IPL THE SIX POINT PAIN

It’s the IPL season again and with it brings a whole lot of new surprises. Getting first to the strategic break where the break of around 5 min has been reduced to two strategic breaks of 2.5 min each. Which the team takes only when it is mandatory. This is the most lamest tactic of earning quick bucks through the advertisements.

Secondly the ball by ball advertisements further adds to the agony of the viewers who still are much interested in the match. As it is with the overdose of the T20 cricket, people still don’t go for the entire 40 overs. Instead they are more interested in the first fice and the last five.

Thirdly the constant spotlight on the celebrity reaction too is a bit of a nuisance for a purist like me, where it is much better to watch the action replay of wicket fallen instead of SRK or a Priety (I never get her spelling right) cheering for no apparent reason. Damn they have earned their due.

Fourth the mongoose bat by Hayden. Now tell me why does HAydos need a mongoose. Already a giant of a man with the talent of a genius, come on now show us poor Indian bowlers some mercy we too are coming here to play not just be spectator of some of pretty hard mongoose hitting.

Fifth and the most important What the hell is DADA doing at the crease. It looks like a Jackson moonwalk everytime he tries to clear midwicket. Even his fielding has gone from worse to even worse. And moreover he has tried every position in the KKR batting lineup ,but to no avail.

Sixth our Indian team is getting injured like a bunch of oldies. We have to remember that we have T20 world cup coming up, with Gambhir, SEhwag, Yuvraj, Dhoni all having to visit the quacks things are not all looking bright for the Indian T20 squad. Do we have to bear another early exit from a major tournament.
And yes lastly with the way Sachin is batting I think he still has it in me to make it to the T20 squad. Any supporters???

The Demise of ODI

A current wave is flowing among the cricket experts and non cricket experts about discussing the death of the ODI. Now that is a pretty stupid thing to discuss first of all. Come on now how many times would the ICC change its stance or bring circus like innovation to the gentleman’s game to attract spectators. Now firstly I totally disagree with the killing of ODI, no matter what T20 will do. First of all the talks about the demise of ODI is entirely based on stadium revenues. Yes it does play an important part in generating revenue and giving the sponsors good value for their money, but again here we are looking at a very small part of the picture or we are being forced to look upon that small part of the picture. Sponsors and organizers always want a large share of the smallest part of a business unit, no matter what and if they find that another unit is giving that large share of the smallest part it is better to discontinue the current business.

Now take the case of ODI it is true that stadium revenue are low for the ODI games but we do have high TRPs for them. That means viewing is not quite affected due to the longer version of the game. On the other hand for T20 the stadium revenue has huge chunk which maximizes their profit to a large extent. Here is fact to support, the champion’s trophy is slotted to have a higher TRP than the champion’s league although the Champions league is said to have been the event of the year. Moreover CLT20 has done a poor business in terms of viewing revenue even though it was slotted for a higher than 10 TRP.

Another problem with killing ODI is that people do not watch it because they are bored of the long schedule of the match and today in this fast paced world no one has the time for watching all these stuff. But an interesting statistics will show the danger of treading such path. The TRP of last year’s IPL was much higher to this year’s one. Even though some of the biggest stars were roped in to counter balance the losing interest. With the sponsors adding the strategic breaks the pain was turned into agony. This shows as people have lost interest in the ODI format people are getting bored with the T20 format, then we will have cries for Hong Kong Six over games, but then will the cricketing world yield to this also. This could to demise of the pajama cricket itself. All we would be watching is people selected on power and agility and killing the art form of the game. This is more of the American form of playing a particular game.

T20 Analysis-Team Australia

The Australians could be the surprise underdog in this years T20. Not that the Australians are ever labeled as the underdogs in any tournament but a quick look at their team formation and we can see that they are not the favourites that they are always so used to. First of all they have not found a potent opening combination since the departure of Hayden and Gilchrist. Although they have found some respite in Haddin and Clarke. But both are essentially middle-order specialists whom I doubt would be as successful as their previous kings. Haddin is essentially a straight down the ground hitter who is good in clearing the in-field during the power-plays.Clarke will essentially play the anchor role with others. Then comes their real strength their explosive middle order, here is where the tournament will be won and lost for them. They have classy Ponting to begin with,followed by the explosive Andrew Symonds who is already looking in ominous form during the recent IPL. They have the Hussey brothers who can manuoevere and use the handle to good effect.Then comes their selection dilemma between Watson and Hopes.Both are equally destructive and chances are that both of them will be played at the cost of mostly David Hussey,the Victorian bomber. Then comes their bowling line-up which is mostly uni-dimensional and pace oriented. Except for Bracken all the others are fast and furious who can hit the deck hard without too much lateral movement ,which could be a case of not exploiting the English conditions to the full. Lee has struggled on the English pitches because of his failure to use the Kookaburra balls. Moreover Johnson would be their only potent attack,who too is relatively inexperienced. The major problem that Australia faces in the bowling department is absence of a quality spinner. This could be a chink in their armour as far as I am concerned. As we have seen that spinners even part-timers have an important role to play in this format. Last year when Yuvraj went on a rampage against them in the semi-finals the absence of a quality spinner hurt them, as Yuvraj was pulling their hit-the-deck hard kind of bowlers over midwicket with relative ease.

