot more than Jadeja and for that matter he makes an ideal # 7 player. So that would give an option to play 2 spinners to MSD on a turning track.

But who is going to explain this to the team management ? 

It is correct to say in today's context :" Sachin Tendulkar was dropped / rested to accomodate Ravinder Jadeja". 

The team selection has been a laughing stock all over this tour and its the likes of Ravinder Jadeja and Vinay Kumar who are in the team based on external entities influence and not on basis of their performance. Guess if this was possible in the era of Sourav Ganguly, when there were no freebies places offered to players who didnt perform and it was the magic of Ganguly that converted then considered ordinary players to genuine match winners. 

Sehwag's return to the form

Sehwag showed return to the form glimpses and that rubbed off the Delhi Daredevils to post 3rd highest IPL score. KXIP chased it spiritedly but in the end fell short by 29 runs.  Valtathy failed and Marsh's efforts were in vain as none other batsmen except Gilchrist stepped up to the occasion. 

Agarkar, Irfan Pathan and Piyush Chawla have represented India at some point or the other and they all struggled today. So did Praveen Kumar.  Irfan Pathan did show some minuscule swing into the right hander in first few overs but the pace was too slow to have an impact on the batsmen.

Its a pain to watch Irfan Pathan in this avatar. Struggling for runs, struggling for pace, leaking runs. He has been one of the Dada's devils who had a great start to his career but thanks to Greg Chappell, he faded away in last 5 years or so. 

He took Pathan to so many so called experts that later was confused whom to abide.

Resultant he has not played for India in more than 2 years. 

Delhi prepared a green track for this game, though it didnt help its seam heavy attack, it helped its batsmen to post a formidable total.

They would want to continue to perform on the similar lines to ensure that they end up in the final 4 once again. They have the team to do it. Only thing they need to do is  fire collectively.

IPL 4 : KKR Preview

KKR are new and rejuvenated this time. They have changed almost entirely.

But the biggest downer is they dont have the icon of the city. Their best player ever. Their icon, their pride and India's greatest captain ever. Saurav Ganguly doesnt play IPL anymore, so its bit difficult to imaging KKR getting support they have got in Eden all this years.

They've got Gautam Gambhir as their skipper, the man of the finals who snatched WORLD CUP from Lankans so much reeling them that the Lankan fans are crying that government fixed the match to win Indian support. Funny.

But Lankans aint the targets here, the focus here is on KKR.

KKR has been amongst all sorts of controversy in previous 3 IPLs. They got off to a best possible start when Baz bazzed 158 runs in the IPL opener and then it was further downhill for them. Captaincy controversy happened, FIP happened and then they dumped Ganguly.

All said and done, the owners have made an attempt to begin afresh and in that they have got some big names.

Here is the preview:

Captain : Gautam Gambhir

He led DD in IPL and half in past 2 years. They ended losers last year and semis in 2009.  This time he is here for KKR and is the most expensive ever buy. He has a 100% captaincy record for India in ODIs. How shall he fare for KKR, depends to be seen.

Indian players

Gambhir, Balaji, Fuddi Pathan (Former Yusuf), Bhatia, Goswami, Iqbal Abdullah, Sangwan, Undkat, Sami Ahmed etc etc, Ladda, Bisla

Foreign Players

Haddin, Eoin Morgan, Kallis, Ryan Ten Doscheate, Pattinson, Shakib, Bret Lee

Foreign players look impressive. But Indians do not.

Gambhir, Morgan, Fuddi, Kallis, Lee and Haddin shall be the key players. 

Team Composition:

Openers

1. Gambhir and Haddin shall open the batting and Haddin shall also keep the wickets.

Middle Order:

Kallis, Morgan, Fuddi , Bhatia,  Doscheate shall play depending upon the opposition and they would need to pick their foren players well.

Bowling :

No Ishant, Ajantha Bow Wow Mendis,  Shoaib Akhtar this time around. No Dinda too.

Lee would be a sure starter if fit. So shall be Undkat.  Sangwan from DD, is at best a medium pacer.

Shakib, Pathan would be the spinners. And Kallis bhai as allrounder.

Again the foren players are too good, but the Indian stocks barring Gambhir and to an extent Fuddi Pathan aint that great. So a balanced mixup of this 2 factors and how the XI is formed shall decide how far KKR has to go this time.

John Wright

In the run up to the World Cup 2011, the Kiwis had chance to play in all 3 host countries. SL in Aug, BD in Oct and India in Dec. 

