Can Rajasthan Royals wear the crown again?

Rajasthan Royals is playing IPL’09 as a defending champion. In IPL’08, no one had thought, this team would win the tournament. Shane Warne proved to be a lucky charm for desert land.

At the time of auction before IPL’08, all the teams were fighting for players like Dhoni, Hayden and other proven players. Warne was keeping faith on players like Sohail Tanveer, Munaf Patel and Sidharth Trivedi. It was proved, when this team won the tournament without any big name.

All the players of team performed like true champions and as a unit. Dream came true for many players to play with greats like Shane Warne and Graeme Smith. Warne played the role of motivator for all the youngsters than a mere captain. A player, who is from other country and handling a bunch of Indian Youngsters, is not an easy job. This legend spinner did not let his greatness go out of limit at any time of the tournament. He knew very well that a player could not do much single handed in cricket; he kept all the players united, focussed and ready to face any situation.

But, Before IPL’09 begins; Rajasthan Royals axed six of its players from the team and sent back home from South Africa. Team management did not feel necessary to disclose the reason of axing the players. It is the mere assumption of media that these players have been axed due to their performance of in the last IPL season. If this is the reason, why did not management feel axing them before flying to South Africa?

Sources are also saying, franchisee has not enough money to maintain the accommodation of all the players in South Africa as expenditure has increased by more than double to last season. So, they decided to axe some players on the level of performance. This decision of franchisee can affect the performance of remaining players or increase the level of performance.

Will Warne be able to repeat the magic of 2008? Let’s wait till action of IPL gaga gets over.

Dhoni, then and now

Dhoni started his international cricket in 2004 against Srilanka. It was a bad start of the career of this resilient captain, who had misjudged the second ball of Muralidharan and adjudged LBW by umpire. But it was not over for this Jharkhandi boy, who later on, made his own identity in international cricket by showing different class of maturity level in very early cricketing career.

The knock of 148 runs in Vishakhapatnam against Pakistan and 183 runs in Jaipur against Srilanka blew the arrival of new hero in international cricket with containment of different class in batting style. Indian cricket found a new wicketkeeper all rounder, who can do justice in front as well as back of wicket.

With the aim of achieving the status of Gilchrist in international cricket, the man of Ranchi started playing this game. In five years of his cricketing career, Indian cricket has been lucky enough to see the different status of Dhoni. From a long hair boy with zeal to do more to the cool headed captain leading his team from front.

In early days, he used to play attacking cricket without taking any kind of pressure on his shoulder. After playing for a year or two, he started playing the role of a finisher. He and Yuvraj Singh emerged as a threat in one-day cricket for oppositions. At a time, it had become a regular practice for these two to guide the team to victory.
In 2007, when Indian trio of Tendulkar, Dravid and Ganguly had decided not to play first ICC Twenty-20 world cup, Indian selectors were searching for a player, who could guide the team, consist of youngsters. Selectors had no clue because, Virender Sehwag, who was being considered as a future captain, was out of form and fighting for place in the team. Indian team was playing in England, when Selectors announced the name of Mahendra Singh Dhoni as captain for Twenty-20 world cup. It was unbelievable news for Dhoni but true.
Indian team won the first Twenty-20 World Cup in South Africa. The captaincy of Dhoni was acclaimed by all the greats of cricketing fraternity.
Indian cricket could not celebrate this win for long as Rahul Dravid, resigned from the captaincy of One-day and Test cricket after England Series. Rumors started flowing in and around the each corner of cities on different names for the prolific post of captain.
Once, Mohammad Azharuddin had compared Indian captaincy with the blade of knife. He had told, Indian captaincy was like a blade of knife where, there was no chance for anyone to make any mistake. After boggling on different names, finally, selectors came up with two names, Anil Kumble as the captain of test cricket and Dhoni for One-day and Twenty-20.
The stature of Dhoni was increasing day and night. Suddenly, he started being seen on each poster hanged on shops and showrooms. Corporate industry took him on their noses. Suddenly, he started demanding more than a crore for one advertisement.
But, it was like a dream came true for this Jharkhandi, who came to know that, none other than little master suggested his name for the post of captain.
Now, Mahendra Singh Dhoni leads Indian Cricket in all three format of game and took team to a different level. Today’s Indian team is a mixture of young as well as experienced. At one point of time, team gets motivation by the presence of Tendulkar then at other time, it learns to fight till last ball by seeing the fighting attitude of Mr. Captain.

