T20 World Cup Selection- Did we miss a trick?

As promised earlier, in this post we shall discuss in detail, the criteria of selection of the Indian squad for the T20 World Cup. Earlier, in a previous post, I had mentioned the names of the selected 15-members for the mega event.

As can be seen, the selectors didn’t have to do much to put this 15-member squad together. In the batting department, players like Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Mahendra Dhoni, Yusuf Pathan and Suresh Raina pick themselves. There is no room for any confusion there. The selection of Dinesh Karthick, as a back up to Dhoni is quite logical. More so, because he can double up as a batsman, if needed. In the bowling department, Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh and Praveen Kumar’s selection is again a foregone conclusion. Ravindra Jadeja, as a spinner who can bat, too was an automatic selection.

That leaves out only four places, one batsman and three bowlers (going by the logic of 7 batsmen, 6 bowlers, 2 wicket-keepers), for which, the selectors would have done a bit of brain storming.

For the one vacant batting slot, there were quite a few options, guys like Robin Uthappa, Manish Pandey, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, had performed well, were in excellent form and had done everything that one could do to stake a claim. In the end, this slot was given to Rohit Sharma, because of his sheer class and ability to bat at any position, apart from the part time bowling option that he brings in. Also, his experience must have tilted the scale towards him, which is quite logical.

Again, for the three bowlers, out of the options in Ishant Sharma, Ahsish Nehra, SreeSanth, Irfan Pathan, R.P. Singh, Vinay Kumar(all seam) and Pragyan Ojha, Amit Mishra and Piyush Chawla (all spin), the selectors have picked Ashish Nehra, Vinay Kumar and Piyush Chawla in the final fifteen.

This is where I beg to differ. My vote would have gone for Amit Mishra, Irfan Pathan and Nehra, and the reason is as follows.

I have not seen anything spectacular from Piyush in the recent past which would warrant his selection. He hasn’t been amongst too many wickets either. So far as Vinay Kumar is concerned, I had this feeling that he was going to be picked given his good run in the domestic season, followed by a decent show in the IPL so far. But from whatever I have seen of this Karnataka lad, I don’t consider him to be an exceptional bowler. He bowls at best at around 130 KMPH mark, with some movement under conducive conditions for seam bowling. But in T20s, his balls would probably nicely sit up to be hit. I have not seen the wickets in the Westindies recently, hence not sure what we would get. In any case, those pitches were never known for seam movements as in England or Newzealand. This very fact limits Vinay's effectiveness even further.

Having explained why not Piyush and Vinay, we now have to establish why Amit Mishra and Irfan should have been there.

Amit Mishra is in terrific form, his confidence is high, and many would agree that he is a much better bowler at this moment than Piyush. It always seemed that he was the leg spin option for India for past few season now as he was a regular in the test squad and has performed fairly well there. I’m not sure if Dhoni had a say there, because from what I recall, Mishra was dropped in a recent test match in favor of Pragyan after performing exceedingly well in the previous test.

The selectors also have left out Irfan Pathan, one of our most valuable T20 players. The dip in his bowling form has been working against him for the past few seasons. But what Mr. Srikkanth & Co don’t seem to realize is, whenever Irfan’s case comes up, they are falling into the trap of making a wrong comparison. They are comparing one hypothetical player (Irfan in his early days) and one real player (Irfan today) against each other. Naturally, they find Irfan of today isn’t bowling as well as Irfan of yesterday, so they don’t pick him. But can they pick Irfan of yesterday now? Then what kind of comparison is this? Should they not compare Irfan of today against RP of today or Nehra of today or any other bowler of today? If they do that, they would see that if an Ishant or a Nehra concede 8 runs per over in onedayers, Irfan would provide a much better option, for he on his worst day at office would go for lesser runs or equal, but would double up as a very handy batsman and a far better fielder than all these guys taken together.

Here is a guy who can bat anywhere in the order, has opened in tests, got a test century to his credit, won an international T20 with his bat from a hopeless situation, bowling as good as any bowlers bowl today, got international experience to his credit, yet we don’t pick him because he had once bowled better than he is bowling today. Isn’t that pathetic? We would rather show confidence over and over again in an awfully out of sorts Ishant Sharma, only because he had bowled fast in Australia!

(Mind you, I'm not in favor of ignoring Ishant completely either, what I have mentioned here is just for comparision purpose. Dropping Ishant for the World Cup T20 is the right move, full marks to the selectors there!)

As nothing seems to be working for Irfan, I feel, he should take a leaf out of Dinesh Karthick’s book. When Karthick saw that Dhoni’s rise had sealed his and many other wicket-keeper batsmen’s fate, he developed his batting skill to such an extent that he could then be picked up as a pure batsman as well. This way, he made sure that he is there in any away tour where a back up to Dhoni is needed. The fact that he provides a two-way option, has refrained our selectors to look for any other wicket keeper for the job.

Similarly, since Irfan is being ignored repeatedly, he should follow suit and develop his batting further and by doing so he could take the fifth bowler’s or in a worse scenario, back up bowler’s slot. That way, the captain would have the option at his disposal.

