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.