They fared poorly here. 1 victory in 11 games means a below below par run up to the world cup. None gave the chance to the team in this world cup. And when they lost to Aus and SL those critics were vindicated. And for much part of the game against SA, those critics wrote off Kiwis. 

But they turned around in this world cup. They have reached semis and just a win away from being in the finals for the first time. Only a small matter of thumping Lankan mongrels and cheats. 

Everybody's talking about Jacob Oram, Danny, Jesse, Nathan McCullum, but spare a thought for the man who is responsible for all this. The man who has known the Indian conditions for 5 years, the man who knows what it takes to succeed as coach. The man who kick started the Indian ascendancy to the top good 10 years back. The man who alongside Saurav Ganguly changed the mindset, attitude of cricket in the country. The man who coached the team through some memorable away, home wins in Tests and ODIs.

That humble man is doing his job without any spotlight, staying in the background, quiet and almost unnoticed. 

Take a bow gentlemen for John Wright. He is a master coach behind this super thumping of Saffers in quarters by Kiwis.

We would feel sorry for Sangakara after this world cup is over

I just digged out the archives of 2007 world cup and was pained to see 2 defeats to BD and SL that knocked the steam out of the Indian campaign and that ended the world cup campaign of Ganguly, Dravid and Kumble. 17 March and 23 March were painful days in India's world cup history. 

13 March 1996 is one such painful day in the history where SL rolled through final at India's expense in Eden Gardens.

And then there was this article from ever fucktard Kumar Sangakara

"India at home and India overseas are two different teams.

To be honest, though, I feel sorry for India's cricketers. They'll now face a torrent of criticism and abuse in the coming weeks. Fanatical fans will no doubt be burning effigies as I write. The huge expectation places their players under enormous pressure. And when that expectation is raised a degree or two, it can easily have a crippling effect."

In Sri Lanka, the general public seem to have a more easy-going perspective. Yes, most Sri Lankans are passionate about sport, especially cricket, but we also seem to understand that sport is sport. I am not sure whether that more balanced attitude is the product of two decades of civil war, or merely reflects the more happy-go-lucky style of an island nation. The attitude of our fans makes it easier for us. Yes, we still get our fair share of criticism. There can be mud-slinging in the media too. But our houses are not stoned when we lose and we can still walk down the street without fearing for our safety. I am grateful for this and really don't envy the situation of India and Pakistan's top cricketers.

This is right time to ensure Sangakara and his men are steamrolled in this world cup ruthlessly and also to ensure he is never able to speak such a crap again. We would then need to feel pity for Sri Lankan cricketers. Yeah they are easy going people who killed their own countrymen who spoke Tamil for 20+ years and were subjected to inhuman war crimes in the war zone over past few years. Something that never happened in India or even in Pakistan.

Its time India or some other team beat SL huge so that none of their overrated players are able to write articles full of venom like this. Once they lose, the normal fans of SL who are no more than waterboys in the world cricket would come out and stone the houses of idiots like Sangakara. Fucker!!!!

Losers invite winning auction prices in IPL

Dinesh Karthik and Ravinder Jadeja are greater players than Saurav Ganguly, Brian Lara, VVS Laxman, Rahul  Dravid and even Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh. 

Well this is  not what the fans think, but the franchisees think highly of the greats like Boss DK and Jadeja sir who have fetched $800000 and $900000 for themselves. 

And based on what is something nobody knows. One of them does not score more than 20 or 30 in a game out of 5 or 6. The other one was suspended for entire 3rd season of IPL and was dropped recently from the national squad after failing to turn out to be modern day Gary Sobers!!!!

Take a bow guys to King Jadeja and King Karthik!!!!

All time XI greats for India

Cricinfo has published its all time XI greats for India. Here's the XI :

1. Gavaskar
2. Sehwag
3. Dravid
4. Tendulkar
5. Hazare
6. Mankad
7. Dhoni
8. Dev
9. Sri
10. Kumble
11. Prasanna

Well the top 4 are perfectly fine. No dispute on that.

No 5 and no 6 are problem.

No VVS Laxman in there? Cant imagine the guy who played one of the greatest Test innings ever is not in the all time great list.

How many times Hazare played? And over how many years? Against how many countries and in what conditions ? Agreed he was one of very early Indian cricketers and cricketers across ages are absurd to be compared.

Still when this excersise is being done, then you gotta take consideration of number of Tests played, against whom, the quality of opposition and the time span.

