IPL 4: Unearthing Unknown Indian Heroes

One week into the IPL edition IV and it has been nothing less than exciting. Some of the matches & performances have been amazing to say the least. The IPL IV got to a fairy tale start, an amazing 1st match between CSK and KKR; the match which went down to the wire and provided the perfect start to the season.

Many thought that IPL won’t get viewership after the long WC, but on the contrary the WC win has increased the interest in the game and the viewership has been high, in fact it is believed that the opening ceremony and the opening match had better TRP’s compared to the previous 3 editions. All urges well for IPL, almost all high profile cricketers playing barring a few Australians and West Indians, some exciting matches and to match with it some amazing individual performances.

Honestly speaking, in the previous 3 editions of IPL, barring Yusuf Pathan, we didn’t witness any match winning performanaces from the Indian domestic players. But this time the story seems to be changing, in 1st week itself we have seen some amazing performances by less known players.

Paul Valthaty has been the 1st to catch eye of every one this IPL by scoring the 1st century of this IPL edition. Not much was known about him before the 126 not out against CSK has made him almost an house hold name. The most important thing about that innings for me was that he didn’t give it away after making a 100 he made sure that his team won the match and he stayed there till he guided his team to the 1st win of IPL IV. And now building upon his previous innings has just now given an all round performance against the Deccan Chargers to show that he is more than a one match wonder. The 2nd performance which took every by surprise was the innings by Bharat Chipli of DC against RCB, it was a very confident innings, he played superbly throughout the innings, again he didn’t give it away in middle he was there till the end of the innings which lead the DC to a good score and which helped them register their first win. Then there has been other match winning performances by players like Mohnish Mishra of PWI against KTK, his 31 not out was a knockout punch for KTK.

The performance of a player which most heartening to see is that of Ambati Rayudu. He has been nothing less than brilliant so far in this tournament. He has always been a very talented batsmen but just lost his way by getting associated with the rebel league ICL, but he is back since IPL 3 and has been back with a bang. The best thing for Rayudu has been that he has been given the guiding light by none other than the legend Sachin Tendulkar. Rayudu’s performance so far is creating a gap between himself and the other talented Mumbai batsmen Rohit Sharma.

Other than this, amazing performances so far there has been – briliant knocks by the old war horse Jacques Kallis with 3consectuive 50s, Sachin Tendulkar who is yet not dismissed in this tournament so far with 1 Century and 1 half century, Gautam Gambhir has been a valuable addition for KKR this year. We all hope this IPL gives us a brilliant match winning player who can serve the country for long time to come.

Ricky Singh for DieHard Cricket Fans

This isn’t Cricket Honey, It’s just IPL !

My wife has a love – hate relationship with Cricket. She loves it when she goes shopping. Because the shops and malls are relatively empty. She hates it when she is free, because I am not ! She looked menacing tonight, “Seriously, what is this going on ? You said it will all be over on 2 April and that you’ll be a relieved man. As you were hoping, Sachin’s team won. Then what is this thing going on now ? What is he playing for ? Don’t they have any other thing to do ? Cricket, Cricket and Cricket !”

I had to tell her something. She was standing right between me and the TV. So I goaded her out of the away, “This isn’t Cricket Honey, It’s just IPL !”

Well, that is such a relief.  I just love IPL !

There are so many things that come with IPL. It’s like “It’s all happening here” to borrow from Ravi Shastri.

The cheer girls and the beer girls. Why do people hate girls ? Yes, GIRLS ! Beats me. Just can’t imagine. If you want serious stuff, go watch Satyajit Ray’s movies on DVD without subtitles.

From whatever happened so far, one thing is quite clear. Delhi are going to be the bottom team this time. Mark my words. Sorry Sehwag, this is not your Cup of anything !

Shane Warne looks like his own wax statue from Madam Tussaud’s. Even Thiazide isn’t going to help him. He will need some kind of ‘Detox’ from ‘Botox’. Seriously though, he still is the best leg-spinner on the planet by a few light years !

Rahul Dravid looks to be in good touch and so did Laxman before Parnell. Old wines in old bottles, still delicious even in ‘limited editions’ format.

The other single Master Piece of limited edition continues to flourish and enjoy the jamboree.

Venugoapl Rao seems to be finally coming of age. Will he be the next Robin Singh of Indian Cricket ?

Paul Chandrashekar Valthaty was unknown even in his own street till yesterday. Today, he is the hottest ‘Item Number’ on news channels. Where is Manish Pandey ? Every Valthaty has his day !

I am also waiting to see following guys: Deepak Chahar [to see how he swings them up],  Shane Watson [fresh from his earth shattering innings against the mighty Bangladesh], Abu Nechim [to seehow a Kashmiri Pacer looks like] and Mohammed Kaif [just to see if he still has the fire in the belly].

