Sir Mahendra Singh Dhoni

A week away from the blog and so much has happened. Rohit Sharma captained his first IPL game and won thanks to another West Indian.  Ricky Ponting sat out, Tendulkar continued to disappoint and get out to the guys he would have so conveniently dispatched in the stands in his prime (or even in 2011).  Pune Warriors continued to disappoint, the character evaporated from the Delhi Daredevils's captain belly.  Punjab continued to progress while Gilchrist continued to disappoint. 

And Sir Jadeja, actually useless Jadeja showed why he is an useless player. 2 knocks followed by listless performances and still boasting of himself.  KKR loses everything they play. And happy for SRK and Shilpa Shetty, that we dont have to see them jumping jhapak jhapak after their franchisees' win.

Chennai continue to impress with their batting might. Dhoni and Hussey continue to score more and more for Chennai, while the Test match comeback boy Vijay disappoints. Welcome signs for sure. It's the other way around for him now. Fail in Test matches, excel in IPL now changed to Fail in IPL and excel in Tests.  

Take out this 2 gentlemen and CSK shall limp. 

The man of the hour is MS Dhoni. He has been in his usual self. One man army. Continues to bat in a way only he can and win the games for his franchisee. Whenever he has failed CSK has lost. And when he has excelled, more often than not CSK has won. I am no fan of CSK, but I am in awe of MSD once again.  He is a superman of Indian cricket. 

A wicket keeper, a captain, a batsman, a fielder at times, in addition to CSK captain, VP of India cements. Last 2 doesn't matter though.  Dhoni has been under  the hammer ever since India lost 0-8 in 2011-12 on away tours and that call for his head grew louder and louder when India lost 1-2 to England in 2013 at home. 

But what a comeback he made. He won 4-0 against Australia.  And now winning games for CSK almost single handedly without much of fanfare. He keeps his cool, has a sense of humor and does his job with no pressure at all. As a result he has a grey hair and grey beard. He shows no hype, he shows no pressure and he hardly loses his cool like Gambhir and Kohli. 

He has a bowling attack of newbies even though he has a junk in Jadeja. He is making those newbies excel, something in line of Ganguly for India. Although he has a long way to travel in this regard for him. MS Dhoni is a man Indian fans and media should be thankful of.  Not long back, I did put some scathing posts on him on this blog itself, but seeing him excel for CSK when all other big names and big ego players failed has made me a big fan of him again. 

CSK sit on top of the table.  Dhoni has scored 235 runs this season, but most of those runs have been helpful in CSK winning the games.  And the heartening factor to see is his strike rate. He did not have a very useful strike rate in T20Is so far, but hopefully this S/R of 162 shall see a spike in the T20Is Strike rate as well.

Hussey is top scorer for CSK, but its MS Dhoni who has won more games to CSK than  Hussey and that is where he deserves to be called Sir. For all he has done to CSK and to Indian cricket leaving out the 3 test series loss (0-8 and 1-2), he is one cricketer who surely deserves to be called Sir Mahendra Singh Dhoni. 

The likes of Jadeja are good enough to be called as junk, they can never ever in their life reach to the stage where Dhoni has managed to reach. Even though Junk Jadeja might earn 2 million dollars every season only to appear in IPL, his value remains even today of 1 cent or in Indian currency 1 paisa.

Delhi and Pune make this IPL a 5 or 6 team affair

Delhi continue to disappoint every game they play and lose it. More pathetic to see is they fold up without a fight. Their big names continue to disappoint -- Warner, Sehwag and Jayawardhene seem to have frozen when it comes to bat. 

Ditto for Pune, they continue to get disgusting with every match, they lost the game they should have won against Hyderabad. But they collapsed from 4/101 to 109 giving a hattrick to Amit Mishra. Hyderabad were equally pathetic with the bat, but Pune gifted them the game on a platter. 

The Lankan players who are leading the franchisees are completely at sea when it comes to make runs or show leadership skills. Matthews is inexperienced but Sangakarra and Mahela are seasoned ones and they have ruthlessly murdered minnows in their peak days. 

The thinking of Mahela Jayawardhene was proved to be crappy when in the Super over against Royal Challengers Bangalore, he sent debutant Roherer ahead of Sehwag and himself. Even on the 1st wicket fall of Warner, he did not come himself in or send Sehwag. 

16 off 6 balls was gettable by any means for Sehwag, Warner and Mahela himself. But he froze and gave up the only chance to win the game. Now they are almost out of IPL.  

Sangakarra dropped himself in the game against Pune, he himself has been in woeful form. 

Punjab, Delhi and Pune are pathetic teams. That makes the competition among 6 teams for 4 play-off slots. With Hyderabad being on the lighter side with the bat, as the IPL progresses, the competition would seriously be between 5 teams.