Although the Australians do seem to be an underdog, but in T20 format it is not bad to have that tag, because as we have seen from our past experiences that it’s the cup of the underdogs.Hence this could be a blessing in disguise for Ponting and his men who would be in real pressure situation this time around, because the Australians don’t like their trophy section to seem empty.

India defends T20 crown-Analysis

With India reaching England where the men in blue look to defend the title of T20 champions on English conditions. Starting from the first match against the New Zealand, then against the Pakistanis ,we could well say that the Indians are well on the way to defend the title this time around. But think as it happened to Manchester United last week the law of averages will catch up with Team India.

Lets look at the Indian lineup, On paper India looks like a world beater.But as we know cricket is not played on paper but between the 22 yards. It has explosive opening pair in Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag. Both have done well in all forms of the game. And especially both can be devastating on their day. Although gambhir has become a touch conservative but more effective than he ever was. For Sehwag he is the belligerent himself. I think this is the first time since the Ganguly Sachin duo that India is going into the tournament with a steady opening pair. Then comes the middle order with Suresh Raina the natural choice and him being in the most dangerous of the lot.Moreover his bowling exploits in this year’s IPL has made him all the more potent. India surely missed him in the last year’s T20 cup. Then comes the batting God that is Yuvraj Singh.God because on his day he can make hitting seem simple one of the cleanest striker that the game has seen since Gilly. Then comes our Captain Cool MS Dhoni with his uncanny knack of playing crucial knocks at the end and finishing the game with surgical precision. His captaincy has been the most talked about aspect about his game. A canny operator with him at the helm one can feel that India is never out of the game. He has a certain degree of Australianness to his game , is innovative and thinks on his feet which is the most important thing in T20 rather than letting things shape up he shapes things up for the opposition. Then comes the most dangerous finisher in this year’s IPL Rohit Sharma and he like Raina has found his bowling boots on this time and with his much talked back lift could give a real whack to the leather. The middle order ends with Yusuf Pathan as the big hitter taking hitting to another level but should be promoted to No.3 if not too many wickets have fell and less overs are remaining.

In the bowling department we have Zaheer Khan leading the attack not sure about his fitness, but if he plays he can be very steady in his attack.And moreover he absouletly loves England ,here is where he reinvented himself as the bowler that he is today.Then we have Ishant Sharma who is young but I think he enjoys the bouncy wickets more than the swinging English conditions where he would have to pitch it up. I think Irfan Pathan would have been a better choice due to his clean hitting but that’s upto Dhoni to decide whom he takes the gamble with. Then we have two spinners Harbhajan and Ojha vying for the single spot but I think the spot would go to Harbhajan with his new found technique in T20 and of course his habit of hitting the balls in the strangest areas in the field.

So unless India presses the self destruct mode I don’t think it will that much of a problem in retaining the trophy. However the law of averages might show its ugly head again. And one more thing please don’t give the silly excuse of burn-out in International stage ,these guys are professionals and not some 19 year olds to talk about their fitness.Moreover its their only job and I don’t think anybody can say tirdness is a factor in your job.

KIWI SHUT INDIAN TIGER ROAR

The Indians had come to NZ with the hope of burying their past demons. Sadly Indians could not keep up with their champion image and displayed a brilliant example of how to play cricket invidually.Clearly Vettori had given a brilliant opportunity for the Indians to draw first blood in this NZ tour by sending the Indians to bat first .The reason I am saying this is because the grounds were small and with big hitters in the Indian batting lineup I was expecting a score of about 200.Moreover the kiwis had to bat under the lights and in the windy conditions which was a definite plus point to the Indians while defending the score.

However as a tradition India never starts a tour on a happy note.Same was the case the Indians came to the field as they had already won the match.True they got off to a flying start with Sehwag clearing the MCG inner circle(NZ boundary) four times before trying a Nadal like smash through midwicket only failing this time.Credits to the young O Brien for having a big heart.Then it was Yuvraj,I think its time somebody told him that he cannot sweep a part time spinner leave alone a Vettori.After which Rohit as usual came with lot of flair pushing a ball to six and then again trying to clear the ropes and scooping it in the air.Yusuf was batting like in the nets that is with gay abandon.With already hitting three sixes he again tried to flat bat the ball out of the ground only this time N McCullum was smart this time giving it huge air time and landing it almost out of the playing area.Pathan tried to heave it from outside over long-on ,only to find Oram at long-on doing a Voges.The only positive was even after 96/6 India had Raina a man who has truly come of age and score a brilliant 61 unbeaten to lead India to 162.

With the Kiwis needing 163 Ishant struck first taking out Jesse Ryder and a near shout for Guptill.He was equally supported by Zak on the other end with a brilliant spell of controlled aggressive fast bowling.But only the score was too small for the small grounds and McCullum showing immense maturity to guide NZ to victory alongwith comeback man Oram.Although Indians were outplayed in this game I do like to stress a point here that India is going to get back.Mark my words kiwis Sehwag and Yuvraj are going to hammer the kiwi bowling next T20. NZ doesn’t have enough teeth in their bowling attack to really stop Indians ,it was Indians who gave away the match instead of the other way around.

One more thing I would like to comment on is the ridiculously small grounds.The ICC should maintain some standards which every country should follow .I think the optimum ground size should be 90m radius in which I think spinners can really bowl without sending in rockets at the batsmen legs.Anyhow lets wait and watch as Indians make a mockery of the kiwi bowling next T20.