Malinga wants to retire from longer versions of Cricket. Do we know the reason now ? Mumbai and Malinga seem to be unbeatable at this point of time.

Poor Mayank Agarwal. He was over the top when he whacked Murali out of the ground facing him for the first time. Malinga knocked him down with the first ball.

Vettori is a great captain. He wanted to boost Abhimanyu Mithun’s morale. So he forgot Dirk Nannes who ended up with bowling figures of 1-1-0-1 to Mithun’s 3-0-31-0 !

There are two Shauns playing for Rajastan Royals. One is Shaun Tight. He bowled a first spell of 2-0-11-2. Then came Shaun Loose. He let loose a 157 kmph monster ball and then gave away 2-0-29-0.

Saurabh Tiwari looks like he might any time cut loose and play a DLF maximum shot and then pats one to short covers for a single.

In spite of their win against lowly placed Chargers, KKR don’t look like serious contenders. And it all boils down to SRK and his preference for Hockey. Cricket Gods haven’t forgiven him for making a movie on Hockey and ignoring Cricket.

If anyone has doubts, just look at the other Khan. Aamir made ‘Lagaan’ and then witnessed India Captain Dhoni do a Bhuvanin the World Cup finals !

Yes, coming to Captaincy, Sehwag wants to lead from the front. But he just doesn’t have a back. Gambhir has a front as well as a back, but he prefers to lead from the middle.

Sanga and Gilly haven’t had great opportunities to lead so far. But it is too early as we are still in the first week of what is going to be a 7 week long affair.

Dhoni on the other hand has lead from behind the stumps. And then in front too. The Yusuf Pathan run out was classic Dhoni; just enough to change the course of the match.

Mahela is entrusted to lead a group of Tuskers. Can he do the ‘Mahout’ act ? Can he get Sreesanth to fire ? Or will it backfire in the Kochi backwaters ? Let us wait and watch !

Yuvraj has whole of India for Sahara today. In 2010, he had no team, no form and no home too as he was dumped by his IPL Masters. What a turn around in 2011. He has won a World Cup and now avenged his humiliation of last year by whacking the Punjab team.

And one man is silently leading from the front and winning matches with ease for his team.

I will come back !

Govind Raj Shenoy for DieHard Cricket Fans

WTH is ICC thinking or is it at all ?

Since the moment ICC has announced its decision to make the CWC 2015 a 10 team event with only the full members being part of it, there has been a lot of condemnation of the decision around the cricketing world and very rightly so. The decision came just after the conclusion of CWC 2011 in which Ireland put up such a spirited performance and showed the world what they are capable of and also produced arguably the match of the tournamanet.

I think ICC took a wonderful decision by making the WC 2015 a 10 team event. It will definitley improve the quality of matches played throughout the tournament, ensuring the intensity throughout the tournament as the format will make each and every match very important.

The bad thing about their decision is not that the WC will be a 10 team event but that they have provided absolutely no chance to the non-test playing nations to qualify for the tournament. Thus they have converted a good decision to an absolutely ridiculous one to say the least by shutting out the World from the World Cup.

There has been a consderable progress made by a few associate nations, specially Ireland where they now have cricketers playing the sport professionally. They have done well in the last 2 WCs. They have put in a lot of effort and this decision will surely dampen their spirits.

Ideally this is what ICC should have done:

Reserve spots for the top 8 test playing nations (say excluding Zim and Bang) and have a qualifying tournament for remaining 2 spots.

The qualifying tournament should include the bottom 2 test playing nations say Zimbabwe and Bangladesh and the top 6 associate/affiliate nations say Ireland, Netherlands, Kenya, Scotland, Canada and Afghanistan. It should be a league format tournament in which everyone plays everyone and the top 2 teams qualify. It would ensure that the process remains fair and no one-off good or bad game affects the outcome.

It would provide an opportunity for the non-test-playing nations to qualify and prove their mettle. Also it will give an opportunity to the bottom 2 test playing nations to prove a point or two that they are a cut above the associate/affiliate teams as they think of themselves.

We don’t have any clue as to what prompted the ICC to make this blind decision but we can only hope that they reconsider it and provide a fair opportunity to all to qualify.

Let some sense prevail.

DieHard Cricket Fans

The Doppelgangers – Part II

Johan van der Wath - Former South African Allrounder & Reitesh Deshmukh - Bollywood Actor

Our next post of this series.

If you come across more doppelgangers, send us your entry and we will include it next time around.

