GIF of the day: McFielding

Quick Preview : Champions Trophy

A mini-World Cup deserves a mini-preview.

Kamran Akmal, immortalized in his trademark pose by Madame Tussaud  in 1780.

Pakistan

Best XI: Farhat, Jamshed, Hafeez, Shafiq, Misbah (c), Malik, Akmal (wk), Riaz, Khan, Ajmal, Ali.
Form: WTWLW
Key Players: Jamshed, Misbah, Ajmal.
Akmal: Kamran
Prediction: They just tied with Ireland and then barely escaped with a 2 wicket win. Sooo... champions, I guess?

Australia

Best XI: Watson, Warner, Bailey, Clarke (c), Voges, Wade (wk), Marsh, Faulkner, Starc, Doherty, McKay.
Form: WWWWW
Key Players: Watson, Clarke, Starc.
Punchable: Watson
Prediction: Semis. Good enough to get past the Kiwis and Lankans in their group and maybe even beat England to group leader.

England

Best XI: Cook (c), Bell, Trott, Root, Morgan, Buttler (wk), Bresnan, Broad, Swann, Anderson, Finn.
Form: LWWLW
Key Players: Cook, Morgan, Swann, Anderson.
Slappable: Broad
Prediction: Semis. See Australian prediction for more.

Comic : Last IPL

They were both thinking it.




Contributed by DHCF Rishabh Bablani
Rishabh’s personal blog

IPL 6- Young Indian Players to Watch

The IPL is near, heading towards us like a meteor. A meteor carrying cheerleaders, soulless sponsors and music way past its expiry date. And whichever Ravi Shastri clone swallowed a microphone. 

Last year we used it as an emotional shield from the battering India received in Tests, this year we can pretend to be eagle-eyed scouts looking into space for the future stars of Indian cricket.

I peered at this year's squads with narrowed eyes to make this very short list, because I was looking for players who were (a) new to the gig and (b) likely to get at least one game. That ruled out most of the others. That doesn't mean there won't be surprises, because IPL teams are only consistent in their inconsistence.

Baba Aparajith (Chennai Super Kings) - Big things are expected of this 18-year old, who was a key part of India's recent U-19 World Cup win. Apart from looking like R. Ashwin's younger brother, he's a reliable batsman, a more-than-handy offspinner and an athletic fielder. Doesn't have much of a T20 record yet, but he is playing for his home side and he might get a couple of opportunities if luck Dhoni allows it.

Ishwar Pandey (Pune Warriors) - He has had a very impressive season, and would even be known as the best fast (medium) bowler in India if random comments on the Internet meant anything. His chances of making the XI are low, as Pune also have Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Ashok Dinda, but with the number of games to be played he could get a game or two.

Comic: Starc contrast

Too good a screencap to ignore. Pretty sure Dhawan's 'mo was sculpted specifically for this crap.

Contributed by DHCF Rishabh Bablani
Rishabh’s personal blog

IPL 5: Final Qualifier (CSK vs DD) Preview

Delhi Daredevils

Just two games to go, and the IPL's finish line is within licking distance (I don't know what happens at the end, I've never won a major race). It won't seem that way for the Delhi Daredevils, though. They first have to knock out the Chennai Super Kings (the resurgent defending champions), only to then face a team that just defeated them. Fortunately for Delhi, they have rarely had two bad games in a row this season. And unfortunately for them, they now have to have two very good ones back to back, and both in Chennai.

Despite the bowling performance against KKR, theirs is still the right combination to go in with. Pawan Negi is handling the lone spinner's position well, and Delhi's only other options in that department are other left-arm spinners Shahbaz Nadeem and ROFLMAO van der Merwe (I may have got something wrong in that sentence). Their pace attack also seems like the type that will rattle the CSK line-up as long as they don't dish up too much filth - which, to their credit, they haven't been doing.

The IPL so far

Nearly 30 matches in, and we're finally a third into the IPL. It's great to see that, for once, one or two teams aren't running away with it. How often do we have a six-way tie for anything? Usually, if there are six incompetent teams sharing points, it's the bottom 6. All the better to slate the Deccan Chargers - they really must love that basement. Here are the standings, as I write this. In 15 hours or so, two out of the current top three will share the lead with 10 points.

