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Showing posts with label IPL 2010. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IPL 2010. Show all posts
No more IPLs till the slate is clean
I was very proud of this Indian product called the IPL till very recently. But with the IPLGate saga unfolding over the last two weeks, I realized that this is actually a national shame and the tournament should be suspended till the time there is some transparency in the whole system be it on the details of stakeholders, the bidding procedure and how the IPL is contributing back to the game and so on.
As much as I love cricket and the concept of the IPL, I must say that national interest is more important than what seems to have now become a silly passion. There is already sufficient proof of huge amounts of tax evasion through this event and now we hear that the IPL actually is dictating our lives since the national carrier has diverted some of its flights putting genuine travellers in jeopardy to accommodate the VVVIPs of our country, the spoilt brats of today's age - the cricketers.
Till now the argument was - Oh it's great for cricket and our domestic cricketers.. look at the opportunities available to them and also the employment opportunities created for many others by the IPL.
But the costs seem to outweighing the benefits at this point. Consider this -
1. Money laundering by corporates/politicians.
2. There are power cuts in a number of metros during this part of the year but there is enough power supply for these guys to stage those day/night matches.
3. Tax-free IPL parties for these buggers which players are actually obliged to attend. No time for players to sleep - fitness goes for a six. Longevity of a player's career directly affected.
4. And all of this when we don't even know how much the IPL has reinvested into the game/infrastructure for the game.
5. The virus of betting and fixing could be at play once again.
Trusting our political class and the BCCI many more scams are likely to crop up in the future.
So no more IPL until these guys come clean on everything.
t20 is a batsman's game...
not that i had any doubts about it... neither do i envy murali vijay...
but when vijay got a century cheeka jumped up and down in ecstasy and then settled down to sigh on national tv... that had it not been for the icc rule to select t20 world cup team a month in advance... he would have picked murali vijay... without a hint of guilt...
by the same token, why not a single word for two bowlers... ojha and mishra... who are the highest wicket takers this season...?
Cliche!
I am a Mumbaikar.Have been one all my life. No, that is not the cliche.
And one of the important rites of passage that comes along with being a Mumbaikar, in addition to traveling in locals during peak hours and speaking Hinglish, is playing tennis and rubber ball cricket in the galli.Or a maidan, if you are so lucky. Or are living in Navi Mumbai.
Rubber and Tennis ball ( not to be confused with tape ball) cricket meant that anyone with reasonable pace could bang the ball in short and have the batsman playing anywhere between his chest and head. Or higher.
Playing in the maidan also meant a few mandatory rules. Under no circumstances were runs behind the wicket allowed. And often times, because of a lack of quorum, runs on the offside were disallowed too.
Which meant that the bread and butter shots were the front of the wicket hook and pull.. Variants included the lofted drive and the ada patta shot.
Which in turn meant that almost all, if not everyone in my group was a good puller and hooker of the ball.. Not so much a driver, because hitting the ball along the carpet with a packed leg side field, drew much scorn. From your team mates.
Anywho, this is the background.
And on the basis of this back ground, here comes the main story.
We went to Murud Janjira on a school excursion. Where, in our infinite wisdom, we decided to play cricket. On the beach. Correction - on a sandy beach. Plenty of hoo haaing later ( "will the ball bounce?", "how many tappa before the ball is called dead", " should we pull in the boundaries because the ball wont carry", "lets play under arm instead"), the game got underway.
And it took just one delivery for all of our preconceived notions to go out through the window.
For, a field that read five in the deep on the onside and four on the off, changed to two slips, point, short cover, forward short leg, short square leg, deep fine and a short midwicket.
For no one, and I mean no one,had accounted for either the skid or the bounce on that sandy strip.
Batsmen used to playing the pull and the hook were top edging balls, plenty of balls were going off the splice of the bat and there wasnt one front foot shot played in anger that afternoon.
Which brings me to the reason for this post - this little passage on Cricinfo
Dinda v Warner: The first over of Delhi's chase. Ashok Dinda sent down four successive dot balls, all of them short of a length and skidding into the left-hander David Warner, hurrying and cramping him. Warner attempted to short-arm jab three of those on the leg side but failed. The fifth was straighter and quicker. It skidded through Warner's defences before he brought his bat down and demolished off stump. For a batsman reared on the hard and fast surfaces of Australia, Warner was surprisingly beaten by Dinda's pace.
