24 Saturday May 2014
Posted in Cricket
I always liked Dhoni for being cool and calm even when somebody drops a simple catch at the crucial stage of a match. Today got another reason to like him.. Him and Faf Du Plessis were in 48 and 2 runs needed to win the match. He took a single and gave an opportunity to Faf to complete his 50. I don’t know how many people will do it.. Simple GREAT and SALUTE to this gesture 🙂
Good One DHONI!!! One more leadership skill that we can learn from him 🙂
07 Wednesday May 2014
Posted in Cricket
After watching yesterday’s IPL match between RCB and MI, this is the line that came to my mind: (Of course it was inspired by some tweet message that they read out on TV)
In cricket only bat and ball should fight/clash, not the players holding them!!
Cummon Starc and Pollard.. Grow up 🙂
03 Sunday Apr 2011
Its a long time since I have blogged last. But this is a wonderful moment to restart blogging!!
YEAAAAAAAAAAA is what I can feel right now!!!
For all the other teams it would have been one final. But for India, it was a series with three finals.. First Australia, then Pakistan and then Srilanka
Australia -> The defending champions and India defeated them. Though the Aussies’ commitment was great, India’s determination to send them home was greater!!
Pakistan -> Even an ordinary match between India & Pakistan will be treated as a World Cup Final. But, this was a knock out game semi-finals in World Cup. Think about the pressure on the teams. Both teams played well. But Pakistan was not up to the mark. They should have accelerated a bit earlier. Even if India had lost the finals, people would not have worried after this as our team have defeated Pakistan. For the first time in our company’s history, they projected this match on big screens and we all enjoyed the Indian innings.
Im gng to cover this a bit in detail. 🙂
Srilanka -> The big match at Mumbai. When chasing in a world cup final, even 200 is a big score to get. Srilanka scored a huge 274 with the help of a great century from Jayawardane. India lost two HUGE early wickets. I kind of lost my hope here. 😦 But, the way Gambhir and Kohli carried on was remarkable. (Signs for a bright future for Indian Cricket. Anybody there to contradict????) Murali and Malinga were Srilanka’s strike bowlers. Only thing indians wanted was not to loose their wickets to these guys by playing some rash/big shots. They know that they can compensate it with other bowlers. And the plan was really good and the guys executed it well too. With a wonderful catch by Dilshan, Kohli was replaced by the captain. What a man he is!! Started off slowly but steadily. Built the innings with Gambhir and slowly put pressure on Srilanka. Gambhir could have scored a century but with an unnecessary shot, went to pavilion and came Yuvi. When these two were playing, there was a mis-understanding between them and there was a chance of run out. I saw Dhoni’s expression. He was horrified. It was like a person who has done a crime and got caught. Then he steadied and these two guys made sure the world cup reaches India. When the cup reached India, it was tears of happiness all over.
And everything was for one person. Sachin Tendulkar. The comment from Kohli summarises it all. “He had carried the burden for India on his shoulders for 20 years. It is our time now to carry him on our shoulders!!” What else do you want??
We should not forget the contribution of Gary Kirsten. The coach working on the background. After a forgettable performance in 2007 world cup, he brought the team together and improved them. This guy and Dhoni made India to be at the top of the table in all forms of cricket. ODI/Test/T20.
Proving that INDIA is THE BEST!!! Chak De India!!!
28 Thursday May 2009
So far…
From now on…
Another IPL just got over!!!
This time South Africa got the opportunity of hosting the IPL. Lets hope next time it will be in India. (Will try to watch at least one match in the stadium!!!)
Last season, it was the freshers who shined. But this time, it was the veterans who stole the show!!!
A few words about the biggies:
Warne : He is 39. Do I have to talk about his captaincy? Last season I saw him teaching the bowlers about how to bowl. This time he was teaching a young batsman about how to bat and it was towards the end of the match. The point to notice is, that really worked. If allowed, this man would have taken a white board and start teaching more to his team mates on the field itself. 🙂 Simply GREAT!!!
Jumbo Anil Kumble : This man is 38. Proved especially in the first and last matches that he is still in touch. Very good captaincy that brought the Royal Challengers to finals. Big wickets at the right time. Still a nightmare for batsmen.
Gilly : Played like a Ghilli (In TamilNadu, there is a game Ghilli dhaandu. Considered to be the mother of Cricket. One person will throw a small stick, ghilli, and the other will strike it with a long one, dhaandu.). Amazing game by this man. I guess, he is 37 for the records.. may be some mistakes in them.. Played like as if he is in his twenties. One of the main reasons for Deccan to snatch the trophy.