Resign now Mr Jayawardhene

Shrimati Mahila Jayawardhene captained Sri Lanka not long ago in all 3 formats of the game. Now he is captain in none. He also led them to their first world cup final in 2007 and lost it to Adam Gilchrist single handedly with a glove ball. 

He then relinquished the SL captaincy after the Australian tour, got injured, did not play against his favorite opposition Bangladesh in SL. And then returned to IPL to captain Delhi Daredevils after Sehwag gave up the captaincy.

When Jayawardhene was the captain, every match presentation, pre-match or post match interview he used to utter a word "CHARACTER" too much too often.  He used to write articles and in those again the mention of the word "Character" was aplomb. 

But somehow coming to this IPL season, he has lost a lot of that character. He is no more an inspiring captain, thinking captain, astute captain, clever captain, sharp captain or whatever captain, the cricket media and SL bloggers hailed him to be. Delhi Daredevils continue to lose every game they are playing this season. Things dont look good in the 5th game as well with them struggling at 5/137 in 19 overs. This is a ridiculous target for a lineup that reads Gayle, Kohli and ABD.  Admittedly, his batting form has tapered away as well. He used to be "silken" and "classy" in T20s and people still remember his opening in 2010 and 2012 T20I editions. They also don't fail to remember the world cup final century in 2011 ending up in a losing cause.

My simple question to Jayawardhene is dude where is all that character, fighting spirit gone?  Where are those so called silky, classy shots, effortless drives gone  which help decimate all minnow bowlers ? Dude, your captaincy sucks, your attitude sucks and overall you suck. You should give up the captaincy for the franchisee sake and play just as a batsman. Your shelf life as a captain in any format of the game is OVER.

PS : Irfan Pathan just showed why he is a better batting or bowling allrounder for India than over hyped Sir Jadeja. 

Delhi end up at 5/152 a decent score, still not good enough.

Gambhir's return to form in IPL

Gautam Gambhir seems to be back in form in the IPL and it seems he will save his ODI spot. That means trouble for Shikhar Dhawan and M Vijay at least in ODIs. The ODI opening pair -- Rahane and Gambhir are in good form and unless their form tapers away ridiculously, neither of the 2 lads would be able to  find a place in playing XI in Champions trophy. 

Gautam Gambhir is the only performing cog in the wheels of KKR's train in this year's IPL, when it comes to batting.  And his good run with the bat in IPL augurs well, as soon as this jamboorie ends, the CT begins in England. So all the experiments and "youth policy" should be left to the tri-series in West Indies involving Sri Lanka,

Meanwhile Sunil Narine captured the first hattrick of this IPL and he earned me some crucial points in both ESPN and iplT20 fantasy leagues. 

As long as Gambhir is around, the KKR stand a chance. Post Gambhir there is very little batting that inspires hope.

Sir Jadeja appears

Sir Ravindra Jadeja appears on the CHEPAUK

Pune vs Chennai tidbits

Srikanth left the CSK brand ambassador post after his term as a chief selector with BCCI was over. He moved onto Hyderabad Sunrisers and guess what he has tied up with VVS Laxman in that franchisee. Laxman's impromptu retirement last year on the eve of series vs New Zealand was attributed to some unkind comments in the media from Srikanth. And now they are bonding. 

Srikanth left CSK, but he left his son in the good hands of N Srinivasan to continue get the blessings of Lord Jadeja. Today Annirudhha (whatever his spelling is) got a chance to play and he was out for a 2nd ball duck to Bhuvan Kumar.

Another sitter is dropped by T Suman for M Vijay and now Vijay shall repay the debt by a match winning innings. Damn right. I did not take him in my fantasy league today for his failure in that epic Jadeja game vs RCB. 

Pune has put another good performance today in absence of their looking lost skipper Angelo Mathews who could not play vs CSK being a Lankan and see the result. The batting prospered, the selections were great and the 2 Aussies contributed to take the Warriors to a healthy total of 159 for 5. Not the winning one, but still better than their previous games.

And if they could check Dhoni and Vijay after they get Raina, the match could be another close affair. Don't count on Sir Jadeja to come through again today. His chance of coming good is done in last game and he would make it count with 3 or 4 failures back to back.

I was wondering if DADA would still say Dinda is the best fast bowler in the country after what he did vs Mumbai Indians. 

So far Bhu1 has given away 3 runs in 2 overs with 1 wicket and 1 maiden. On the other hand Dinda babu has given away 7 in 1.  2 more fours conceded.  I think that should be it for Dinda in this game at least. If he bowls more, then it is injurious to Pune's campaign in this IPL.

Bhu1 takes out Raina, now only Dabrinath and Dhoni remain before Sir Jadeja appears.