But so far as our selection at this moment is concerned, we are indeed missing a trick by ignoring him.Till we unearth a better all rounder, we cannot and should not ignore Irfan.

No respite for KXIP

As we had mentioned earlier, nothing is going right for KXIP this season. This was yet again evident last night when they played against the Mumbai Indians. They started quite well, built an excellent platform, and just when they would have started to launch into the final assault, Lasit Malinga destroyed the platform with a near Hattrick, that is, a ball between the second and third wicket prevented him from that well deserved hattrick. He removed Irfan Pathan, Shaun Marsh and Karan Goel in the 4th and 5th deliveries of the 16th over and the 2nd delivey of the 18th over, to leave KXIP reeling at 133 for 8. The fact that they reached 163, was thanks to some lusty hitting by Piyush Chawala (22 of 13 balls). Their best batsman for the day was Marsh who scored a brilliant 57 before losing his stumps to a Malinga yorker. Malinga finished with 4 for 22 in his alloted 4 overs, which, especially in this format is a supreme effort.

Yuvraj Singh, the star, remained a star on paper. He failed to get going yet again. Sangakkara sat out and another out of touch player Mahela led the side. He did an admirable job for the most part.

His innovative bowling changes and field placing were looking really good, which had given KXIP a chance to seal the match. But a blunder in the 19th over, when 18 runs were required from 12 balls, turned the table in favor of the Mumbai Indians, and they completed the formalities in the final over. Mahela threw the ball to Ravi Bopara, to bowl the penultimate over. He had bowled quite well till that point allright, but a non-regular bowler with his pace, was always going to be taken for runs at that stage, especially when Tiwary and Sathish were still there on the wicket. Ravi was hit for a six in his previous over as well, before accounting for Dwyane Bravo, which underlines the fact that he is hittable. Still Mahela took that gamble and Ravi went for 3 boundaries, to leave MI with 6 runs to get from the final over. This was even worse considering Irfan Pathan was still left with another over.

Mumbai Indians are looking red hot at this moment, it's been the best season for them in the IPL.

Dominant Warner puts it beyond KKR

A sparkling century by David Warner (107 not out off 69 balls), the second in this edition of the IPL, helped Delhi to a total of 177 for four. He was ably supported by Collingwood (53 off 45), included in the side at the expense of an off-color AB DeVillers.Ishant Sharma yet again proved expensive, going for as many as 17 runs in the solitary over that he bowled. I fail to understand, why so much of confidence is shown in this lad both by the national selectors and KKR team management. Thankfully, he has been rested for the T20 World Cup. Indeed, he needs a break, applying the same logic,as was the case with Irfan Pathan. At least, Pathan had valuable batting abilitites. He can bat anywhere in the order, irrespective of the version of the game.(Remember? He has opened in test matches too.). It is a mistake to ignore him for the T20 World Cup, but we would discuss that separately.

In the current match, KKR while chasing 178 to win, struggled all the while on a progressively slower pitch, and eventually managed just 137 in their allotted 20 overs, falling short by a huge margin of 40 runs. Chris Gayle, with 30 was their highest scorer.

This was a very important victory for the Delhi Dare Devils, who needed this victory to overtake the KKR, as hitherto both these teams had similar fate in this tournament. Both of them had won their opening two matches, lost the next three and then won one each in the run up to this encounter.

Delhi can drive home the advantage of this win, if they keep up the good work hereafter.

RR register 4th sucessive win, MI march on

It was the time for the week-end double header. A rejuvinated Rajastan Royals took on CSK, whereas the high-flying Mumbai Indians locked horn with the defending champions Deccan Chargers.

RR, riding on the confidences of their previous three wins, opted to bat first and scored a very good total of 177 despite of Yusuf Pathan's failure. The hero of their effort this time was Naman Ojaha, who scored a 49-ball 80 with 5 sixes and 8 fours.Earlier, Lumb, provided a blazing start yet again, with a 16-ball 30, before being lured into a false shot by Morkel slower delivery.

In reply, CSK started well, as Vijay played his best innings of this tournament, scoring 42 off 28 deliveries, before being caught short by a Yusuf Pathan direct throw. There were no other major contributions, and the asking rate became increasingly unmanageable as the overs progressed, and gradually CSK crumbled under pressure.

This season, CSK have been awful. Despite of starting as a favorite to reach the semi-finals, they have badly struggled. Dhoni's absence due to injury for about 10 days hasn't helped their cause either. It's certainly looking like curtains for them, unless they win every match hereon, which, going by their form, looks highly unlikely.

The other match between Deccan Chargers and Mumbai Indians turned out to be an out and out Harbhajan show. He balsted a 18 ball 49 to take their total to 172, which looked highly unlikely when Tendulkar fell for well made 55 at the end of 16.4 overs,then the score was 119. Had it not been for Harbhajan's heroics, they would have settled down for a much lesser total. Having dented Deccan Chargers' confidence with the bat, Harbhajan then took the new ball and removed their captain Gilchrist in the very first over of their run chase. Though, for a brief while, it looked like Gibbs was going to take the responsibility, he fell to an ambitious square cut. Non of the other batsmen stayed long, apart from Rohit Sharma, who tried his best to keep up with the asking rate with a 28-ball 45. When he failed to keep a Zaheer Khan yorker away from his stumps in the 17th over, the match was all but over. Eventually, the MI completed the formalities in the next over.

