The brainchild of BCCI that has led to India's shaky No.1 position
Now, most of you must have got the idea from the title itself. Of course, it is the IPL and Mr.Lalit Modi who have struck again. And they along with the whole BCCI individual giants are encouraging a format, where India doesn't even rank in top 5. Come on BCCI...why do you always have to something atrocious and harmful for the team in your control? Bring in some more tests please :s ...before we, the fans of Indian Cricket break your luxurious, exquisite office made from the money-through-IPL into bits and pieces.
For MSD and Co. somehow provided the icing on the cake by first marking Indian Cricket's 100th test win, and then of course, taking India to numero uno. Now that playing against minnows like Bangladesh is going to give India not even one single point in the table, and with the NZ test series still not confirmed, I doubt if India might even slip to as low as 3 or 4 in the rankings. Possible enough? Isn't it? Here is where, MSD's golden luck will come into play. Don't forget how SL players were left licking their wounds due to the lacking of UDRS. Had it been there, at least the 3rd test could have resulted in a draw. And now in the present and the future, if by god's grace, the Aussies and the Saffas could fail to make amends of the opportunities coming at them, it is going to be Dhoni's luck again.
Still though, credit has to be given to the whole Indian team, not only the one in the present but right from the 90s when our legendary heroes were cementing their place in the side right to youngsters coming in the side and doing well of late. Needless to say, it has been a long journey, and the whole of Indian Cricket deserves to cherish these precious moments. Who knows..kal India No.1 ho ya na ho?
Well Done NZ!
Test Cricket is certainly not dead. Sometimes it can just be a nail-biter too. And fine example is the 1st Test between Pakistan and New Zealand. So...T20 and Lalit Modi can and have to wait. And so can One day Internationals. The Vettori led and coached inexperienced team managed to get better of Pakistan in time. I pity Umar Akmal though. A veteran from Pakistan could have blamed the pitch for deteriorating or anything wrong happening, but this young boy has spoken everything with his bat. This shows the failure of rest of the batsmen to chase a score as low as 250 runs. These many runs are certainly considered low in test matches.
Vettori must have got thousands of hugs from his female physio now. Poor fella!
Whaddup with Gauti?
I did forget to mention Gautam Gambhir in the previous post. He is perhaps the most wanted by the villan - Complacent. LOL! I could not have thought of any name for this villan. Suggest me one if you know anything better than this. Someone's comparing him with Sunil Gavaskar, someone is awarding him checks of big amounts and few precious trophies, someone thinks he will lead India in the future. When I had a debate with my friends on this future captain of India, all they said was "Abbe pehle future tak usse team mein toh rehne de"(At least let him be in the playing XI in future). They were right on spot with this answer. He still faces a stiff competition from players like JP Duminy, deVilliers for world glory. There are many more that I can't remember.
In my opinion he is yet to face the real test on fast pitches like the ones in West Indies, South Africa. I didn't mention Australia above for the reason being that he did pretty well there last year.
Like any other young promising batsman in India, he has been a lion in his backyard. He looks technically perfect to be honest. The only problem that lags him behind is there aren't going to be many tests his country will play. And well...he is missing the next test too due to his sister's wedding. Seriously, a bad time for the wedding season to come in India. This also showcases his weaknesses. His biggest being the lack of ability to clear big grounds. But as there is this commonly known phrase says -
When there is a will, there is a way...He is best known to bisect the gaps easily courtesy some good timing. He cannot loose these skills overnight. All he can loose is his form and fitness thanks to Lalit Modi and Co. for their business league, better known as IPL. It will be interesting to see how he carries himself in the future.
IPL, EPL or SAPL. Does it really make any difference?
Road to IPL Season II has had so many hurdles and finally this latest one of shifting it out from India has probably deflated one of the wheels of the IPL vehicle. Now should I still call it Indian Premier League,English Premier League or probably South African Premier League?
You know why ? Just look at the points following below to understand my frustration and disappointment like many other Indians -
1. Player Values
Kevin Pietersen - $1.55 million - England
Andrew Flintoff - $1.55 million - England
Mahendera S Dhoni - $1 million - India
Even the icon players like Sachin, Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj are receiving just about Rs 4.50 crores which are around $800000-900000 which of course is no comparison
to that of the new Bengaluru Team captain ,Kevin Pietersen.
