Bollywood hosts a cricket awards function.

Shahrukh Khan and his gay friend hosting IPL awards function with some Bollywood croonies performing is another low in the cricket - Bollywood nexus. 

Have a look at this. Award category called "Dramatic Performance". Whats that supposed to mean ? Another Bollywood term coined in. And it went to Harbhajan Singh. For what ? Lifting Neeta Ambani or scoring 49 off 18 balls or for bullying Symonds ?

Cringing to see Bollywood hogging the limelight in cricket and I hate Modi for that.  Modi has got Indian cricket in a zombie state. Muck man that he is.

Happy Birthday God of Cricket

Happy Birthday Sachin Tendulkar who turns  37 today.

Wishing him lots of runs and hundreds in Tests and ODIs. And  of course the elusive World Cup win that would rank as one of his best achievements. Something thats rankled him thus far.

I wish he plays on for couple of more years and we do not lose the privilege to witness him bat in the games for India in blues and whites. Not just the MI team.

God of cricket for the entire fraternity not just India.

Conflict of Interest

AC Mutiah has dragged BCCI to supreme court over conflict of interest issue for N Srivinasan, the owner of CSK and BCCI secretary.Actually Muthy or somebody else should also drag Srinivasan and

Srikanth to the supreme court because of following reasons:

1. Srikanth is the brand ambassador of CSK in addition to the head of

national selection committee.

2. Srikanth has got his son playing for IPL in CSK, which he thinks is the easiest way for drafting his son in the national team. As soon as any other player would get injured while on national duty like for example : Gambhir gets injured in the SL Test series or the Aussie ODI series later this year, then his son would be drafted in. Actually he has marked one on one player for every Tamil Nadu player.

Sachin, Dravid, Laxman, Yuvraj injured (Any one) : S Badrinath

MSD injured : Dinesh Karthik

Sehwag, Gambhir : M Vijay and A K Srikanth.

Zaheer Khan , Ishant Sharma, Ashish Nehra (Any) : L Balaji

HArbhajan, Ojha, Mishra, Chawla : R Ashvin

He is onlooking for other set of players who could be mapped to every one of the players listed above.

How good Dabri, KKD and Balaji are, we have seen. Srikanth has got a dangerous agenda for Indian cricket as similar to that Lalit Modi has for IPL.  Both should be shown the door asap for betterment of cricket in India.

On a parting note how about a laughter on a report saying matches in

IPL are being fixed.

Aniruddh Srikanth would be next replacement / reinforcement

Srikanth's croon Vijay was dismissed for 15 and the bearded cheapo also ensured his son got a chance to play the game so that whenever any India bound player gets injured Ani Srikanth would then play for India. 

Very soon you'd find Tamil Nadu players being drafted in Indian team as first choice players and not as replacements for injuries as they are done right now.

Dinesh Karthik would be the captain and Aniruddha Srikanth would be the vice captain then.  

Not so long ago the cheapo had said IPL is not just the criteria for India selection so when it came to replace Sehwag his regional preferences got over his statement and he ignored strong claims of Kohli and Uthappa for the Sehwag slot. Kohli has been the best bat for India in ODIs this year.

But Srikanth has got a myopic vision which does not see beyond the boundary of Tamil Nadu.

A hope

The first semi final is through and the MI is in the finals. I am a bit dischanted for this development.  We all are too deep in the ongoing IPL mess and the on field action. I sometimes feel we have forgotten that there is an entity called Indian cricket team and in little over a week’s time we are going to watch the team in action in West Indies for the World T20.

Its not even worthy to diagnose the game and highlight the highs and lows of the match, as it was all too futile and irrelevant.  The ongoing mess has thrown a disinterest in anything that’s going on in the name of IPL.  Lalit Modi, the man in the center of storm is audacious enough to walk to the center and have the cameras focus on him.  How powerful he is, is evident with the murkier details tumbling out every hour. He must have been a power within the power center and must have had a very strong backing deep within the government that he was able to do what he did on the name of creating a IPL brand value.

Now the IPL stands tarnished.

The IPL must go on albeit with a clean image. We expect the taxmen to act in good faith and not in the act of vengeance as a minister was claimed in the scandal.  We hope that the wrong doings are exposed, the mess is cleaned up and a brighter side of IPL is exposed to the world.

Too big to hope ?

Butt bungles again!!

There were 2 lads injured from Pak W20 team and so 2 replacements had to be sought. Sami and one more guy was replacement and was ratified by ICC. But the Butt bungled here and there was as always a confusion.  A simple thing messed up.  Hilarious.