The reason for Deccan's loss was simple, they didn't keep their heads, played some irresponsible shots. When they needed to rally around Rohit Sharma, all other batsmen, before getting their eyes in, tried too many lofted strokes.

They have to quickly put this effort out of their mind and concentrate on the next match.

KKR win against KXIP

KKR defeated KXIP by 39 runs and secured a very important victory. I missed the match, but kept myself updated through the internet as Ganguly scored a 40-ball 50 at the top and then Manoj Tiwary, batting down the order, scored a brilliant unbeaten 47-ball 75 to provide the KKR a strong total of 183 runs. To overhaul the total, KXIP badly needed a flying start and good contribution from its star players. That didn't happen yet again, and the contest became hopelessly one-sided. Sangakkara scored 30, which was the highest for KXIP, and they eventually finished with 144 for six, falling short by 39 runs.

Nothing has gone right for the KXIP this season, the only match where they have batted well was against RCB, still they were beaten comprehensively despite of scoring in excess of 200 runs. Their solitary win came against the CSK, where CSK lost the match more than KXIP won it, by taking it into the superover.

KKR, in the other hand are again showing signs of recovery. It'll be quite interesting to see how they progress from here.

Tight bowling,power hitting make it 3 in a row for RR

Shane Warne lead from the front by sending down a terrific spell of 4 overs, conceding just 15 runs and claiming the important wicket of Gibbs. His other bowlers too, responded with sensible bowling. Add to that some breath-taking fieldings, Deccan Chargers were never let off the hook. With regular loss of wickets,it was Rohit Sharma, who with his 35-ball 45, took them close to the 150 mark.

Then came the RR batting display. Lumb, again started off well, but the man who set Ahmedabad on fire with his bat was Yusuf Pathan. Celebrating his selection for the T20 world cup, he hit 8 sixes and 3 fours in his 34 ball 73, and made Deccan Charger look helpless. To Gilchrist's credit, he kept his calm and tried everything he could, by setting attacking fields, calling up his most experienced bowler Vaas in the middle overs, but as you know, when Yusuf Pathan hits it, it stays hit.

And last night, the ball stayed hit. Which meant, Rajastan Royals completed the formalities in the 16th overs with 8 wickets to spare. This was their 3rd victory in a row, and now it seems Shane Warne's comment is begining to make sense. Earlier having lost three matches in a row, he had commented," Don't give up on us yet."

Well, we won't give up, if they can go on like this.

Vinay Kumar gets the nod

For the T20 world cup to be played in the Westindies, Vinay Kumar has been included in the team. This was in the expected lines, as he has been in excellent bowling form this season, both in the domestic circuit as well as in the IPL.

Uthappa or Manish Panday, as one would have expected, came close to being selected, but could not make it to the final eleven. Even Virat Kohli finds himself out of the side.

Ravinder Jadeja, who is not featuring in this IPL, was included in the side. Rohit Sharma too, was included in the side, going by his good form this season. The inclusion of Piyush Chawala was a bit surprising, but it seems they have gone for Chawala due to his lower order batting abilities besides his bowling. 

Team:

MS Dhoni, Virender Sehwag ,Gautam Gambhir, Harbhajan Singh, Yuvraj Singh, Vinay Kumar, Piyush Chawla, Suresh Raina, Yusuf Pathan, Ravindra Jadeja, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Praveen Kumar, Dinesh Karthik, Rohit Sharma.

RCB beaten by Delhi, Mumbai scores easy win over CSK

Kedar Yadhav blasted a 29-ball 50 on debut to help Delhi set a tough target of 184 for the RCBs. His knock boasted off five fours and two sixes. DeVillers chipped in with 45 and David Warner's contribution was a whirlwind 33 of just 14 balls. This total, despite of being a tall order, looked well within the reach of the RCB, going by the form that they have displayed in this tournament. But despite of the quick start given by Kallis(27) and Panday(39), they lost a heap of wickets in the middle overs and in the end fell short by 17 runs. The most likely reason could be the lack of exposure of the RCB middle order, thanks to the kind of runs scored by their top three batsmen. But good to have a lapse like this, it would make them even more determined and careful whenever they have to chase such kind of totals in future.

Manish Panday, with his consistent show, has definitely drawn the attention of the selectors, we have to wait and watch if he gets a look in, when they sit to select the squad later today, for the T20 world cup. Tough to break into our strong international line-up though.

In the other encounter, Dhoni's return inspired their side in their batting display, and Raina, relieved from the responsibility of leading the side, played his best knock in this edition of the IPL(83 off 52 balls), which, along with Badrinath's half century(55 off 45 balls) took their total to 180 for 2. But in the end, this was not enough to stop Mumbai registering their 4th win in 5 attempts.