Haydos : Another 37 aged.. Orange cap winner. Even though he didn’t play for around 3 matches, he was way ahead of the 2nd highest scorer in the series. He is the main reason for Chennai to get into the semis…
Memorable moment : Knight Riders were batting. Ganguly and another young batsman were in the field. Ganguly has scored around 42. And they had a chance to win. He was asking the other batsman not to play rash shots. But, that guy was not listening and got out playing a rash shot. At that time, I don’t know whether that other player felt bad or not, Ganguly felt a lot worse that anybody else. This shows the desperation of Ganguly to win a match. Though he warned, the other didn’t listen.
Great Disappointments :
Albie Morkel (as a batsman): He was convincing as a bowler. I feel that was the main reason he was kept in the team. Last time, he has set an impression that he is a very good middle order batsman. So, with the same expectation, I started to watch his innings. I thought he will be sending the ball out of the grounds. But it didn’t happen. May be, he is concentrating more on bowling than batting.
Glenn McGrath : OOps!!! He didn’t play even a single match. That itself was disappointing. Person to blame : Sehwag.
McCullum : This man could not explode much.. Whenever he started, he was sent back to pavilion. Lets hope he does something big in the next season. Pressure of responsibility???
Symonds (Apart from his batting/fielding) : I saw him sledging Manish Pandey (Played for Bangalore and scored an unbeaten 114). Harsha Bhogle was commenting (as if talking to Symonds) “You got to find a person of your size. He is just a kid.”
Rameez Raja : Yup!!! The commentator. He joined late in the series. Seems like he is in league with Symonds. A few excerpts of his comments:
About Praveen Kumar : I think he knows the difference between left hand batsmen and right hand batsmen.
About Uthappa : (When the batsman hit the ball, it hit the ground, doubtful, and raised. Uthappa didn’t catch it. Rameez was discussing with the other commentator.) I think the ball hit the ground. It is Uthappa! It must be a catch missed. (I don’t remember the exact statement he made. But, this is the abstract.)
Rameez!!! This is not good for a commentator. Watch out!!!
About the teams :
Kolkatta Knight Riders : One thing to mention is, they didn’t surrender completely to the other teams. So, we cannot say this is a weak team. Another issue is a maximum of only one batsman was scoring better in any of the match. As all the others were getting out fast and this batsman has to try big shots soon and ultimately he too gets out. Something was not right in the team. If a little part of that something was right, they would not have lost all those close matches. Is it their coach or owner???
Mumbai Indians : Even though they started off well, they could not maintain it. Looking at the way they started, I thought they will be qualified for semis. But…
Rajasthan Royals : Toooo much of dependency on two men. Yusuf Pathan and Greame Smith. That was their problem. With this kind of pressure on them, these two men could not perform well.
Kings XI Punjab : I guess, the middle order didn’t click. Sangakkara was good. And I guess the injury of Jayawardhana was a set back to them.
Delhi Daredevils : They were at the top till the end of all the leagues. Their bowling was not good at the semis. Also, their opening didn’t perform as expected. Is Gambhir loosing his form???
Chennai Super kings : The middle order was not so good as it looked. Morkel, Flintoff were not in form. Dhoni too didn’t bat as expected. Later even when Mike Hussey came, Dhoni didn’t take him in the team. Donno why!!! Ntini was not given any opportunity… Comparitively, loooooooooooooooooot of misfields, drop catches!!!
Royal Challengers : Though they didn’t had a very good start, they came back hard later. Ross Taylor and Jack Kallis made wonderful knocks when required and obviously, captaincy by Kumble!!!
Deccan Chargers : The defending champions. Last season they were at the bottom of the table. Now, champions. Thanks to Rohit Sharma, Symonds, Dwayne Smith, Ojha and RP Singh.
Another point that I noted in this series: Whenever a bowler got a wicket he says “F#%$” or a derivative of that word. (I guess I read their lips properly!!!) Donno why they are so much obsessed with that word. Seems like there should be a censor board in the fields to prevent these. (May be umpires can take over this responsibility.)
Strategical Time Out
For me, it seems like it reduces the intensity of the game. Because, the batsmen knows that there is going to be a break and starts playing extra carefully. (Not all of them. Some are still firing even at the last ball before the time out.) Being more cautious, sometimes, leads them to get out, reduces the scoring rate. Also, as their concentration looses, quite a number of wickets fell immediately after the time out.
For the channel, they split the 450 seconds to something close to this (Most of the times this holds true):
Apart from all the issues, IPL was quite entertaining. After this got over, now I feel very bored in the evenings. Now I realize the amount of entertainment it provided.
