Cut to Jan 2008
India were the newly sworn champions of T20 in world cricket. Robin Uthappa was part of the winning squad and most notable contribution to the team was the bowl out hit in the league game against Pakistan. Zaheer Khan had missed the tournament owing to the rest he needed after grueling successful England tour. But he was India’s best Test bowler then too. Besides in Jan 2008 he was injured and had missed the Australian tour for 2nd time in row (first time in 2003-4).
Then the IPL auction happened for the first time. Mumbai Indians, the richest franchisee owned by Reliance Ambani and captained by GOD snapped up Robin Uthappa for whopping $850,000 dollars. Robin Uthappa stays in Bangalore and Bangalore has its own IPL team led by Rahul Dravid, coached now by Ray Jennings and owned by a short headed business lampoon. Zaheer Khan, then a Test bowler was snapped up by Bangalore Royal Challengers for the amount of $ 450, 000 almost half of Uthappa.
Performance in 1st season
Both have an average IPL season with Zaks laid low by injury and ending up with 13 wkts in 11 games (low by his current form). Uthappa scored 320 runs in 14 games. Both teams faired even poor finishing 6th and 7th in the league table.
Cut to Jan 2009
Robin Uthappa has fallen out of favor from the national ODI team. He leads Karnataka in the Ranji trophy and has had a good domestic season with 3 hundreds.
Zaheer Khan has emerged as one of the best Indian player of 2008 and one of the topmost fast bowler in the game today with exemplary skills in reverse swing. He led to England’s downfall in 2007 and 08 along with Australians in 2008 home series. Conquered Lankans in 2nd ODI in SL which also triggered the horrendous run of Mahela Blabberer Singh in ODIs.
Today both were swapped by their ‘Home IPL teams’. Uthappa landed in Mallaya’s team and that might shed off the ‘Test team tag’ of Bangalore Royal Challengers. And Zaheer returns to Mumbai Indians. But the sad part is there is no money involved. Uthappa today costs $850,000 and Zaheer for all his fabulous displays in Tests and ODIs costs $450,000.
How much effect that casts over the fortunes of the IPL remains to be seen.
BTW who is my fav IPL team.
Sentimentally I have been fan of fab 4 in the Indian test team. So it should be : Kolkata Knight Riders and Mumbai Indians owing to the fact that Saurav and Sachin are my most fav cricketers, but then the composition of rest of team isn’t very good. So I would cherish the idea of Saurav and Ricky Ponting (if He plays) firing along with Ishant Sharma. And Sachin showing up his class in T20s along with Sanath Jaisuriya. But my favorite team is no doubt the Delhi Daredevils. I would gun for it. Delhi Daredevils is led by none other than Veeru Sehwag and his partner in crime – Gambhir is part of the team too….
BTW an interesting trivia : India is the only team in the world which has same opening pair in all 3 forms of the game. Oji bole to sadda Veeru te Gauti……..Which other team comes close ? Nobody. Australia might with same opening pair in ODIs and T20s, but then they might have different Test opening pair. England could run close but not sure if Strauss would play and open in T20s. Pakistan, lol, they don’t play Test cricket anymore. Least said about Lanka, Bangladesh and New Zealand. West Indies have Gayle common link but the 2nd partner is topsy turvy.
So its India all the way.
World T20 predictions
Semi-finals : India, Australia, Pakistan, South Africa
Finals : India, Australia
Winners : India
Too optimistic ji ? Koi gal nahi, India rocks ji…Wo din door nahi jab hum teeno forms me world champions honge!!!