Sir Jadeja praises himself.

Jadeja's hitting has a secret and that is he eats a lot this days. And then utters shit, like this interview in Times Of India.

"I am eating a lot these days. If you are playing for India or your franchise in IPL it doesn't matter, irrespective of how many matches you have played the pressure is always there. Number seven is a very difficult position to play in. You come in such a situation where you have to take the team to a victory. 

"Therefore, it is a difficult number. But I try to back myself in such situations for whichever team I am playing for and take the game to the last over and take the team to a win. It is not like earlier I was not able to hit and now I am able to hit. I have not become fat, though." 

"Later, the partnership between Dhoni and me was crucial. That was the need - to get a partnership towards the end and the runs would come. In the last four overs we needed 54 and we finished well from there."

And  finally he calls himself a good allrounder:

"The thing is that we have got good all-rounders. Bravo, (Albie) Morkel, Morris and I. There are four all-rounders so our batting is good and till number nine everybody can bat. "

Shit hole, if what you do makes you a good allrounder, then what the hell are Shane Watson, Jacques Kallis and Kieron Pollard ?

Sir Ravindra Jadeja jokes

Blessed are the players who make their debut in the team blessed and possessed by Lord Sri Sir Ravinder Jadeja. 

Today Sir Jadeja did not bless Chris Gayle, so the guy was out cheaply. 

Sir Jadeja blessed Mike Hussey in the previous game vs Punjab and the guy scored unbeaten 86.

Sir Jadeja was pissed off with MS Dhoni in the first game, he did not get to bowl 4 overs complete. Chennai Super Kinks ended up losing the close game by 9 runs. 

Sir Jadeja needs to be pleased by  the Sri Lankan cricket board and by the shady Lankan politics to ensure that their cricketers are allowed to play for Chennai and against Chennai in Chennai.

Srimati Mahila Parajayawardhene and Sriyut Angelo Matthews should offer prayers to Sir Jadeja and seek his blessings to ensure that they are able to turn the losing streak of their respective franchisees to victory lap.

Sir Jadeja just got hit for a 6 by Mayank Agarwal, poor kid, his cricketing career just got finished. 

And in the end is there another Harbhajan Singh who would do a Sreesanth to Sir Jadeja ? That is the only way to get rid of the magic spell cast by Sir Jadeja on the entire cricketing world.   

Gayle storm and finally a Pune win

Chris Gayle has continued his form with the bat for the 3rd year in succession. After 2 failures in last games, he is back to the usual and today he demolished Shahrukh Khan's team with a superb knock of 85*.  This knock demoralized the Knight Riders totally and as a result the captain Gautam Gambhir had an ugly spat with his rival captain and India / Delhi mate Virat Kohli. 

The spat was very ugly and repeated watching of video suggests the 2 captains fought in the heat of moment and on the behest of the team owners. When they don the blues again, this spat will be long forgotten. For RCB, Kohli and Gayle are turning out to be superb combination. The opposition can think of beating this franchisee only if they manage to get both the players cheaply.

It will not be wrong to mention that RCB is the team of the tournament so far. They have won 3 out of 4 games and almost won the 4th one too, if not for the Super over defeat to SunRisers last Sunday. They hold the purple cap, orange cap. Virat Kohli is the topmost run getter followed by Chris Gayle. Ditto in bowling. R Vinay Kumar followed by RP Singh.

Kolkata Knight Riders are like the soda bottle which fizzes very soon once the lid is opened. They had a title last year but this year they are by no means playing like a team. Their bowling is decent, but in batting except for Gautam Gambhir, the other batsmen are misfiring. They need some boost in batting very soon before it is too late for them. Jacques Kallis has been successful for them in last 2 years, but I think playing Ryan Tendo or Brendon McCullum over Kallis will give them the necessary boost. 

RCB next play against Sir Jadeja's team and should be overwhelming favorites to win the game. Imagine the kind of bowling Jadeja would do to Kohli and Gayle, the 2 top run getters shall score tons in the next game.

And finally Pune won something against some team. Breaking a 11 game losing streak is a huge achievement for them. They should be congratulated for this.  Who knows when will the next win come and in which season.

Hail Rahul Dravid

While we are enthralled by aggressive batting from Chris Gayle and company, one can never get enough of legendary stuff from Rahul Dravid even at age of 40, good 1 year after retirement and picking up a cricket bat after 7 months. 

You will always heap praises on Gayle for the entertainment and return of money he provides through his batting , but it is the sight of some classic shots from Dravid even in this tournament make you feel blessed to have witnessed the stuff of legend.

The satisfaction one derives from the batting of Dravid, Tendulkar is just incomparable. Nothing exceeds that, nothing beats that.