Sanjay Manjrekar had a comment on Javagal Srinath's inclusion in the list. Why ? He certainly was a very good fast bowler given the era he came in. Had injuries not backed him a bit, then he would have had played more tests than he actually did. He got wickets in placid Indian conditions. His two spells of 6-21 and a 8-for in Calcutta vs Pakistan were splendid spells of bowling in Indian conditions.

Perhaps Sanjay was pissed why he and his father were not included who at best played with defensive mindset to draw the games.

I think in place of Hazare VVS Laxman should have made the cut and in place of Mankad it should have been either Ganguly as left hander or if an allrounder was needed it should have been Jimmy Amarnath for his sheer ability to stand up against Windies pacers of 70s and 80s.

Spin attack is already strong with Kumble and Pras to take care of, only thing this team lacks is seam bowlers and in foreign conditions they need 3rd seamer which could easily be taken care by Jimmy Amarnath.

Pity that Suresh Menon did all the writing for the all time XI for India.

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.

Aftermath

India’s fourth or fifth string team lost to the enthusiastic and committed Zimbabwe second time in a week. How pathetic it is. Who owns up this defeat ? Skipper Raina, coach Kirsten or selector head clown Srikanth?  It was pathetic to see that there was no intent or will to score runs from the openers. What was Murali Vijay thinking ? He is a star ? IPL is long time over kid. If you cant play against Zimbabwe, there is a little chance you could play against anybody else.  56 ball 21 in PowerPlay overs with no boundaries whatsoever. Ditto for his Tamil Nadu skipper Dinesh Karthik, who by far should have been dumped in the dustbin of Marina Beach or Golden Beach in Chennai for his hyped talent, zero on delivery.

What happened to Amit Mishra who got a 5-for on his Test debut substituting for Anil Kumble and fast tracking his retirement?  Why do our spinners fail to take wickets in ODIs and T20s whereas little known spinners of lesser countries are rich in wickets. Pragyan Ojha, another big IPL name, purple cap holder of IPL-3. He ended up with one wicket. Why ? Did he forget spinning the ball ? Or did he think playing a game or 2 for India is good enough ?

Ashok Dinda, poor fiery chap from Bengal, wrote highly by Sourav was other failure. His off cutters and Yorkers were safely negotiated, half volleys were spanked to boundaries by young Zimbabwe kids.  Umesh Yadav bowled only 4 overs.  Yusuf Pathan was never in sight bowling with his fire in his eyes.  He had chance to score runs on a flat track, which he always does in IPL, he gave away the chance.  Rohit, Raina fell to sharp fielding from Zimbabwean kids.  Jadeja was selfish enough to complete a 50 and fall.

Did not he think to accelerate or at least try for it? He was contend taking singles and rotating strike in 45-50 overs when India scored just 18 runs.

This team is pathetic. If they are called future stars, then lets stop watching cricket for good. Once the greats are retired from Tests and this lesser souls take over, we would be soon languishing in the lower bottom half of the Test rankings. But wait are they even good to play for India again ?

Dinesh Karthik, Murali Vijay,  Yusuf Pathan, Ravinder Jadeja should never play for India again unless they prove hard in the domestic cricket that they belong and not just IPL.  

The flat track bullies of Chepauk, Mr Vijay forgot that he is playing ODI and not a first class game.  He plays  faster than this in 4 tests that he has played for India and he had given impression that he is gutsy enough to play for India long time in Tests. Now that impression stands dusted. Not so long ago he was thought of future # 3 in Tests, a big spot held for 14 years by Rahul Dravid.

Unfortunately this kids don’t have work ethic, their seniors have.  Easy money from IPL, fast tracked selection by ex cricketers from their zone makes them believe that they have arrived on the international scene and hence they fail to do whatever it takes to succeed on the highest level.

Just need to illustrate the case of 3 Best ODI players India ever produced.

Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly.

Success did not come to this lads instantly. Sachin took 78 games and 6 years for his first ODI 100 and thereafter no looking back. 45 hundreds more he scored in 16 years.  He had the promise, he showed it, he delivered it in his younger days. Remember the tour of 1991 to Australia, when bigger Test players (then) than him flopped, the guy scored 2 sublime 100s in Perth and Sydney.

Rahul Dravid, considered by many a misfit ODI batsman (even today) got off to a disastrous start to his ODI career in Singapore and Sharjah tournaments just after 1996 world cup, till 1999 world cup when he emerged as top run getter, his place was never fixed.