In trying to explain Warner's failing against Dinda, the writer resorted to a tired cliche - that because Warner is Australian, it is automatic that he is a good player of pace.(And that wickets in Australia are fast and hard) And he may well be, but what the writer forgot, or deliberately omitted, is the fact that prior to the game in Kolkata, Delhi had played three games on the trot at the Kotla. And given the nature of the Kotla wicket, with a tendency to stay on the lower side and stop a bit, it wasn't much of a surprise that Warner was late first up when playing under the lights on a slightly bouncier and skiddier Eden Gardens track.
Because it was a matter of adjustment. And swishing across the line without taking into account either the wicket or the conditions is just bad batting. Whether you are Australian, Indian or a poor old sod from the maidans of Mumbai.
And sometimes, the explanation is just that simple.. Without resorting to cliches.
i have seen...
a doctor diagnose the way his hospital wants him to...
a geek code program the way his firm wants him to...
an insurance agent sell policies the way his agency wants him to...
an editor cut programs the way his channel wants him to...
a journalist write the way his publication wants him to...
then why is it when commentators chant mrf blimps... howl dlf maximums... they are equated to sucking ipl's balls...?
Whose Team is it Anyway?
We're well and truly into the third season of the IPL and just like the first two editions we have a team that just can't seem to win. It's official: Kings XI Punjab are the Kolkata Knightriders/Deccan Chargers of 2010. A lot of talk has revolved around captaincy and the impact players have disappointed.
Cricinfo ran a pretty cheap piece on the big disappointments of this season and it was no surprise that four of them were from Kings XI. But the most damning aspect of their presence was the amount of money they're being paid. Yuvraj Singh, Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene, Shantakumaran Sreesanth are making over $2.8 Million a season. You could probably add Brett Lee ($900,000) and Irfan Pathan ($925,000) to the list.
This begs the question: Who is in control of the side? Sangakkara has cut a forlorn figure everytime things haven't gone his way, Jayawardene led the side one game and it looked better but still crumbled under pressure, and it's best not to talk of Yuvraj's involvement of lack thereof.
There was, however, one man last night who seemed to believe. He is just another domestic cricketer using the IPL to make some money and maybe impress the selectors. He has captained the Indian Under-19 side in the past, shown glimpses of his ability with a couple of rousing innings, taken the gloves when his captain was banned, and retained them even with the skipper coming back. Step forward Manvinder Bisla. You made yourself visible last night by making sure you were inconspicuous. You were neat behind the stumps (That wide off Lee was unfortunate), made sure the bowlers were motivated, applauded pretty much every fielding effort, and even had the instinct to go up to Shalabh Srivastava after the over in which Sreesanth dropped a sitter, something your captain or icon player should have been doing.
It is a pity such intangibles will be lost on your franchise and the national selectors because you don't strike a gorgeous pose when you hit a cover drive or don't have the ego to make yourself visible to those fans who are looking for cheap fun. But I hope someone like Shane Warne sees what you're about. You did take the attack to him and did well until you were foxed by the great. Maybe Warney will come back to the IPL next season and want you in his side. Players like you show leadership is not about entitlement, it's all about initiative and how far you're willing to go for your team even if you don't get the glory.
life during ipl...
saale maar maar ke mrf blimp bana doonga...
abe dlf maximum... himmat hai to ab bol ke dikha be...
yaar usski girl friend dekhi hai... karbonn kamal hai...
my one liner last night at disko was just citi moment of success... you too use it...
arre bhai... tumne kya maxx mobile time out liya hua hai... contributions bhejo yaar...
Nobody calls me Kaifu anymore
There was a time I used to finish games. Now I just finish them. Never before have I spoken in italics, but that’s my embarrassing IPL form. The umpires make it worse – if I’m lucky, they give me out the first time. But the arthritis, what can I say – my legs are all over in a heap, they feel like wood – and mostly I mistake my left leg for my bat, I place front foot forward instead of bat. I wish I was batting with two bats and one right leg.
Now that I have been dropped, it can’t get worse – they can’t send me back to India. But I’m open to being sent back to South Africa. Hear me talk, I sound like a leech. Sucking free money of my heart broken franchise owners – Zinta had high hopes on me, but what can you say, she had high hopes on Yuvi.