2.Captaincy
Thanks to the above mentioned point about K.P.'s new role that made me stretch this topic of captaincy further. Does our Indian players have no knowledge of how to lead a side whatsoever? Or are the foreigners more brainy when it comes to this job ? Doesn't seem to be true, isn't it? At least not after looking at the current healthy situation of the Indian Cricket team.If this is not enough then here's another good example that would reprimand this thought that Indians are not capable of leading a side - Sourav Ganguly. Both of them have had the midas touch to lead India to victory. Recently, Mallya and Co. replaced Rahul Dravid with K.P. as the captain and they also made a remark that once K.P. is gone back to England...oops, I mean for his national duty(since IPL is likely going to be held in England), Kallis would become the leader of the pack. And the recent speculation of removing Ganguly from his job as the captain of Kolkata Knight Riders is nearly true. And it does seem that the former Australian, John Buchanan who is now the coach of Kolkata Knight Riders would replace Dada with the Australian captain who also used to lead under his realm, Ricky Ponting. Soon we might Mukesh Ambani replacing Tendulkar with someone else. Though again, you just can't forget that if a team does remarkably well and gets into a habit of winning, it makes the job easier for the captain whosoever he is.
3.Foreign Coaches
Do we have any other team other than Mumbai Indians without a foreign coach? Let alone the franchises in IPL, do we presently have any international team(exceptions : South Africa and Australia) that doesn't have a single foreigner in their support staff?
We have seen over a decade or so and in fact we still are seeing teams like Saffas and Australia making merry with their local coaches and staff. So why can't have our local coaches in IPL as well ?
Conclusion
90% about IPL is foreign now including the crowd and all the points mentioned above. It's just those franchise owners and BCCI that make the remaining proportion.
Now tell me, is there any Desi Tadka which makes Indian Premier League Indian?
Think about it and do share with us anything Desi about IPL.
IPL:OUT,BUT NOT GONE
Today I have two News, one is good and the other also can’t be called bad.
The good news is that the DLF IPL Season II will take place this summer and the other news is that it will not be held in
The BCCI officials, after the crucial meeting today, announced that the tournament fixtures and dates shall remain the same and all the matches shall begin at 4 pm or 8 pm IST no matter where they take place, all in the interest of the fans in India. Also, each team will be allotted a home ground and the Home and Away system shall be followed.
The board confirmed that all franchises had approved the program as having the IPL was most important.
Let’s hope that the 2009 Season of the IPL is remembered for the cricket and not the controversies that surrounded it!
Pietersen, Flintoff becomes highest paid cricketers in IPL
Finally the first auction of the IPL season 2 ended. And the English duo have been sold at a record price of a whooping $1.55 million US, beating MS Dhoni's price tag of 1.5 million.
Kevin Pietersen was sold to Bangalore Royal Challengers and Andrew Flintoff to Chennai Super Kings. Paul Collingwood and Owais Shah were bought by Delhi Daredevils for $ 275,000 each. Australian spearhead Shaun Tait was bought by Rajasthan Royals which in my opinion is a great replacement for Sohail Tanvir who won't be playing this season. The super emerging player of South Africa - Jean Paul Duminy was bought by the Mumbai Indians for a massive $ 950,000.
Deccan Chargers bought a couple of West Indians - Dwayne Smith for $ 100,000 and Fidel Edwards for $150,000.
The lesser known Tyron Henderson will now play for Rajasthan Royals for $650,000. The complete list is available here.
The other auction is going to take place later either this week or at least within this month.
Dirty Politics and terrorism contaminating Indo-Pak relations
This is becoming a serious issue now. Recently Pakistan Government barred its players to play in the IPL this season. The reason ? Security concerns!
Now after the IPL, Pakistan is most likely going to rule out it's players from Indian Cricket League as well. Before this the Indian government did not permit Indian cricket team to tour Pakistan earlier this year in January. Seems like Pakistan is just giving it back to it's neighbors.