Sachin, continuing with his tremendus form scored yet another half century (72 off 52 balls) and almost batted through the innings making sure Mumbai wins the match. Earlier Shikhar Dhawan made a quickfire 56 off 34 balls, whereas the Westindian duo Powell and Bravo blasted 20 off 9 balls and 14 off 7 balls respectively to take MI home.

With this victory, MI has yet again taken the topspot in the table.

Rajastan Royals seal important victory against KXIP

It was a night when RR's batting clicked. Almost all of the batsment contributed, a 45 not out by Voges and another 45 by Fazal being the most important, they ended up at 183 for 5. At the end, they won by 31 runs, the margin might make you believe it was a huge victory, but the reality was different. The KXIP had their chances, as Sangakkara and Manvinder Bisla blazed away to a flying start. At 76 in 6 overs and and 107 for 2 in about 10 overs,they should have made it from there.But some intelligent bowling and smart fielding turned the match in RR's favor.

The result took RR to the joint fourth place, leaving the KXIP reeling at the bottom.

I was looking forward to see Yusuf Pathan's response to the expected short pithed stuffs that were certain to be hurled at him, as everybody must have taken notice of RCB's success against him doing just that. To his credit he was fairing decently against short balls, if not masterful, but the inning was too short to draw any conclusion. He perished trying to clear long on for the second consecutive time in a Srivastava over.

Also,it was good to see Lumb succeed finally. We have been hearing from Warne that he is a very good player, this was the first glimpse of his batting prowess.

Augurs well for RR, this.

Uthappa powers RCB to big win over CSK

As law of average finally caught up with Kallis, and other batsmen struggled to break the shackles, RCB found their saviour in Uthappa, who blasted a 38 ball 68 to propell their total to 171, which in the end proved too much for the CSK. They were beaten by 36 runs, which in effect handed back the top position in the table to the RCB.(Mind you, the top three in the table qualify for the Champions' leauge).Uthappa's knock contained 3 fours and 6 sixes, almost half of which came in the 19th over bowled by Balaji. This knock, along with his other knocks  in this IPL edition, must have put Uthappa in the national selectors radar, when they sit for the T20 squad selection for the world cup.

In the bowling department, Anil Kumble, the old war horse, bowled tight and conceded only 15 runs in his four overs picking up the wicket of Vijay. Hayden's mongoose threaten briefly before he was run out, Suresh Raina hit a six before succumbing as he tried to maintain the ever increasing asking rate, and it was downhill there on for the CSK. They certainly are missing Dhoni's cool head and destructive batting abilities here.

Dhoni is slated to return for CSK's next encounter, and that would certianly bring back the confidence in their ranks.

Mumbai Indians too good for KKR

Riding on Chris Gayle's 60-ball 75, KKR had managed to put a fighting total of 155, Ganguly's slow 31 out of 34 ball again proving to be a bit of hinderance, which at the end of the day was not enough.

Because, then came yet another brilliant knock by Sachin (71 in 48 balls), which made short work of the target and helped MI take the top spot in the points table.

Once a master, always a master. Its ironic that the great man has opted out of the national T20 squard citing a reason which under the present circumstances would be hard to digest. He had opted out from the national scheme of things of T20s, as he didn't want to upset the balance of the side. Many cricket lovers, including this writer, had assumed this to be an excuse as Sachin was not in the best of form those days. So much so that, experts had foreseen a quick end to his illustrious career.

And how the master has responded! He has since hit the form of his life, that turned everybody's opinion upside down. When you see this coupled with the T20 world cup debacle of India last year, you know how vital he is even in T20s. Lets wait and see if he changes his decision.

Coming back to the match, laying a solid platform is onething, and launching the final assault from there on is quite another thing. Here Ganguly, having consumed more than five overs, was not able to provide the much needed fireworks to boost up the total. Instead he left a very few deliveries for a newer batsman to do the job. Owais Shah, to his credit, played a decent knock, but the damage had already been done. The total, though fighting, was never gonna be enough.

More so when you have a certain Ishant Sharma up your sleeves to deal with. He is still very young all right, but basic cricket knowledge demands that you have to bowl full and straight when you have both third man and fine leg up in the circle. Having set that kind off a field, he kept on feeding Sachin with short deliveries, and the master obliged, doing what needed to be done.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Deccan put it across Delhi, KXIP beat CSK in a thriller

It was a battle between two power houses, Delhi and Hyderabad.

Delhi of course were once again without their regular captain Gautam Gambhir, and what a differnce that absence is proving to be, as they slumped to their third consecutive defeat in Gambhir's absence. The fact that Dilshan is terribly off-color this season, has not helped their cause either. And Deccan are shaping well as a team. They have come back strongly after their inital disaster in the KKR match and every member of their team seem to be responding well in taking their cause forward. Yesterday, again Symonds proved to be too hot to handle for DD, when he scored 35 off 24 balls, helping his team set a total of 171  and claimed 3 wickets while bowling to peg back Delhi. Rohit Sharma too, playing his part, had blasted a quickfire 45. Despite of David Warners half century and stand-in captain Dinesh Karthik's 45, Delhi fell short by 10 runs in the end.

