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.

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. 

Pune Warriors get a dream debut

The second new team in the IPL this year, the 2nd from Maharashtra, the team which almost had a quiet build up to the IPL since its inception last year had a dream debut in the IPL 4. Having got to play its first game in adjoining Navi Mumbai, the team streamrolled KXIP and its tough luck continued. 

Nothing went right for KXIP since the toss. The new skipper, the old opener, the new  reserve keeper, everybody failed and at one time its score read 4 for 9. (Or 9 for 4).

Dinesh Karthik scored a duck.

Punjab were restricted to 112 though Ryan McLaren did his best to up the ante, but the rest around him just didnt battle enough. 

Graeme Smith's horror form continued and this time it  was not Zak who nailed him, but Praveen Pehelwan who got him first ball of the innings. 

And though Kings XI got 2 quick wickets of Jesse Ryder and Manhas, the pair of Uthappa and Yuvraj Singh took Pune Warriors home without any further hiccup.A dream debut for Pune. 

Surprised to see Chitale Bandhu / Joshi Vadewale / Rohit Wadewale not figuring on the black jerseys of Pune Warriors India.

Pune Preview

I dont like Pune the city. 6+ years in that city were good to give me jitters to stay away from the city. But the IPL is back in that city. With its own team. No stadium. The age old Jawaharlal Nehru stadium is pathetic to host any game, be it IPL or a MPL or a club game. The new stadium in Gahunje, between Pune and Mumbai seems not ready to host the game. 

Its 50 kms away from the IT park in Hinjewadi, the awful place for traffic jams. Given how bad public transport in Pune is, how many people would have  travelled to Gahunje to view the games. So Pune would play all its home games in DY Patil stadium in Navi Mumbai. 

Logistics apart, the team is called Sahara Warriors. 

And is led by the reborn man of the World Cup, Yuvraj Singh.  Its such a joy to see Yuvraj in full flow. And he is very much near the peak he has achieved in 2007-2008 duration. He would be a man brimming with confidence given his exploits in the premier tournament of the world. 

He is up against Kings XI, franchisee for which he was icon player for 3 seasons. And they dented his confidence in 2010 when they gave the captaincy to Kumar Sangakara Nanga to end up wooden spoon holders. So he shall have a point to prove against them. 

Team composition:

Desi players:

Yuvraj Singh, Ashish Nehra, Uthappa, Wagh, Dheeraj Jadhav, Rahul Sharma, Manish Pandey, Mundhe, Manhas, Kartik, Jhunjhunwala,  etc

Foreign Players:

Callum Fergie, Graeme Smith, Nathan McCullum, Angelo Matthews, Tim Paine, Jesse Ryder, Wayne Parnell, Jerome Taylor

The team is decent, the chances for them to go to the semis depends on how the team composition is decided and most importantly on the form of Yuvraj Singh.

The Bhamte and old generation Pune would support Yuvraj as IPL captain? Doubtful. They dont have too many players from Pune except few. Dheeraj Jadhav is one of them followed by Wagh and Khadiwale.  The Puneris are a bit averse to the outsiders, so they warming up to the IPL players is a bit doubtful.

Rajasthan Royals and Kings XI Punjab are out of IPL for now.  Equal amount of outrage and welcome. Journos writing for Yahoo, ToI would cry foul and tears.  Few twitterers would mock and joke along. Test Cricket and ODI lovers would give a damn. I belong to the same category. 

I believe even though being indifferent to ouster of this teams, this could clean up the IPL image a bit. Given the misdeeds of Lalit Modi spoilt the image and landed the IPL in mess, this cleanup act should act as a stern warning to the other franchisees to get their act right. I am no expert on legal stuff, so i wont say a word on what's right and what's wrong. 

So here is what would happen:

1. Shilpa Shetty would cry in public. Earn sympathy on twitter and news channels. Curse the media, would get sympathetic tweets from few players of her team. Even more she would get some hugs from SRK, her sister, Karan Johar and other fashion designers who made money out of IPL but didnot know a name of player of the RR and laws of the game. 
2. IPL franchisee owners would cry foul over BCCI. Already there are slavery talks. Get out this franchisee owners. 
3. Preity ZInta would stop hugging and kissing her players. 
4. We would get rid of Sangakara for good.
5. Shilpa Shetty would cry on tv.
6. Raj Kundra would sue BCCI.
7. Shilpa Shetty's name would now be extinct from cricketing circles.

BCCI would be unfazed and carry on with the IPL4. Modi or no Modi, the real stars are the players who have been the part of teams. And until they do not perform the IPL would not die. Cut out this set of people and bring in. Show would go on.

Reason behind sudden resurgence of KXIP

The way Kings XI are now playing indicates that it was Sangakara who underperformed and under captained the team.

Or may be Preity Zinta's dip in the holy Ganges is doin the trick for her men who are more eager to get a jaddu ki jhappi than play their real self on the game.