Virender Sehwag out and Vijay in

Sehwag is out of the World T20 and another lad from Srikanth's state is in with little under his belt to prove in T20. Murali Vijay is in. Uthappa  is left out.


Great going Srikanth. Why not chose your own son Aniruddha over Gambhir then ? We would have Vijay and Anni open the innings for India. Wow.


Srikanth really sucks now. Weird. Weird. Weird.  Dinesh Karthik must be a happy man now.

What Sushy actually did

Shashi Tharoor posed himself a martyr and innocent,  faked ignorance and in the end was dumped in the dust bin after the government had enough of him. Truly cattle class behavior after being one of the better imaged minister in the group of jokers and puppets of the Queen.

But what he has ensured is the deeper scrutiny and opening up of pandora box. The Yadav troika and Mamta Didi who at best are bigots are now demanding BCCI takeover. And guess what if that happens who would take over BCCI chief post ?  Sures Kalmadi. Lol. 

Pushy lady has ensured the IPL remains in the headlines for wrong reasons after she lured Sushy Twiteroor out of the government berth. Time she is shunted to Sheikh land to ensure that the nexus of Bollywood bigots and socialites is broken in game of Cricket.

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. 

Semis report card

The IPL is in the final stages and the semi finalists are almost decided.  MI takes on RCB and Deccans take on Chennai.  The teams that got out were Punjab, Kolkata, Rajasthan and Delhi.  Here is my take on each of the teams:

Delhi : The unluckiest team to go out. However they blew hot and cold in this campaign. The indifferent form of Sehwag and Dilshan did not help the case either. Colly was gutsy but he hardly received any support from the other end. And persisting Dinesh Karthik was a blunder on Gambhir’s part, whose form was patchy but he was in form for run outs. The bowling attack did not help them either.  Except for Nannes in first few games they had none who could control the runs and take wickets even though Mishraji were among wickets, he never threatened.

Chennai : They should not have been in the semis, however they are. The most pathetic team they are playing in 3 seasons. Thanks to resurgent Dhoni in batting form, they peaked right time in the tournament (last game) and with the luck factor got there. They have pitiable bowling attack with none except Dougie Bollinger in top form. Batting seems to be reliant only on Raina, Vijay and now MS.  Hayden and Hussey did not fire, though they cannot be discounted. They should be the team who should lose again in the semis. If they win they would not be the worthy finalists.

Punjab : A best example to show credentials and worthiness of Sangakara as captain. Period.

Deccan  :  Some luck and more grit, little contribution from Gilly and super performance from their man Rohit Sharma (he plays only in IPL) followed by key wickets at right time saw them through to the finals on 2^nd place.  They won 5 games on trot and jumped to 2^nd place, their best finish. Awesome. They have a super inspirational captain and a super hitter in Symmo. They should look forward to play the finals getting past Chennai in the semis.

Rajasthan : Magical captaincy from Warne and over reliance on Pathan Y were not good enough to see the Royals go through the semis. They begun disastrously but recovered soon to lose out in the final battle.  They shone in parts, not good enough to win a semis birth. Injury to Smith did not help the case, Pathan was over hyped and Ojha was unlucky. 

Kolkata : A right man in wrong team. Dada did everything he could to inspire the lads, but they did not learn and as a result they lost out in what was a best chance to show the strength and character. It remains the only team now not to reach semis at any point of the seasons.  They had good start, then they fizzed out, then they won 1 and lost 1. Ganguly scored runs to silent his critics, but his lads fell back on the commitment factor and the team lost. Questions should be raised on the worthiness of Ishant Sharma in the limited overs format. How long he is going to be promising and emerging ?Some point of time he has to deliver the promise and emerge to a full blown fast blower.  Having Akram in the side did not help as he concentrated more on how ball tampering was done than to actually help the bowlers.

RCB : Fantastic start to see them lose the momentum and now being the 4^th team to be in the semis. Led by Anil Kumble who is the most economical bowler of the tournament and the best skipper yet in the season, the team won 4 consecutive games, then lost 4 in row and then again won 2 lost 2. A 56 run loss to MI was heart breaking for a team who has Pandey, Kallis, Dravid, KP, Uthappa, Kohli as its batting lineup. Bowling is a worry with the likes of Kallis leaking 4s at will and R Vinay Kumar never going over 135 kph. 

MI : Team to beat riding on purple form of Sachin Tendulkar.  They look good to win the tournament should Sachin continue to fire. A long one is over due now and he shows the youth players how to play T20 without actually thumpin it and with the help of conservative orthodox shots with little innovation and no slogging.

Semis line up :

MI vs RCB

DC vs CSK

Finals

RCB vs DC