When Yuvraj Singh and Mohd Kaif along side Virender Sehwag arrived in early 2000s, Dravid was once again questioned if he belonged to the ODI arena. He remodeled his game from a # 3 to a # 5 or # 6 player as finisher and scored countless innings to win games for India. His partnerships with Yuvraj and Kaif are epitome to the fact.

Ganguly had a disastrous ODI debut in 1991 down under and for 5 years he did not play another game until one day he was selected in Test team to England post 1996 World Cup. The success story thereafter is known to everybody, how he evolved from a “quota selection” to become India’s best captain ever in the formats that matter.

Story of Virender Sehwag could be inspirational too. Dropped after disastrous ODI debut in 1999 and back in the team for Tests in 2001 and then dropped again in 2006-07 and bouncing back in 2008 Adelaide Test could be benchmark for this so called young kids of the Indian cricket team.  They ought to remember that T20s and IPL is not the only thing they need to play well in. Who remembers Swapnil Asnodkar and Kamran Khan now who shone in 2008 and 2009 editions? Do they even play first class cricket and get noticed? Nope, not at all.

Anil Kumble was mocked by Kapil Dev in 1990 England tour when he debuted. For next 2 years he did not play a Test until 1992 when he made a comeback to grab 6/59 in Wanderers Test in SA. And post 1993 he changed the story of Indian spin.

Can Pragyan Ojha and Amit Mishra, known for aggressive send-offs and fire in the bellies learn from the senior pro on how to take wickets and then show the aggression? Take wickets and then do whatever, all is forgiven and forgotten.

Heads would need to roll for this pathetic show.  Its not a show, the team just did not turn up. They just ran through the motions. They pretended that they are playing. The hearts were just not there, that were somewhere else.

Pitiful and shameful performance this.  That’s the least 2 cussing words I can use right now.

Road Ahead

Anil Kumble has been spot on for his evaluation of the T20 debacle.   He is right to say we have not handled pacers well. We’ve lost Munaf (he was fast only when he played tour game vs England), RP Singh (so successful in first winning campaign in World T20 and IPL-2), Sreesanth (disciplinary problems),  Ishant Sharma (poor in LoIs) and many others who shone in domestic tourneys but did not succeed.  Irfan Pathan destroyed by Greg Chappell is seeming to be lost forever. He is million times more useful than his showmaker brother Yusuf Pathan who shows fake aggression on taking wicket of a tail ender.

In one of the other diagnostic article on cricinfo there is mention of this batting line to cope up with the pressure of top side in Tests. Fortunately none of this batsmen boomed in by IPL glitz and glamor play for India in Tests. Neither does Vijay, Raina, Yuvraj or a Pathan appear to be in contention for any Test spot near future.  That rests with Gambhir, who is still a world class batter, Sehwag, the one who was missed, Dravid, who should be back for ODIs world cup, Tendulkar, VVS Laxman and MS Dhoni. 6^th spot should be for a debutant sans Dabrinath and Vijay.

So the test team has conquered everywhere – West Indies, England, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.  Reason the work ethics of the top 5 of Indian Test batting line up has been different. The likes of Raina, Sharma lack patience. They come out and try to hit the ball out of park first minute they enter. There is no meaning of settling down or having a grip of situation in the middle. When its against a minnow it might work, but against  stronger team it just wont work.

T20 failure throws up a question on the composition of the ODI side which has to win the World Cup at any side. The oDI record for India is best amongst the top teams. That’s conveniently forgotten. Most of the players in XI chose themselves – Tendulkar, Sehwag, Gambhir, Yuvraj (??), MSD, Raina, Kohli.  The bowling attack needs an overhaul. Sorry to say but Harbhajan needs a kick up his back to remind that he is so called best Indian spinner after Anil Kumble. He can never be the bowler Anil was in his peak in 1990s home ODIs when Azhar used to bring him on in the 15 overs and he usually responded with crucial breakthroughs.

Shastri says groom a young captain for T20. MSD is not an old warhorse. And he is a good captain. Remember he is winning almost every ODI and Test series India is playing. T20s are being lost but that should not be that big a disappointment as losing a traditional world cup. We don’t want a repeat of 2007 when India failed to qualify in Super 8s in 15 years.  We need to have a look at the bowling attack and have 2 good fast bowlers who would have pace, take wickets and even though give runs. A figure of 4/55 would be much better than 0/45 and a speed of 140+ than 135.  There are a few players who need discard for good and besides the usual culprits mentioned on other posts of the blog – Pravin Kumar is one such bowler who would be ineffective on flat Indian pitches for WC.