They have lost momentum and here on, its gonna be increasingly difficult for them to wrest back the initiative again.

The second match of the day was a blinder. The true face of T-20 was on display here, as KXIP earned their first victory of the edition with a super over victory against the CSK. Lets hope that this victory help KXIP to get back on with their rythm. It turned out to be a good decision for them to have sent Irfan Pathan to open the inning along with Ravi Bopara. The left hander had shown blazing form with the bat the other night against the Deccans and Sangakkara did well to utilize it. Their middle order though, have continued their indiffernet form right through the tournament and this match was no different.

One man called "Rusty"Theron, completely turned this match in Punjab's favor with his controlled bowling, the super over included. It was his bowling that provided KXIP to tie the encounter and go into the super over. The fact that he was playing in front of such huge crowd with so much of noise for the very first time, makes his efforts even more special. Manpreet Goni too, helped Punjab with his brainless batting coupled with a stupid spell of bowling where he looked as if he was bowling to be hammered. Its not entirely a crime to get hammered in T20s, but then the manner you are bowling decides how you have faired in a particlar match. Gony's effort, to say the least, was embarrassing.

CSK have to put this night behind and move ahead.

Let's go 3-D!

We had earlier seen 3D movies, quite a few of them, but then, Avatar seems to have revolutionised the technology. The astounding visuals that we saw on the big screen, are now all set to enter your living room. Sony, Panasonic, Sharp, LG and a few more companies have joined the race to bring it to you first. Having reached a point where Plasma and LCD TVs have proved to be yesterday's technology, everybody seem to have lined up for the next big thing.

To start with, we are going to have 3D TVs that we will have to watch like what we do at cinemas while watching 3D movies, that is with glasses on, the experience being unmatched, but the drawback being the inconvenience that you will have in terms of comfort and cost due to these glasses.

To explain you in brief how 3D technology works, it shows you two different images to each of your eyes, the shutter glass indeed working as a shutter to make you see what they want you to see in what order, one after another, and then your brain does the rest to show you the 3D effect. But these glasses are gonna cost you quite a thing for what they do and imagine somebody who wear power glasses, how inconvenient it would be for him to use these. Also, these are quite fragile for what they cost you. Nevertheless, that's the first thing that you are gonna get in terms of 3D viewing.

But don't worry about it, while you would be busy taking evasive actions from a kick or a punch of your favorite sports or movie stars, these manufacturers would be figuring out how to take that shutter glass out of your eyes and still make you view 3D images on your TV.They would be workng on another technolgy by which the glass of your TV would work as the medium by which you would be able to view the 3D image. There is a drawback in this TV though, here you have a sweet spot where 3D effect is maximum, any other place you sit, you will have a distorted image.

The third drawback being, the amount of 3D content in television will be quite limited to start with. This is a temporary thing though, they will have to solve it based on demand.

For the time being, we would let the makers worry about these complications, we will enjoy what comes our way.

And the IPL horizon expands....Pune,Kochi added

As I update my take on yesterday's double header, the news of Pune and Kochi being added to the participants for the next edition of IPL has taken center stage in almost all the news channels. Not because its such an innovation to add two more teams to an already successful tourney, the shocking fact is that, these two team have been taken for more money than it costed for all the other teams taken together. Sahara, the official sponsors for the Indian national team has won the Pune franchaise for Rs. 1702 Crores, whereas Rendezvous Sports has taken Kochi for Rs. 1533 Crores.

These two teams taken together have gone for a little over Rs. 3200 Crores, whereas the rest eight teams had aggregated Rs. 2800 Crores. This cofirms the ever increasing brand value of the IPL over the three editions.

Even though the IPL commissioner Mr. Lalit Modi has issued a statement saying there were no immediate plans to furhter expand the teams in the near future, he has not completely ruled out the possibility.

RR register their first win, Mumbai taste first defeat

Finally Rajastan Royal tasted a victory at the expense of KKR, that too more due to the tactical errors from Ganguly rather than their own gameplan. No doubt, they had put up a much better show in the batting department, posting a respectable total of 168,but this total, by no means was a winning one.

As it turned out to be, Ganguly, like always, over estimated his batiing abilities just a bit and decided to walk ahead of Owais Shah and Angelo Mathews, the inform batsmen, who have already won a match for them with their bats. When he got out, he had scored 33 playing 29 balls, which in effect were five valuable overs. Its quite ok, if you do so when you have lost a few early wickets, even in this format, but under yesterday's circumstances, it was criminal. You have to give your best guys a go at the earliest, which might even mean Pujara needs to come after Shah and Mathews. You have only 20 overs and you gotta maximise them.

Let's hope Ganguly learns his lessons quickly.

The other match was supposed to be a cliff hanger. But 3 wicket in an over from Vinay Kumar, forced MI to settle for a much lower total than what they had been doing earlier in this tournament. It took some lusty hitting from Zaheer Khan towards the end of the innings, that took them to 150 plus.