Shaun Tait- Australian Fast Bowler & Tom Cruise- Hollywood Actor

Yet another disappointing tournament from the Proteas

As Morne Morkel holed out to Jamie How at long-off, a piece of every Protea supporters hearts died. 1992, 1996, 1999, 2003, 2007, and now 2011 and still no trophy. Despite new players being recruited into the South African XV from the 2007 format, South Africa could still not prevent an quarter-final elimination to the lowly New Zealand.
To me, with the wealth of support and advice being spurred onto the players, it was almost improbably that the Proteas would choke in yet another World Cup. The (now former) skipper Graeme Smith, key to scorching starts for the Green and Gold, looked scratchy and never capitalized on a twenty or thirty while the veteran Jacques Kallis showed his age averaging a mere 32 in the tournament. AB de Villiers showed his worth as being labled as one of the best one-day batsman on the international stage scoring centuries against West Indies and the Netherlands but will sadly be best remembered for running out South Africa from the World Cup in the quarter-final against New Zealand.

On the bowling front, nothing was to be complained about with every bowler playing their part with perhaps an exception for Johan Botha.

Overall, it was yet another combination of panic and unintelligent cricket when it mattered for the Proteas and with Gary Kirsten – the Indian World Cup winning coach – unlikely to take over the coaching role, SA will have to resort to basics and import youth to the set-up. Players like Rilee Rossouw, Robert Frylinck, Dane Vilas, and others have all proved their worth at domestic level and shouldn’t be kept out for has-beens such as Jacques Kallis and Graeme Smith.

Jonathan Amler for DieHard Cricket Fans

Why do I love IPL ?

IPL-4 is here, opening on a Friday; on a day most of the movies are released in India and elsewhere.

IPL has a lot in common with movies in India. Cricket and Cinema go together like Viv Richards and Nina Gupta. Howsoever far apart they might be, they do make strangely great bed-fellows. And IPL, is the Masaba of this relation ! A cross breed, yet beautiful and highly successful at a very young age.

Masaba...aah !

A lot of people, Purists, Poms and pushy Aussies have denounced IPL as ‘Not Cricket’.

Michel Holding, one of my childhood favorites declared, “T-20 is not Cricket and Keiron Pollard is not a Cricketer”.

Those who have not got a bite in, blame IPL for ‘Crass Commercialization’ of the ‘Once Beautiful’ game.

Pakistani Cricketers declare they don’t care about IPL and then secretly curse Ijaz Butt.

BCCI declares IPL as clean because they have rid IPL of the corrupting influence of evil Lalit Modi.

But let people heap abuses and denigrate IPL. Let them damn it. Let them condemn it. Let them do anything except ‘ban’ it. That is something nobody will do. Thankfully, because IPL is a ‘Goose that lays Platinum Eggs’. Gold is passe !

It is simple. I love IPL. I always like to give 5 reasons for anything and everything. But when it comes to IPL, I have so many reasons to love IPL, I might run out of space on the web. So I will stick to 11; one each for every team and one for Lalit Modi.

I Love IPL because…

1] I can sleep tight on the previous night of IPL Final. I couldn’t on 1 April 2011 night.

2] Whoever wins the IPL Final, I can celebrate. An Indian team will be winning. If it is Delhi, happy for Viru. If KKR wins, great because Pathan is there. If Mumbai Indians win, Thank You Sachin.

3] My wife and daughter cope up with shorter matches. They thought I was on another planet during the entire World Cup campaign.

4] My temper remains fine even in the worst of situations during IPL. Ashish Nehra can’t ruffle me and I adore Munaf Patel. Piyush Chawla is such a wonderful prodigy after all. And Rahul Dravid can’t draw a match.

5] I don’t have to worry about Sachin’s 100th International Century and then his 50th ODI Century and then his 102 Century and then his 19000 runs in ODIs and 15000 runs in Test Cricket and so on…

6] 92 runs needed of 60 balls doesn’t send my heart rate soaring to 184 in 60 seconds. It remains down, almost like Munaf Patel’s speed. Nothing can change it.

7] Nobody will dare to drop Yusuf Pathan to accommodate Nohit Sharma / Ravindra Jadeja in the team.

8] Ravindra Jadeja can’t lose a match for India, howsoever hard he might try.

9] Suresh Raina will not be bothered by short pitched bowling.

10] Shane Warne can continue to play; perhaps till we celebrate the Silver Jubilee of IPL.

11] And most importantly, Billy Bowden can’t beat India !

And one for the Glamor !

How can we ignore the Glamor quotient ? How can we ignore Preity Zinta, Shilpa Shetty and her sister, SRK, Deepkia and her latest boyfriend and Kingfisher ? And of course the parties and Page-3 crowd and Fake IPL Player ? IPL is GLICKET [Glamor + Cricket]

Hail IPL; the greatest show on Earth !

Govind Raj Shenoy for DieHard Cricket Fans