Perhaps a jadu ki jhappi to Sanga would have done the trick.  Something similar(Sreesanth's crying act) antics would have been done by him in the dressing room to get the jhappi and once he had got it, he would have realized like a Bollywood hero that he is the captain and must perform.

So he did, but a bit late, the train to semis was already missed.

MI loses out

Take out Sachin out of MI and the team is a cropper. Yesterday he retired at 45 and the rest of them could not lift their games to continue the winning run.   Chennai are now 4^th in the list and that sparks an interesting battle for the 4^th team between itself, Kolkata and perhaps Rajasthan Royals. Royals are today at 10 and would go past 12 as they would thump KXIP tonite.

Peculiar example of Keiron Pollard once again proves that the expensive signings do not always result in best performance on the field. Just one sparkling innings and the price zooms up to millions. That does not work.  All expensive signings this year have not fired – Kemar Roach, Shane Bond,  Pollard are prime examples.

So whats the key ? Consistency and experience. That’s what has always counted in the game of cricket and would always do in whatsoever format it is.  Even if you nix corporate and Bollywood jamboorie in it.

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!!!!

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.

Prediction

Actually it's waste of time to write on kings Punjab yet blabba king forces me to. He admits they ve been irresponsible and rightly so. Yet another defeat for them and yet another win for god of world cricket .

An indian captain should win ipl and right now god and jumbo look good to

 do so.

Weekend tidbits

Here are a few tidbits on the IPL games over last 2 days :

KXIP vs. KKR

·         Sangakara is not only finding leading a team difficult but he is also finding new ways on how not to lead a team. He was dismissed in a very bizarre way in the game against KKR on Friday and that also earned him a one match ban. All high talks snuffed out.  All plans and minutest details asked by Sangakara as mentioned by Irfan Pathan are now leading to defeats. Plus his handling of Indian players is looking absurd.  He has mishandled Yuvraj Singh, may be with an eye to earn an advantage for his national team in the upcoming World T20.

·         His ex captain was yorked by Angelo Matthews.  Heavens, even he is quiet now. And makes sense. What would he speak?

KKR vs. DD

·         KKR now come back in fray with a victory and now one win over Daredevils should make them in top 4 or 5. Next 6 games at Eden’s would make them hopeful for a strong 2^nd half of the ongoing IPL.

·         Joke to see Dinesh Karthik taking on Sourav Ganguly in today’s IPL game.  The dancing guy takes on India’s greatest captain. Antics? Dance steps?  His batting form is back to what he does the best. One big innings and then string of 10s and 20s.

CSK vs. RR

·         Suresh Raina was out bowled to Shane Warne while going for a wild slog. What was Raina thinking? Is Warne just another Indian spinner ? In the end classics got the better act and Shane Warne showed the class he has so famously shown us for last 19 years.  The attempt to catch a ball off M Vijay was awesome.

·         Y Pathan is proving to be a more hyped affair of IPL – 3. He is shining with the ball and heck even opening the bowling for RR. If that’s not all he is even running out the players. To add more hoopla he is the vice captain of the RR. Wonder if he would do the same magic for Indian team?

·         Badrinath should now be rechristened to Collapsinath. He ran out Dhoni once more by colliding against him and in a older game also he had ran out somebody by colliding. Not remembering the instance, but he should know and learn the art to run singles. Defense or slogging is not the only way to play cricket.

·         M Vijay surprisingly hit 24 runs of Nerwal’s over. 6 6 4 and 4. Wow man, never seen a test batsman hit cleanly like this.

·         The run of CSK here shows that it’s not just captain who makes a team win, but the 10 other players also play a big role in the fortunes. And if India is getting accolades under Dhoni, then it has to be attributed to the players of the ODI and Test teams.

DC vs MI

·         A match that lived up to the expectations. Was one of the best games of the tournament.  MI had just won one of the 4 games vs DC in last 2 editions. Today they won their 2^nd and this was attributed to the roommates – Sachin and Harbhajan.

·         Harbhajan the batsman was on the anvil and he played one of the breathtaking innings in the tournament. And he hit every one who bowled to him. Clean hits. Did we miss seeing that Harbhajan hit Symonds too brutally.  May be he remembered the scenes of Sydney 2008 before him in a flashback.

·         Sachin Tendulkar celebrated the wicket of Adam Gilchrist in first over like he never did before. I never saw him celebrate a wicket like he did in 21 years of watching him. Pure vintage moment.

·         Zaheer Khan yorked Rohit Sharma to end DC innings.  Experience ruling over raw crude force.

·         This match was supposed to be a home game for Deccan, but the crowd at DYP supported Sachin led team. This is something that nullifies the concept of city based loyalties. The crowd throughout India would savior innings by Sehwag, Ganguly, Dravid, Tendulkar, Gambhir and bowling efforts from Kumble, Harbhajan, Zaheer. Blame it on the Indian team performance in the decade. This stars are pan Indian stars, not just city based.

·         The IPL is an Indian venture that’s supposed to be killing the Test cricket and the country is Test Cricket’s best ranked team. Irony could not get more stronger than it is.