And all this is started ever since 26/11 Mumbai attacks. This tit for tat game is not only being played in cricket or any other sport, but in perhaps each and every small source of entertainment such as music, competitions and the list goes on.
Nobody would like a war at this stage as it could be devastating for both the nations. One can only hope for the improvisation of the relationship between both the countries but if it goes down, it will only open gate and that is surely gonna be war.
A logical decision by the IPL Community
I had previously listed 114 international cricketers who were going to be auctioned for the second season of IPL. I had also mentioned in that post what the consequences could be to auction so many players yet having so many restrictions to buy players from the auction.
Seems like Lalit Modi gave a hard thought to it and finally decided to cut the list to only 43 players with Pakistan players being ruled out by the Pakistan government due to security concerns.
Here's the new list of those final 43 players being auctioned along with their base price (source - cricinfo.com) :
Final list of players for auction (all figures in US$)
Australia: Aaron Bird (45,000), Brett Geeves (45,000), Bryce McGain (50,000), Daniel Harris (50,000), Dominic Thornley (50,000), George Bailey (50,000), Jon Moss (50,000), Michael Clarke (1,000,000), Michael Dighton (85,000), Michael Hill (50,000), Phil Jaques (100,000), Shane Harwood (75,000), Shaun Tait (250,000), Steven Smith (75,000), Stuart Clark (250,000).
England: Kevin Pietersen (1,350,000), Andrew Flintoff (950,000), Luke Wright (150,000), Owais Shah (150,000), Paul Collingwood (250,000), Ravi Bopara (150,000), Samit Patel (100,000).
Bangladesh: Shakib Al Hasan (75,000), Mohammad Ashraful (75,000), Mashrafe Mortaza (50,000), Tamim Iqbal (50,000).
New Zealand: James Franklin (50,000), Jesse Ryder (100,000), Kyle Mills (150,000).
South Africa: Gulam Bodi (100,000), JP Duminy (300,000), Morne van Wyk (100,000), Tyron Henderson (100,000), Yusuf Abdullah (25,000).
Sri Lanka: Thilan Thushara (100,000), Nuwan Kulasekara (100,000), Kaushalya Weeraratne (50,000), Chamara Kapugedera (150,000).
West Indies: Kieron Pollard (60,000), Fidel Edwards (150,000), Dwayne Smith (tbc), Kemar Roach (50,000), Jerome Taylor (tbc).
This list of only 43 cricketers makes a lot of sense now. After all it hopefully won't be a such a big waste of time for them as it could have resulted if all 114 players would have been placed in the auction.114 players to be auctioned in IPL and guess what...there are still 8 teams. Wow !
Well...well. I am totally annoyed the way the road to IPL Second season is going on. Can you imagine 114 cricketers being auctioned in just 8 teams ? This is how Indian Premier League second season is going to be played !
The maximum limit of spending money in the auction is just 2 million dollars, with the base price of cricketers like Kevin Pietersen and Michael Clarke itself being over 1 million. So this would mean that the maximum players that can be bought by a franchise are about 3-5. Which would mean that only around 50 cricketers can be auctioned in total.
I feel there should be at least 2 franchise added in the league. Otherwise, things would cramp up a lot. We have already seen that about 7-8 cricketers sitting in the dug out while their playing eleven are on the field. And this auction would only mean that the bunch of substitutes will increase.