Going by their form, it was going to be a relatively easy target for the RCB, with Kallis in tremendus touch, and all other batsmen rallying around him.

Thats exactly what happened and the RCB with three wins moved to the top of the table.

What a run they are having!

CSK & DC register wins

A typical Sehwag knock was not enough to stop the CSK to register their second successive win, whereas a late charge by Irfan Pathan, who tried to replicate the heroics of his brother in the other afternoon fell short by a whisker to take home KXIP.

For CSK, Hayden unleashed the power of his mongoose, smashing a 43-ball 93, which in effect swayed the match towards his team beyond doubt. Then Raina, in absence of Dhoni,played a captain's knock on debut and completed the formalities.

This was the second sucessive defeat for Delhi and they certainly have to regroup fast.

For KXIP, it was yet again a familiar result, as despite of having big names in their side, they have not really got going. Yuvraj Singh, the Indian King of T-20s have shown indifferent form and so has Sangakkara. They too have to reverse the process soon.

Irfan Pathan's batting abilities were never in doubt, he was dropped from the national side more due to his bowling. He still needs to put up a better show in bowling and a bit more consisstncy in batting in order to renew his claim for a recall. A session with the KKR bowling coach Wasim Akram would certainly help. 

Till now its Rajastan Royals and KXIP, who look to be the weakest of the lot.

RCB demolish RR

A hattrick by Praveen Kumar forced the Rajastan Royals to set up the lowest target(93) in this edition of the IPL, which was quite easily overhauled by the Royal Challangers Banglore without losing a wicket.

One of the most one-sided contests in this IPL, the match would have deeply dissapointed the captain of the first time winners, Shane Warne, who did well to put up a brave face, urging people not to give up on them as yet, but more than the results, its the manner in which they have been losing, would have disheartened even their most loyal fan.

As has been seen, they are still dependent on Yusuf Pathan, while all other teams are busy devising a plan against this explosive batsman. Banglore succeeded in stopping him, and as a result, the RR had no way to go but down.

Praveen Kumar did well to get that hattrick, but then he is hardly a menacing bowler. He can get wickets when the batsmen are trying to cart him around, good for him.

Banglore has got the momentum now, and are looking increasingly good.

Great news for its fans. 

Easy win for Mumbai

Sachin unleashed one of his finest T20 knocks and the Rayudu-Tiwary duo again made merry, and as a result the Mumbai Indians posted their second 200-plus scores in as many outings. But this time around, there was no scare to this total unlike the other afternoon when Yusuf Pathan threatened to overhaul it.

The early dismissal of Sehwag and Dilshan meant, Delhi was always struggling and crumbling under the pressure of this huge total, and eventually they were all out for 120, tasting their first defeat in three matches.

I was a bit surprised by the audacious stroke making by Aaditya Tare, the young Mumbai wicket keeper. I was watching him bat for the first time and was impressed with his free stroking abilities, though it was only a brief inning. I am sure we shall hear more about this young talent, especially because his wicket keeping too is outstanding.

Saurav Tiwary, is kind of trying to make a fresh account of himself, as he and his under-19 team mate Tanmay Srivastava seemed to have been lost in the crowd since that world cup win. Only Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja from that team had moved forward.

But for Saurav, two fluent half centuries in his first two matched showed that he still have that ability and now hunger. Rayudu, again is a similar case. His exceptional talent and class was never in question, it was his attitude that had proved to be his greatest enemy. The performance of these two youngsters augurs well for Indian cricket.

Coming back to the team Mumbai Indian, I guess I better start taking them seriously now, as their batting line up with Sachin, Sanath, Rayudu, Tiwary and Tare, followed by the Westindian explosive duo of Bravo and Pollard look to be more than a handfull.

They seem have better potential than KXIP, Rajastan Royal and even the KKR.

Fun time ahead folks, dont dare to miss it.

CSK and RCB open accounts

I missed the better of the two matches yesterday, RCB vs KIXP. Punjab, despite of scoring in excess of 200, were beated by Banglore, in a match where almost every batsman, with the exception of Yuvraj Singh, made merry. Bisla, Bopara, Kallis and Uthapa, all scored half centuries, but in the end it was Kallis & Uthapa's effort that put the match beyond the KXIP. Must have been great fun to watch.

Not so much the second match though, where except for Dhoni's heroics, there was nothing much to see. At a stage, it looked like CSK, batting first, would settle down with a total somewhere around 130, but Dhoni had other ideas. He blasted a 33-ball 66 propelling CSK total to 164, which proved too much for KKR. He scored 51 of the last 19 deliveries he faced.

Good to see Dhoni batting in this manner. Tiwary, the other batsman I had an eye on, flattered to deceive, as he fell to Gony after two consecutive boundaries.

Still a long way to go, the tournament is still wide open.

Sehwag blows Rajastan Royals away!

A typical 34-ball 75 from opener Virender Sehwag, helped Delhi Dare Devils register their second victory in as many matches.