IPL kicked off

Now, It would be foolish to say, why did not IPL happen in India? Let’s get out of that mode and enjoy all the actions happening in the land of Protease.
Inauguration match between Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians set the tone of 2nd season of IPL. Chennai Super Kings won the toss and decided to bowl. Decision of Dhoni looked right as Super Kings got rid off Jayasurya early. Shikhar Dhawan also could not do much; he also departed after scoring mere twenty runs. Dhoni’s wings were getting wickets at regular interval but I don’t think Dhoni had done enough analytical study on the technique of little master, who went on and on and returned not out as the inning of Mumbai Indians got over. Once again, Abhishek Nayar proved his skill in shorter format by hitting three big sixes in an over of Andrew Flintoff. Mumbai Indians set the target of 167 runs to win for Chennai Super Kings.
The start of Chennai Super Kings was also not up to the mark, they lost Parthiv Patel and in form Suresh Raina in the first five over of the inning. Mathew Hayden and Andrew Flintoff tried their best to build a good partnership and take the team out of danger.
As Chennai super kings were looking for easy win, Harbhajan Singh striked for Mumbai Indians; he took an easy catch of Andrew Flintoff on his own bowling. Hayden also could not handle the pressure and threw his wicket on the bowling of Jayasurya. From here, Mumbai Indians succeeded to make the pressure on Super Kings, in the result of that, they got wickets at regular interval. Super Kings managed to score only 146. Mumbai Indians won the inauguration match by 19 runs.
Sachin Tendulkar was adjudged “Man of the Match” for his brave 59 runs.

Let the games begin

The countdown for the second season in the IPL has started. Lalit Modi’s sleepless nights are increasing (only helped by the world’s daylight saving time memorandum). In the past two months, Modi had devoted his time juggling and deciding the venues and trying hard to provide security to the players. He panicked when he lost his Rajasthan seat and when the Indian government forced the domestic tournament out of the country; the mercury on his blood pressure monitor would have exploded out of its thin capillary.

If my research holds me in good stead, South Africa too is also holding a national and provincial election for electing a new national assembly on 22nd of April.

In an exclusive interview with CNN-IBN, Union Home Minister, P. Chidambaram commented that the tournament could have been organized in two phases in the country. League matches before the elections start and knock out matches after election gets over.
PC has however had obviously not done his homework. The entire cricket playing nation calendar for the next eight months is crowded with players on national duty perpetually. The respected Home Minister and former Finance Minister has avoided considering the monetary expense in organizing matches in two phases.

If this IPL season kick starts in the boisterous mode like its predecessor and is able to draw the attention of cricket lovers in South Africa (and all over the world), it would be a tight slap on the face of the mighty Indian Government, who acted as the villain in shifting the tournament to foreign shores.

Chidambaram, without considering the backlashes, told the world that he would include himself in that ninety eight percent of audiences, who relish watching matches on TV rather than going to the stadium.

I want to remind him of the first IPL season, when people stood in queue for a solitary ticket for more than 10 hours. Before commenting on national television, he should have fitted himself in the shoes of a cricket lover rather than a minister who enjoys Z+ grade security and attending mere sporting events is dangerous to his life.

Indian cricket reached to a new height after IPL’08. A little application and man management would have made IPL-2 possible in the country itself. To the dismay of the common Indian cricket fan, however, messy politics has shoved this mega event, which might turn the face of international cricket as it stands. I think, this might be the first in history when a political party loses its standing due the shifting of a sporting venue. The last time the government tried to alter cricket schedules for the election, the India-Pakistan series in 2004, BJP lost its standing and now sits in the opposition with no political clout left in the country.

India has often fantasized about hosting the football World Cup and may be, even the Olympics in the country, but this dream might soon be a figment of imagination after this move.
Cricket is the only sport, which hogs the limelight internationally, with its players performing wonderfully well. World Cup ’11, however, looks doubtful now. Another event lost after the Commonwealth games and the Hockey World Cup, which had India as one of its hosts.
Now the interesting twist will be the international community embracing the IPL as its own and further increasing the BCCI’s muscle.

Lastly, it would be right, if South African Government organizes a crash course for their Indian counterpart to develop a way to manage election and host a tournament at the same time. Let’s wait and watch, what the IPL and the Lok Sabha election have in store for us. It would be interesting to see, has cricket become bigger than everything else or does democracy still matter to the countrymen? I shall rest my case after the final is played in Johannesburg.