Teams	Mat	Won	Lost	Tied	N/R	Pts	Net RR
Delhi Daredevils	6	4	2	0	0	8	+0.681
Kolkata Knight Riders	7	4	3	0	0	8	+0.432
Pune Warriors	7	4	3	0	0	8	+0.290
Rajasthan Royals	8	4	4	0	0	8	+0.190
Chennai Super Kings	7	4	3	0	0	8	+0.033
Royal Challengers Bangalore	7	4	3	0	0	8	-0.192
Mumbai Indians	6	3	3	0	0	6	-0.117
Kings XI Punjab	7	3	4	0	0	6	-0.467
Deccan Chargers	5	0	5	0	0	0	-1.032

Surprise packages

By "surprise packages", I don't mean an unexpected parcel delivered to your door, with a clearly audible ticking noise coming from it. Or maybe I do. I'm not sure.

India vs England: The good, the bad, and the slightly unattractive

Personally, I love my metaphors on a plate.

Apparently, we have been avenged.

For me, it’s only close to 30% done – because Tests do matter that much.

But I’ll take the 5-0, mostly because it was fun to watch the English team constantly complain about the cold dish they were being served. (See picture above)

Anyway, here’s what we learned from this series:

• Even if you hate Ravindra Jadeja (which you probably do), you have to admit that he really has worked hard, and is now the ideal all-round option for India, given the lack of Irfan Pathan other options. He was the highest wicket-taker in the series, with 11, and an average of 17. With the bat, he averaged 37 from 3 innings with a good lower-order strike-rate of 110. He isn’t going to single-handedly win you one in fifteen games like Yusuf Pathan, but he’s pretty steady. For now.
• Ashwin, unlike Harbhajan, takes wickets. One Challenger Trophy won’t save you, Bhaj.
• Selection is still weird. Why on earth would you have Rahane open, when there’s no way he can bat in the top 3 in a full-strength XI? He did well enough, but from his innings of 91, he looks like a much better middle-order batsman to me.
• Take Vinay Kumar’s 4-30 away, and in the four other games he gave away 150 runs in 24 overs, taking just 2 wickets. Really shouldn’t be a regular in the side.
• Umesh Yadav was erratic too, but his pace was clearly an asset at several points in the series. I’d keep him around. And what a great debut for Varun Aaron!
• The world’s #1 spinner fails at the home of spin? What’s that about?Swann took only 2 wickets at 95.5, conceding 5.3 rpo.
• It’s all #trottsfault, for scoring 202 runs at 50.5, at a strike rate a shade under 80.
• Virat Kohli (270 runs @90) doesn’t know what ugly batting is. Dhoni(212 runs, not dismissed), on the other hand, knows it better than anyone else, and excels at it.
• Parthiv Patel had a rare bad series since his comeback, but no one cares since he’s just a stop-gap opener, like Dinesh Karthik before him. This can’t happen to Rahane, which, again, is why he should be in the middle-order. Unless someone retires from ODIs soon.
• Do English fans feel the same way about Dernbach as I do about Vinay Kumar?
  Took me five minutes just to decide whether to put the comma after "bitch".

Series against Windies coming soon, I’ll be back.

Contributed by DHCF Rishabh Bablani
Rishabh’s personal blog

The Mumbai Indians win the CLT20: stats and other stuff

For the first time in the T20 Champions League’s rich, three-year-old history, a team that didn’t win its domestic competition has been crowned the champion of champions. Just in case you doubt the accuracy of that fact, I’ve compiled a list of all the winners. Please take your time to go through it, however long and tedious it may seem.

Year	CLT20 Champions	Domestic Champions
2009	New South Wales	Yes
2010	Chennai Super Kings	Yes
2011	Mumbai Indians	No

Source: Brain

Sarcasm aside, this is actually a half-decent achievement for the Indians (Mumbai Indians, that is… I will never get over how stupid a name that is for the franchise). I would have taken any sort of win after, you know, that series. A pretty exciting CLT20 was exactly the sort of thing most Indian (Team India, not Mumbai) fans needed after being battered in Tests and ODIs. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that it was… actually, I’m not going to say it at all, I’ll have someone do it for me.

Thanks, Cliche Correspondent Ravi Shastri.