Innards of a KXIP game

They are going to be knocked out today with the 5th defeat in 6th game. And boy Yuvraj Singh is going to be even more disinterested in the proceedings. Instead he should use the remaining games as platform to regain some form and show that chopping him off as captain was ill planned move.

Piyush Chawla will have extra motivation to bowl good if he plays next month in the world T20. But will Woodanga play him ? Woodanga as in Sanga as he is inline to make KXIP wooden spoon holders.

Blabba and Woodanga have not fired. They have looked pedestal. So will they own up and not play the game or being the friends and in bad form they would continue to play ?

Prediction : Another KXIP defeat.

Suicide

They committed suicide on the field , yet they are alive. He wants passion but he does not want to play n score runs. He is a cracked Jack. He fools around to get a hug from zinta instead gets a bug beer.

A super mediocre show on 2nd IPL weekend

The two games on Sunday were a thriller effort but also a show of mediocrity.  Both the teams chasing the decent targets lost the plot by their own mistake and thanks to the agile captains on the other end, the Daredevils and Kings were caught napping.

Daredevils now have an action item to take for some serious thoughts over their team combination and the choice of captain in Gambhir’s absence.

They have lost 3 games in row, something they have never seen happen in recent memory.  The opening pair is not clicking in the way it should even if Sehwag is feeling absence of Gambhir, his Karbon mobile ad partner.  Their bowling barring Nannes is thin and batting after Karthik is superficial. They had the game in the hands until Warner got run out and then other folks just did not know how to score runs. Karthik made some runs, but he got some big hits too late.  Question marks on his captaincy too after he let DC score 171/6 from 101/4 in 14.

So they have their task cut out if they have to cut their slide further. They now stand at 6.

In the other game Chennai Super Kings gifted the game to Punjab Kings by virtue of boneless batting. Till Patel was in the crease, their victory and Kings defeat never seemed in doubt, but once Patel got out, the likes of Dabri and Vijay, TN regulars could not take Chennai home. As a result it was a super over and Yuvraj Singh got his side home by a 4/6 off Muralitharan.  How much CSK misses MSD is up for everybody to see.

Delhi and Chennai have poor bowling attacks so they don’t look good enough to last the distance. They have stronger batting than bowling but that wont be enough to see them go through the finals.

Sangakara finally spoke with lot of “zest” as his lads displayed act of character for first time and they did not roll out to die while chasing and hence did not become a bug bear.

Pig Poker leads in defeats tally

When Yuvraj Singh led KXIP in first 2 IPLs, the team did a fair bit of perfornamce by reaching semis in one and missing out on the other. But since the pig faced poker has taken over, the team has forgot to fight. Thats his trait. The team he leads succumbs to losses every time.

Only saving grace this time is he is not speaking anything crap which would only make fun of the pig already loitering in the mud of defeats. He is failing to win the games, he is failing to make runs, he is failing to speak and he is  not even sledging.

Sangakara is stuck by failures and would be consigned permanently to failures.....KXIP management must now be realising its folly in making pig poker a captain which has led them to 3 back to back defeats.

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.

Delhi Daredevils win their first game with simple execution

The other game of the day was between the Kings XI Punjab and Delhi Daredevils.  Delhi won the game in the end despite losing three of its best batsmen cheaply and in a trifle. Thanks to the cool headed Gautam Gambhir, the team won with a ball to spare. This was other close fought game -- a rarity in IPL's Indian versions.

Nannes was awesome in the bowling followed by Sangwan and Mishraji. That ensured KXIP never broke free with runs. Except Bopara the famed batting lineup of KXIP floundered on their home ground. It was pathetic to see the way Yuvraj Singh getting out. Despite not being the captain anymore, he is the side's best batsman even if a pig faced poker leads the team.

And his tyranns did not do any magic for the team. Not that it did for his national team too. Good thing was we did not get to hear the bullcrap from him as always has been the case.

Mahela Jaywardhene, Kaif and Pathan junior fell cheaply. In the end some hitting took KXIP to a decent 9/142 and when the bowlers eaked out Sehwag, Sangakara must have been the happiest man. He had been at the receiving end of some very brutal hitting from Sehwag in the test series in December 2009.

Finally some plain copybook sensible cricket from Gautam Gambhir ensured DD won its first game despite not showing the full calibre the team is capable of.

Kaif goes Punjabi from Rajasthani

Rajasthan Royals left out Kaif and Kings Punjab brought it. And the original youths of Indian new age cricket team now unite once again in IPL.

Yuvraj Singh and Mohd Kaif would now play for KXIP. But if they both would play would depend on a pig who would litter his shit all around KXIP dressing room. And all we would hear in the songs of Sangakara's choice rather than the Bhangra mixes.

I wonder if Sangakara was present in the auction.

Good for Kaif though, he should use this opportunity for trying to make a comeback in the team. Some good fielders in the team is the need of the hour in limited formats.