Test Killer

We didn’t expect this ending from West Indies, who played brilliantly in the entire series against England and shown some substance in their batting and bowling department. When Chris Gayle lifted the Wisden Trophy after winning the series, I don’t think, any of Caribbean would have felt proud of his team after seeing this type of performance from team in the last match.
We have been getting the regular comments about the future of test cricket from our cricket experts. It looks true after seeing this type of performance from any team. England set the target of 266 runs in minimum 66 overs, which was easily achievable. More than all, West Indies started its 2nd inning by keeping in the mind to draw the match rather than going for win.
If this type of performance will be coming continuously from a test-playing nation, we can’t expect one team to dream to achieve number one spot in ICC test ranking. One can never get to see this type of performance by Australian team, who has been occupying number one spot for a decade. Australia never starts inning with keeping draw in mind. We have seen so many times in past that if ever, Australia has the lead of 1-0 in the series and one match is remaining, they go for win rather than mere draw. It reflects the supremacy of any team on the international arena.
To save the pure form of cricket is in the hand of all the test playing nations. They have to make it interesting and competitive.

No need of Sachin in One-day Cricket

Hey, why not Sachin stop playing one-day matches? Why do not selectors give chance to youngsters? I think time is up for Sachin Tendulkar. His body does not allow playing aggressive cricket as he used to play in nineties. Team should get habituated to play without this legend.
Indian team has been performing brilliantly for one and half years. Twenty20 world cup in 2007 proved to be foray for the team. Indian team went into a big series like world cup for the first time without this little master. This came after trio of Tendulkar, Dravid and Ganguly denied to participate in Twenty20 world cup held in South Africa in 2007. This transition had given chance to some youths, who were knocking the door of Indian team since long. Lastly, Indian team filled with youths got to believe in themselves, when they returned with the cap of T-20 champion.
More than all, Indian cricket got a new cool-headed captain in the form of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who believes in team game rather than one-man sheep. He made everyone to believe that anyone can be man on his own day. It used not to happen in nineties when Indian team used to solely depend on Sachin Tendulkar to win the matches for the team. But that time is gone. Now, everyone is capable of taking the team to win the matches. Whether, he is Suresh Raina or Yusuf Pathan.
Indian team has been winning matches even in the absence of Sachin Tendulkar. Team has got a good opening combination in the form of Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir. Presence of Sachin forces Gambhir to come at number three in one-day matches, which is not usual or daily place for this rhythmic player. Sehwag opens the inning with Gambhir in Twent20 and test cricket and he prefers to open the inning with Gambhir in ODI also.
The technique and class of Tendulkar have become past for spectators to see. Spectators have to wait for days to see the old Sachin, who used to believe in dominating bowlers rather than playing defensive game. These days, Opposition bowlers are more afraid of Sehwag than Tendulkar. Now Sachin has started believing in playing the role of anchor in the team and want team to evolve around him. He wants to cover up his slow innings by making the excuses by saying that it is the need of the team. But he forgets that legend like Vivian Richards and Donald Bradman had never changed their style of play in their whole career.
It is good to see Tendulkar playing the role of anchor but it’s not time to play the old fashioned game. Tendulkar concentrating on tests will be more useful for team than playing like an old horse and blocking the place of youths like Badrinath and Pujara.
I hope Tendulkar take some decision at the time team is doing brilliant and boys believe in themselves. Enough is enough

India outplays Kiwis in the entire department

India played like winner from very first day of this test match. It was really interesting to see the style of approaching the test by India. It became one sided game from very 1st day, when New Zealand was bowled out on 279 runs. New Zealand could not stop Sachin Tendulkar by scoring 42nd ton of his test and 85th ton of his international career. Tendulkar became the first Indian to score more than 600 runs against New Zealand and equaled Dravid’s record of scoring four centuries against New Zealand. More than the batting style of Tendulkar, it was to see the style of Dravid, who batted with more confidence than he did in Srilanka. He could not score much, but his approach was more focused and determined. With the contribution in batting from all the batsmen, Bowlers also stood to the expectation and bowled like true champions. Pace trio of Zaheer, Ishant and Munaf were in full blow and in spin department Harbhajan single handedly distracted the whole batting line ups of Kiwis in the 2nd inning. Harbhajan proved himself by taking six wickets in 2nd inning that it is not necessary to for him to be provided spinning track, he can take wickets and force a batsman to make mistake by bowling on any provided pitch.
Now, it would be interesting to see the approach of Kiwis in 2nd test as they will never want to lose the series on home soil. If India wins the 2nd test match, it would be record win for this Indian side, as none of Indian team could repeat the performance of 1968, when India won test series against New Zealand. Good luck Dhoni.