After all this, my bank manager is quite happy – he says, I should target the trading period and work on my net form and ask opposition coaches to review me there. That is not easy. I have made some videos and am circulating them – one of them landed in the wrong hands, Moody’s – he kept asking me, whose batting body I had morphed my head into. One of the crude Punjabi players joked that our games should be played in the nets, then both Yuvi and I will fire. Now, looks like they will fire us.
Loss of form makes me repeat, makes me repeat…next time I want to play for a franchise whose home ground will be Lord’s. It will also help if we are set a target, 326 will be a good one to chase. I’m saying this because coaches have always told me, think positive, think about the good times.
Toxic Prince 2
Act 1 -
All hail the prince. Icon-cricketer. Son of the soil. Captain of the franchise.
Act 2 -
Prince past prime. Prince underperforms. Team underperforms. Team sulks & sucks. Aussie coach unhappy. Owners unhappy. Aussie coach convinces owners to dump captain. Prince loses captaincy. Team wicketkeeper made captain.
Act 3 -
Prince past prime. Prince continues to underperform. Team continues to underperform. Team still sulks and sucks. Aussie coach still unhappy. Owners still unhappy. New captain's batting also sucks. Prince also sulks.
And we are not talking about Ganguly, Buchanan, SRK or McCullum! It is a uncanny almost surreal parallel. Delicious. Can wait for Act4 - episode 1025.
I watch IPL because it beats any other soap. Of course it is not for the cricket, silly!
By Anonymous
Now who's in your T20 world cup team
Bored Game: Fantasy Cricket Match 17 Update
17 out of the 56 league games have now been completed... thats just about 30%, so there is a long way to go yet... so preserve those changes, you might need them at the rate at which players are getting injured. You've probably settled on the kind of team you like and will only make the odd change here and there for a specific match, like maybe Yusuf Pathan for Symonds every two matches... but remember if one of your low priced players goes out, like say Rayadu at $75k, you might find it hard to squeeze in another (and maintain the allowed combo ratios of batsmen, bowlers and allrounders) - so you might end up making more than one change...
Enough of strategy, here are the current standings... oh look, is that a dashing Bored Member leading the charts :D
Uncensored, and not on TV.
KKR vs MI, from back to front, how it panned out -
Dada played fine leg, Tendu plays third man.
Saurav's one-handed catch:
That ball must not have been travelling
A Haharsha catch
Ishant after being bashed around:
"Ek aur nahin karoonga"
Response to Sehwag's tweet
So is KKR RT @sehwagvirender: Supporting MI.
When the MI batsmen call 2, the KKR fielders call 4
Lovely angles and ungals from Tendu - dada feeling much fingered
All the fielders look like Dada, the rolls, somersaults, extra effort where none is needed
Dravid to Sachin - "No, no, no you can't unretire from intl. T20s, you're not Pak..."
Kumble on today's game: Only one team was playing cricket
KKR strat - let's play out Bhajji, Malinga, Zaks, Mc...
Why doesn't Bhajji bowl like this for the other Indians
Ganguly attempts the chinese cut; instead some sushi
Keeeper appealing enthusiastically to make up for earlier lapses. smart.
MI strategy: choke the off side runs, bowl a wide legside line
With that haircut, Shikhar Dhawan really should play more
Remarkable, Dada clears the 30 yard circle and a boundary in front of square - on the on
Ok, let's swap the fineleg fielder with the keeper
Dravid: On the legside first there's the devil, then there's dada
For Dada four finelegs pls.
Also, gng by the Karbonn ad, Viru now needs a laugh transplant
You can follow BoredCricket on twitter here
Jatman: Never tell a Sri Lankan to bowl a super over
Mendis and Murali, arguably both Sri Lankans, have both bowled super overs – they both lost it for their teams. Captain Raina disagreed, throwing that “cricket is a team sport, and we collectively lost it” logic. Murali disagreed with Raina taking complete credit for the defeat.
When contacted Mendis claimed he did not remember playing in the IPL, leave alone bowling a super over.
Jatman had an altogether different take – appears when the Daredevils hand Dilshan or Maharoof the ball, they are also told, “Do anything, but don’t bowl a super over”
No doubt like the IPL, that’s a good joke, but usually the batsman has the last laugh. Dilshan’s last over was anything but super and went for 6, 6, 6, though not in that order – it was anarchy.
As for Maharoof, like Dilshan, he too has been dropped to concentrate on not bowling a ‘super over’.
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