Here's the list of those 114 cricketers who would be auctioned :
Australia: Brad Haddin, Michael Clarke, Nathan Hauritz, Stuart Clark, Brad Hogg, Beau Casson, Mark Cameron, Peter Forrest, Lee Carseldine, Doug Bollinger, Michael Dighton, Jason Krejza, Nathan Reardon, Chris Hartley, Shaun Tait, Ashley Noffke, Bryce McGain, George Bailey, Travis Birt, Michael Hill, Chris Swan, Michael Klinger, Ben Edmondson, Aiden Blizzard, Mark Cosgrove, Adam Voges, Shane Harwood
England: Kevin Pietersen, Andrew Flintoff, Steve Harmison, Ravi Bopara, Monty Panesar, Robert Key, James Foster, Sajid Mahmood, Matt Prior, Ian Bell, Paul Collingwood, Owais Shah, Darren Gough, Ryan Sidebottom, Graeme Swann, Luke Wright, James Anderson, Ed Joyce, Dominic Cork
Bangladesh: Shakib Al Hasan, Mohammad Ashraful, Mashrafe Mortaza, Tamim Iqbal, Junaid Siddique, Mehrab Hossain jnr, Rajin Saleh, Ziaur Rehman, Mahmudullah, Mushfiqur Rahim, Raqibul Hasan, Nadif Chowdhury
New Zealand: Mark Gillespie, Tim Southee, Jesse Ryder, Jeetan Patel, Kyle Mills, Chris Martin, Jamie How, Peter Fulton, James Franklin
Pakistan: Asim Kamal, Mohammad Hafeez, Yasir Hameed, Danish Kaneria, Yasir Arafat
South Africa: Gulam Bodi, Rory Kleinveldt, Charl Langeveldt, Ashwell Prince, JP Duminy, Martin van Jaarsveld, Roelof van der Merwe, Andre Nel, Neil McKenzie, Yusuf Abdullah, Paul Harris, Johan Botha, Morne van Wyk, Tyron Henderson
Sri Lanka: Thilan Thushara, Nuwan Kulasekara, Mahela Udawatte, Dammika Prasad, Thilina Kandamby, Kaushalya Weeraratne, Jehan Mubarak, Dilhara Lokuhettige, Malinga Bandara, Malinda Warnapura, Michael Vandort, Prasanna Jayawardene, Upul Tharanga, Kaushal Lokuarachchi, Jeevantha Kulatunga
West Indies: Sylvester Joseph, Darren Sammy, Andre Fletcher, Kieron Pollard, Kieran Powell, Fidel Edwards, Dwayne Smith, Kemar Roach
Zimbabwe: Vusi Sibanda
A weird thought crossed my mind as I was writing this post- can have this game of cricket like football where there are different counties in different locations. And they have their own league. But this would mean less international cricket and more of that club cricket.
Latest IPL Happenings
Here's the latest news of the IPL trade window. Zaheer Khan and Robin Uthappa have swapped their IPL teams which means both of them would be playing for their domestic teams. While Zaheer played for Bangalore Royal Challengers last season, Uthappa played for Mumbai Indians. So this swap means Zaheer will be playing for Mumbai Indians and Uthappa for Royal Challengers.
Earlier, Mumbai Indians had swapped their bowler Ashish Nehra for Delhi Daredevils's Shikhar Dhawan.
I still wonder what made Royal Challengers swap their in-form bowler Zaheer ? It only seems that they are going into a deeper mess.
Meanwhile, Ashish Nehra could be a gain for the Daredevils as Mohammad Asif has left IPL. And they had already signed up the Australian opener David Warner earlier. So the balance is still there.
There's more to come with England players being auctioned later during February !
England players agree to play in IPL for three weeks
Good news for all English fans ! Now they can watch their heroes play in the Indian Premier League for three weeks.
The 21-day block is a compromise position after Lalit Modi, the IPL commissioner, said he wanted English players to be available for at least four weeks of the event while the ECB were keen for just a two-week release.
The auction is scheduled between the end of West Indies tour and the starting of a return series at home.
I guess IPL is only going to improve much more because of this. It's fan following will surely increase too.
Hayden announces retirement
Matthew Hayden has finally announced his retirement from cricket (yeah, all forms of the game). And one thing is for sure, Harbhajan Singh must be enjoying it. And though even I am an Indian, it is a mixed moment for me.
But frankly speaking, I had expected this to happen ever since Hayden returned from India after the Border-Gavaskar test series. So a 17 year old remarkable career has finally met it's end after entertaining a million of people by his swashbuckling performances.
But it doesn't end here. According to Cricinfo, it has been said that he would still be playing for his Indian Premier League team - Chennai Super Kings.
Whatever may have happened, all I can say is "Enjoy your rest of the life Haydo. We'll all miss you".
Kudos to you Haydo !