A couple of factors again from the encounter, RR seem to be over dependent on Yusuf Pathan's batting abilities, when he clicks, they score, when he fails, they sink. They have to do something about it, may be alter the batting order to allow Mascarenhas more time in the middle or open with Yusuf himself along with Graem Smith or whatever. They need runs on the board, in excess of 170, almost everytime. Only then their bowling department can take it from there.

Delhi has no such worries....... They always were one of the favorites to go all the way in the turney.

Nothing more in this match to write home about.

Its Shaan vs Shankar guys..........in the grand finale

Guys! Why does Shaan create so much of drama in this show "Music Ka Maha Muqqabla"? It leaves such a bad taste in the mouth. Of late, I have been following this only reality show on TV, and the show like many others seems to have been scripted! My only reason of spending time on this show is to catch up with a bit of performance from the topmost musical artists of bollywood, which no doubt makes  quite a good viewing, but they still could do without this true bollywood 80's style of drama.

Himesh, as usual was his loud and over-the-top self, whereas Shaan is the unquestionable drama king. While this very character has proved Himesh's undoing, Shaan is able to gather a lot of votes for factors other than his singing.

Shaan, for sure is a limited but decent singer, but he doesn't stand a chance on merit alone against the versatile Shankar Mahadevan. And he himself is aware of this fact as you would have heard him admitting so on one of the episodes, but then his drama sides takes charge every now and then.

Now Shankar & Shaan are in the grand finale and we never know who will win........Talent alone is not sufficient in reality shows.

But then, if we can ignore these publicity stunts, the show gives us a great deal of musical feast, a rare thing in today's time.

KKR, Deccan win as expected

Wow, I was right. Both KKR and the Deccan Chargers won their respective matches with ease.

Even though most of you would have seen what happened on the field, I would like to point out a couple of facts on both these encounters.

In the first match, Manoj Tiwary surprised me, playing a knock that I least expected from him. I had read quite a lot about this youngster, but hitherto, he had disappointed me on a consistent basis. So much so that, I had started doubting his potential, counting him out as another over –rated domestic player. My last memory of this lad was that of his stumps in disarray in Australia by a Brett Lee screamer. It was hard to believe that this Kevin Peterson fan emulates his idol in attitude and approach. You’d never see KP looking so pathetic against any bowler, even when he is awfully out of touch. He, to me, is grace personified in whatever situation he finds himself in. On the contrary, Tiwary seems to be at all sea against quality pace bowling on lively tracks.

Not that this single knock reverses my opinion on him, but then what this inning has managed is, it has forced me to carry out another evaluation of this batsman from scratch. I would watch him play next time without any pre-conceived notion and see how he fairs. Let’s watch through this tournament and find out how good he is.

Pujara, the other domestic heavy scorer again seems to be a misfit in this version; maybe he is better suited for the longer format.

The other thing about KKR is that Ganguly looks a pale shadow of himself with the bat. That’s fine as long as he is there in this line up in order to facilitate a strong sense of self belief, but we need to see whom he keeps out once all the big guns are back. He is definitely still much better than the Shuklas & the Shahs.

In the second match, Deccan defeated CSK as expected, for two reasons. One, they have the strongest batting line up in the event, two, they were warmed up having played the opener whereas the CSK were playing their first encounter. The CSK,by no means, are pushovers and in a future encounter between these two sides, there is a 70-30 chance of Deccan winning because of their sheer batting prowess.

The Gilchrist-Gibbs-Symonds trio would definitely start as favorites against any side.

We will wait and watch.

Aamir Khan Off target in Tata Sky Plus Ad

Thought of posting an old writing about an advertiment,  I know I'm late, but then better late than never.

I was a bit dissappointed to see Aamir Khan asking us to pause or record live matches in our tata sky plus recently. I do understand the feature of the product, but I'm sorry to say that this particular way of  describing the advantage is a bit more than unimaginative. Moreover, Aamir Khan, who is known to have an eye for details, ignoring such an important thing is just not done.

All you sports lovers know the impact of a live versus a recorded match. You'd never want to pause a live match and chat over phone and then watch the recorded version! And when exactly do you see this recorded portion? Logically after the end of the match? No point seeing it after the call and missing another part of the live match for sure? Then what is the point after all? We have numerous replays, highlights going on and on in various channels, why tata shy plus?

Come on Aamir! We know you better than that. The focus should have been on recording your wifes soaps while watching live matches. Not the other way round.

Better luck next time.

Stars and product endorsement

Switch on your TV and you have all the top stars of bollywood selling you foods-to-dress-to-everything.  Watch a cricket match and Ranbitr would urge you to drink Pepsi, Akshay would push you to believe that Thums Up is better, or Asin would color your imaginatuion with orange in Fanta. And yes, don't forget your snacks, Juhi has got Kurkure for you and Saif's Lays are good too.

You are confused whether you should buy Tata sky or Airtel DTH or Videocon. How many times do you decide based on the star power of the actor you see in the ad? Chances are most of the products at your home are the result of their star appeal rather than the technical specification of the product itself. Such is the impact of these stars that, your first preference goes towards the best of them, the second towards the better one, so on and so forth.