Have to wait for one more year for IPL Season 3 to watch (hopefully) an intriguing/nail biting/…/… series. Hope they wont schedule two matches on week days!!! Otherwise, have to keep on refreshing cricinfo from office 😉 and have to loose track of the match while returning home. Especially when Chennai is batting. (Yup!!! I am a Chennai Super Kings supporter.)
Disclaimer: I haven’t watched all the 59 matches. Watched around 30-35 matches. And all the comments are based on them.
These are totally my OWN views about this IPL. Not to hurt anybody. Just to express my views and bring out the negatives I could observe.
If you feel like, leave a comment.
02 Monday Jun 2008
Posted in Cricket
After a loooooooooooong gap… Busy with work. So didn’t get time to blog.
This IPL was a feast to all the millions of cricket fans throughout India. 45 days of nonstop play and around 60 matches. Yes, T20 doesn’t give opportunity for the players to settle and then start their games. But for a cricket fan, it is really a big entertainment. and moreover for the players, it DEMANDS their adaptability. They cannot waste even a single ball. From the first ball itself they have to start hitting. Some time back, Ponting told that, “In T20, every single ball is like gold”. Its 100% true. Lot of people complains that anybody can play T20. I don’t agree to that. That doesn’t work always. Even in this format of game, players has to bat sensibly. With less overs to bat and less overs to bowl, the batsmen and bowlers and fielders have to give 100% of them.
Apart from few controversies, Bhajji hitting Sreeshant, and the issues with Cheer leaders the tournament was good. In one way, I would say, Mumbai should thank Bhajji. If that incident had not happened, they would not have got a captain like Pollock and there would not be a competition for Delhi to enter the semis. While such experienced players(Pollock, Jayasurya) are in the team, I don’t find any reason for making Bhajji the captain. Is it ONLY because he is an Indian?
And I dont find a need for cheer leaders in T20. What are they doing there? Almost 99% of the fans come there to watch the match. When people are watching one days and test matches without cheer leaders, why not T20s? Moreover T20s are more exciting than the other format of games.
One of the things I didnt about Sony Max was their camera angles. In some matches, they have angled the cameras in such a way that we could not watch it with a family sitting around. At the beginning, seems like they have employed amateurs to cover the match. Even I can follow the ball. The camera was showing somewhere else. But it got Okay towards the end of series.
Enough -ve points. 🙂 Now positives.
What I liked the most of IPL is the concept of bringing the players from different countries to play for a team. As everybody knows, this gives an opportunity for players to get to know about each other better. If this kind of things happen regularly, I don’t think sledging will last long. It will become obsolete.
One more thing is, Gilly, Warne, Pollock, Jayasurya, Albie Morkel, Shane Watson, the Hussey brothers, Maccullum, Mark Boucher, Tanvir, Ntini, Shaun Marsh and a loooooot more have never got this much of claps or support so far in India. I can assure that. Indians will be scolding them whenever they hit sixers or get a wicket or stopped a boundary. Look at the effect now. Each and everybody will have been praised by thousands of Indians for their game. Any objections?
Along with that, this provided an opportunity for the young Indians a very good opportunity which they might have never dreamt of. They were playing with some really big guys. (In Tamil, we call such legends as Jambavan. A character in Ramayana, Indian Mythology). Those seniors have given loot of good tips to the players. I have seen Warne talking to Yusuf Pathan during some critical part of the game and instructed him about how to bowl and all those things. This is like Geetha Upadhesam for them. (Oops!!! Again an example from Mahabharatha, another indian mythology. In it, at the battle field, Arjun will hesitate fighting against people he respects most. And Lord Krishna will convince him to fight. This is the abstract. Google for more info 🙂 )
India has found looot of fresh talents. Yusuf Pathan, Goswamy, Ashok Dinda, Ojha, Gony, Shikar Dhawan and lot more… With these young talents, India can form two teams:) These players are known only from one IPL. Donno how many such players exist?
Not only in India, there were a few new guys from other countries played in a really amazing way. Shaun Marsh, David Hussey, Tatenda Taibu (the way he fielded!! oof!!! amazing !!!)
The one person I admire here is Warne. coz, initially, Rajasthan was considered the weakest team. But look at the end. They have snatched the cup and moreover they won the leagues with a huge margin. He used the right players at right time. Instructed the players as and when needed. Hats off to Warne.
Another guy is Dhoni. He played very sensibly in most of the games. The thing I liked most about him was, he kept his cool at all the situations of the game. Even after loosing the game, I have never seen a team doing a get together like they did.
To sum up, waiting for the next IPL for tonnes of entertainment and the day sledging will become a forgotten concept. 🙂