Shastri, Ganguly and Gavaskar have been spot on with their comments, but the likes of Madan Lal or Jadeja, Maninder Singh are fool hardies.

MSD has won more than he has lost. So if he is reeled for this defeat then he has to be commended for other achievements too. If he has been stubborn for few players, then may be he would learn a hard lesson. If he is trying to do a Ganguly to Pathans, Jadejas, Vijays and Pravins then lets not forget that the players Ganguly nursed were awesome then (may be they are poor now), they were serious talents (Sehwag and Yuvraj prove this).

The golden generation of Indian batting prospered in short ball conditions, fast bouncy traks and slow pitches too. The same cannot be expected out of the likes of Rainas and others.  Simple, the work ethic is  the reason. The golden generation of Indian batting prospered in Tests, ODIs and IPL. The current generation excels in just IPL.  The players who made  500s and  400s in IPL flopped in the international format. The guy who made 600 in this IPL has proved what adaptability is and what work ethic is.  It’s a pity that the younger generation of Indian batsmen don’t want to learn from the illustrious men like Sachin, Dravid, Laxman, Ganguly while sharing the dressing room..

Yuvraj Singh was a special talent and its delightful to watch him in full flow. When he scratches around he seems ugly. Off field reaons play a big reason in why he fails to deliver.  For the time being he is best suited to sit out the team till he solves whatsoever his problems are.

India’s next big assignment is the Sri Lankan Dambulla cup in June July. And that IMO should mark the beginning of preparation for ODI world cup, far bigger and important than the T20I world cup which keeps on coming every 2 years. 

All is not lost and in couple of months now we would be back to backing the team hoping that it learns from this mistakes, chucks out complacent IPL players and gets the dedicated hungry for success players. India can do it and we would still be able to achieve success in the ODI series lined up in next few months.  After all we are # 2 in ODIs and # 1 in Tests. Lets not forget that the personnel for the ODI and Tests, as next assignments would change and hopefully we wont need to see the same usual crop of retards playing for India and thus insulting the meaning of playing for country.

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.....

Ganguly of yore

The 3 sixes to roudy Ojha in last game by Saurav brought back his memories of duration between 1997 - 2003 when he got 22 ODI centuries and treated every left arm spinner with disdain.....

The young bowlers now would know what makes the Fab 5 the legends they are...And its not the money or endorsements they did but the sheer magic and class they have yet thats proving them too hard to be castled even now......

Perhaps watching the likes of Ganguly, Gilchrist, Warne in their shortened magic is the biggest USP of IPL and thats where it scores over every other disgusting commercial and Bollywood theaterical aspect of the tamasha....

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!!!!

Deja-vu

Another game for KXIP, another defeat and another utterance of word “character” from the world’s richest man in character.  Its amazing that despite having oodles of character and showing it aplenty on the field, the lad chose to pick an Englishman over an Indian selected in World T20 and an express just retired from Tests but selected in T20 Australian to bowl 17^th and 19^th over to virtually seal a defeat for the side.

Showing of character elsewhere leads to victories, but supposedly for this men it leads to defeats.  First to their countries and now their franchisees.

Change of captain in both franchisees (2009 and 2010) led them to be the wooden spoon holders, both were southpaws who were replaced and those who replaced were wicketkeepers. And one of those who was replaced this year is natural successor for the man who was replaced in 2009 in his national Test team.  The coaches who replaced the respective men were Aussies.  One of the replaced men in 2009 led the charge for his team to be # 1 in Tests and when he quit the international game, the 2010 replacement took over his place.

The 2009 replaced man was a mentor to the man replaced in 2010.

Sachin classy

It was Sachin Tendulkar all the way again on Brabourne Stadium in the game against KKR last night. His super 71 ensured MI went back on the top of the table. Today if RCB wins against  Dhoni less CSK, they should be back on top.

KKR now seems to have lost the momentum and were defeated 3^rd time in as many matches. Perhaps their failures have to do with their captain’s inability to scale up to the rigors of the format. Sourav does not seem to be loving the format and his form is a cause of worry for KKR. However he has come back infinite times and he would do so too this time.  It was not just Ganguly who struggled to score runs, but also Chris Gayle playing his first game. He just could not find boundaries. 100 in 15 overs is very much ODIsqueue batting.

Zaheer Khan was the pick of the bowlers alongside Malinga and add Bhajji to the lot, the MI attack seems formidable.

Sachin later ripped apart Ishant Sharma and showed him a very poor reflection of his indifferent limited overs format form.   There were few eye gazes between Zaheer and Sourav. The mentor and the student. And another student of Ganguly, Harbhajan finally scalped him and was joyed.