The corporate world seem to have noticed this and are in a race to sign up the best of them to strike a chord with you. And so have the stars as you will notice from the astronomical endorsement fees that they charge for each such ad. Just take a look at the amount of fees charges by the top five and you will know, why they are kind of on your face to make you buy a product that they are endorsing. (The fees stated are indicative as mentioned in a TV channel, actual figure varies, read per ads as per deals)

• Aamir Khan (Unknown, said to have signed a Rs 35 crores deal with a moblile company)
• Shahrukh Khan/Akshay Kumar (Rs 15 Crores per ad)
• Hrithik Roshan ( Rs.12 Crores per ad)
• Salman Khan (Rs.10 Crores per ad)
• Ranbir Kapoor ( Rs. 7 Crores per ad)

No wonder why the models who are aspiring stars are jealous of them. Few years back, the television advertiment was seen to be a models territory. Now, no demarkation as such, both do both and the results are there for everybody to see, who takes home the mullah.

In one recent episode in zoom, ad guru Prahlad Kakkar expressed that the presence of stars and the sky rocketting prices are here to stay only for a very short period. Its getting increasingly difficult for public to associate a particular star with a particular product as everybody seem to be selling everything. Where is the brand recall then? How to measure the impact and payback?

I am a bit skeptical though, I'd prefer to wait and watch. At this moment I feel only the faces of the stars would change, but star endorement is here to stay for a very long long time. After all I bought my Panasonic Vierra after watchig Ranbir selling it.

True Sales man of the year, this Rocket Singh?

Delhi Dare Devils prevail over Kings Eleven Punjab in a tight encounter

It was that man again! Gautam Gambhir, the cricketer who has come off age in the past couple of years, and enjoyed tremendus success at the top order for team India, again showed why he is regarded one of the best by any opposition. And his india team mates playing for the Kings Eleven discovered the same in the hard way.

Having taken out the destructive duo of Sehwag and Dilshan cheaply, Kings Eleven must have thought that they were sitting pretty, especially because AB DeVillers too failed to get going, but then the number one batsman in test cricket stood as solid as a rock between them and victory. They failed to knock him over and he suceeded in seeing his team through.

One more positive factor in this encounter, for India was the inspired spell from Sreesanth, the mercurial pacer from Kerala. He showed excellent rythm and briefly threatened to destroy the Delhi inning. Only if he can stay in this rythm zone, more often! Let's hope he does for the sake of India.

Entertaining stuff as a whole though. Today we have two more cliffhangers lined up, KKR vs Royal Challangers Bangalore and CSK vs The Deccan Chargers.

My money will be on KKR and the Chargers, yours?

And the IPL 3 takes off..........

                                      

Hey guys, the IPL is back with season 3 and so am I. Feels good to get back to blogging after such a long time. There had to be a cracker of an event to pull me back here, the lack of time and everything being a mere excuse, and what better than this entertaining tourney!

A lot has happened in world cricket since I published my last post, funniest amongs them has been the reactions to Sachin's double century in ODI. Howmuchever people talk about records not being a measure of a players greatness, one milestones comes and suiddenly the same set of people seems to wake up to a player who anyways was a master.

This double century, the firstever by any batsman in oneday cricket, didn't really show anything about the great man that we already didn't know. With or without this knock, he always was one of the best, if not the best, to have played the game. But then statistics have again proved to be more important than anybody would like to believe as the "Sachin  Vs Bradman" debate has again started doing rounds. Thats cricket for you.

Back to the IPL,dunno why, I'm getting this feeling that this time around the event is gonna be a special one, differnently special. Back in India after a year, a favorable international window, where all the best guys in the world would be available at least during the later part, and also the timing has made it to be the real build up for the 2010 World T20 cup, where selection is most certainly gonna be influenced by performance in IPL, all these factors simply adding to the buzz.

By the time I sit down to write this post, two matches are already over, I have been fortunate to watch at least one and a half of them, and both of them have been no less than mind blowing.

The opening match was between KKR and the defending champions Deccan Chargers, where the former prevailed, and the second  one was between Mumbai Indians and the champion of the inagural IPL Rajastan Royals, where the later missed out by a whisker.

Already we have witnessed a few superb innings from the batsmen, a 37-ball century by Yusuf Pathan being the best of them, not to take anything away from the match winning 65 not out by Angelo Mathews from KKR ably supported by Owais Shah's 58. Gilchrist seems to be ever green, even after retiring form international cricket for about two years now, he keeps bowlers carting all over the park as if he has retired only yesterday.

KKR is a bit weak in batting, but no shortage of determination there, after a couple of seasons of dismal performances. Back against the wall, hungry for success, and great start. Come Chris Gayle and Brendon Maccullum, they would fancy their chances to go far in this edition.

Great fun this, technical purity can wait for a while........till the next test series comes up.

Catch you later, I'm running to catch up with the second match of the day, Delhi Dare Devils vs The Kings Eleven Punjab. Will update about the match as soon as I can.