Nope, not until you’ve perfected faking laryngitis. (terrible execution of dark humor here)

Anyway, it was a good tournament, mostly because I only tuned in towards the latter stages – my first game was RCB’s record chase. It’s quite the underdog story for Mumbai, actually, once all the talk about flouting the rules or whatever has been extinguished. No, Somerset, you weren’t the underdogs, because you really should have been the favorites to beat Mumbai. I know it’s a hard pill to swallow, but you’ve gotta accept that, despite having a well settled team, you really did lose to an IPL side missing half its regular XI.

The India-England ODI’s are a few days away, which is another post for another day. I’ll leave you with some stats relating to Mumbai’s CLT20 performance.

• Mumbai took the idea of T20 being a batsman’s game, and bitchslapped it into unconsciousness. Their highest run scorer was Kieron Pollard, who scored 123 runs at 20.5, just over one-third the number of runs scored by David Warner, the top-scorer (328).
• Pollard also scored one of Mumbai’s two fifties, the other one coming fromAiden Blizzard.
• Among those who actually made runs, Lasith Malinga had the second-highest strike rate (183.78) in the CLT20, with the highest being Kevon Cooper’s 191.17.
• Lasith Malinga made exactly as many runs (68) as Yusuf Pathan andSuresh Raina, in the same number of innings.
• Mumbai’s bowling stats, on the other hand, are pretty impressive. Malinga(10) and Abu Nechim Ahmed (8) are both among the top five wicket takers, and Harbhajan (7) sits just outside that.
• In that top five wicket takers’ list, though, Malinga (20) and Ahmed (17.4) are the only ones not to bowl 24 overs.
• This has nothing to do with Mumbai, but Trinidad’s spin duo of Badree andNarine have a combined economy rate of 4.46 rpo in the 48 overs they bowled. Wow.

Contributed by DHCF Rishabh Bablani
Rishabh’s personal blog

That’s not funny, MS

Not much to say at this point.

Contributed by DHCF Rishabh Bablani
Rishabh’s personal blog

  

England vs India: Halfway series review

It would be the understatement of understatements to say that the series has been full of action so far, but that doesn’t stop anyone from saying it either way.

Such competitive pitches… it could have been so much more than the one-sided whipping it has turned out to be. The first session at Lord’s is proof of that. And then, like Dhoni said, everything that could go wrong, did.

The tour began without Sehwag; Zaheer, Gambhir, Sachin, Yuvraj andHarbhajan filled up the sick room pretty quickly, igniting my suspicion that the physio gives them a complimentary paratha or something after each visit.

I reserve high praise for Praveen Kumar and Ishant Sharma, both of whom have bowled way too many overs than advisable. Ishant has put in 105.2 overs, still fewer than PK, who at 118.3, has bowled around twice as many overs as Harbhajan Singh. More praise, of course, for Dravid, who has scored more than twice as many runs as any other Indian batsman on this tour.

Sachin and Laxman have looked at ease without pushing on; Mukund has, as predicted, been a walking wicket – his initial struggle in the West Indies was a flashing neon sign indicating the same. Yuvraj and Raina have contributed ultimately inconsequential half-centuries. And to round up, Dhoni is having a horror series – he has done absolutely nothing right, in any department of the game. If Sachin and Warne get the fairytale scripts, Dhoni’s got this tour’s story from Wes Craven (Wiki it).

England, meanwhile, haven’t been perfect (but very close to it). Cook andStrauss haven’t got going, and Swann has been carted around in his half-fit state. They’ve been on the back foot one or two times, but they haven’t allowed themselves to be backed into a corner – they’ve counter-attacked with aplomb.Mr. Anderson, Broad Jr. and Bresnan have all got a five-for to their name.

India’s second practice game didn’t really help them in any way. Gambhir,Sehwag, Raina and Dhoni didn’t get the runs, Mukund (who isn’t expected to play the third Test) hit a quick hundred. Zaheer Khan, for yet unknown reasons, bowled only three overs. Mishra, the second spinner in the squad, was expensive again, just like in the first practice game. So, don’t expect any comebacks, Sehwag or no Sehwag. The two batsmen who can win a Test are the fit and in-form ones - Dravid, Sachin and Laxman. And Ojha must play.

Preferred XI: Sehwag, Gambhir, Dravid, Sachin, Laxman, Kohli, Dhoni, PK, Ishant, Ojha, Sreesanth.
Probable XI: Same, but with Raina and Mishra.

Rishabh Bablani for DieHard Cricket Fans