MI looks to be a different team and provided they select right XI they should be strong contenders to reach the semis.

My predictions for 4 semi finalists given current form :

Mumbai Indians

RCB

Deccan Chargers

Chennai Kings

Kings XI would finish last. And Sangakara would then be sacked as a captain. 

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.

KKR makes a winning start

KKR makes a good start to their campaign by a facile win against the defending champions Deccan Chargers. The change of guard in the captaincy for Knight Riders has done the trick.  And of course Cheater Angelo Matthews did the magic for KKR first with the bat and then with the ball.

Despite losing Ganguly and Tiwary quickly Owais Shah and Cheatero ensured KKR reach 161 and give something for their bowlers to defend something. With Gayle  and Bond to return soon, KKR would only grow stronger and stronger in the campaign.

For DC, the batsmen except captain Gilchrist disappointed especially the so called talented Rohit Sharma who fell to a ridiculous shot. Now if he cant even play T20, then what would he play ? T10 ?

All in all a pulsating cricket if we chuck out the Bollywood and other dust particles out of the IPL.

Replacements for Dravid, Lacchu and Yuvraj ?

On 28th Jan when team for first Saffa test would be decided, the selectors would be in little trouble chosing the Test team and this would be  cos 3 of the 6 frontline batters are injured on this tour.

Dravid, Laxman and Yuvraj who form the backbone of the Test batting are out injured and do not know if they would recover in time for the first test.

Now the question arises who would come in for the 3.

Murali Vijay would be at 3.  What about other 2 ? Chance to  groom the replacements? Who ? Raina ?Sharma ?

Wont it be a chance to test the bench strength?  Interesting situation. Long time, perhaps first time in 14 years that India would be without Laxman, Dravid and of course retired Saurav.  Ok, that was in England 1996 when Dravid and Ganguly were yet to debut and then later on in the year Laxman debuted in Srinath's Ahmedabad test (6-21, first victory over SA)

This is Saffa's 4th tour of 2000s and 5th in all for Tests and the record doesnt look very good. 2 series losses, a win and a draw. That is, out of 10 tests won 4, lost 4 and draw 2/\.

We are yet to see Indian Test team without the 4 batting legends (Fab Four).  This would be an indication of times to dawn perhaps in couple of years when the big 3 would depart and then the replacements would be on.

Next few days would be indication to the future of Indian test cricket should the big 2 not recover from their injuries.

I hope they do.

Kanpur loss and Sangakara's to be fried excuses

So whats the excuse now for Sangakara to put forward for the embarrasing loss in Kanpur ? The pitch was tailor made for his 3 spinners, but they were rendered useless by Indians. Moreso than the spinners, his flat track bull shots were rendered ineffective by reborn Sreesanth and then much flaked Harbhajan in 2nd innings.

Food ? Water ? Pollution ? Bad hotels ? What would be the buzz word Sangakara put forth for the series defeat in Mumbai. I believe his team would stay in renovated Taj and if he would call it bad, then he would be making an ass of himself.

I presume poor Murali would face the ire of the Sri Lankan captain for the loss in Kanpur. India has not been just to Murali in the past and this trip has just carried forward the same. So why single him out and say those useless words on him. Why not say a word or 2 on Mahela Jaywardhena who got run out in the 2nd innings and when team demanded most his runathon he went out.

That confirms my belief that this man plays for records and not for the team. Count the occasions when he has made 100s and how many have helped his team in difficult situations(win or a draw). Very few or  none. Only occasion I recall is Lord's 2006 but then England were devoid of their best bowlers then.

Murali should now retire post Mumbai test. He has achieved everything. He's got close to 800 wkts and 540 odd ODI wkts. No bowler in the vicinity looks good to break that record. So he should respect his body and gracefully retire before Sangakara puts him in a spot and utters his shit on him.

And yes this was a grudge series. Delighted to see Mendis flattened out. To be consistent on the highest level, he should have the urge to go with wkts every time and in every conditions. Something great spinners like Warne, Anil  did.

And when Angelo Matthews (no disregard to him) takes new ball and Dilly Fernando sits out, you got to question the mindset of the rival captain.  What is he trying to achieve ? Killing spirits of cricket.  Saurav puts it right "You cannot win a Test in India with ANgelo Matthews takes the new ball".

Sadly for Lankans, the history wont change.  They would go winless in the Test series. 10 losses in 17 tests would be the scoreline for them after Mumbai.