Ghost of IPL past ????

Indian Primer League, the brand in the making for the first 2 years, one which brought about the commercial side of cricket in India, now stands; once again I may add, amidst controversies and fall outs. This time around it is the Secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India who is at the epicentre of this fiasco, N.Sreenivasan. Interestingly, before I started writing this piece. I wanted to know more about this guy and so I searched and found that Wikipedia describes him as

"an Indian industrialist, chemical engineer, sports administrator and socialite who is the Managing-Director of the India Cements Limited and owner of the Chennai Super Kings Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket team. He is also currently the Secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India."

Now, the first four cognomens does showcase the versatility of the person which has to be well respected but the last four keys does ring some bells. The wrong bells of course. IPL auctions being rigged is not a new thing, last year also these allegations were there about Lalit Modi favouring certain teams and this time around there is a certain team who might have benefited owing to N.Sreenivasan.

Now the hard news is that Mumbai Indians think that auctions were rigged and a special someone who knew about the auction inside out sat in the auction with a particular team, clearly helping them out. Well they are running around the bush for sure, but most of us know that the reference is for Chennai Super kings. And from his Wikipedia bio hardly any doubt.

Honestly, even I was perplexed on how well CSK were performing in the auctions, what ever they wanted, they got it, and their bidding was bang on. But these all probably my perception and N.Sreenivasan and CSK are just the cream of the issue.

Issue is most definitely an over used word and why not, IPL does tend to have a lot of issues. Capped players, uncapped players and what not .Again as I further read on about the issue, ....aah I should use some other word next time around, well anyway, A column by Sharda Urga fascinated me, in that column she stated how rules of uncapped players were bend at the last moment and it also clearly indicated the big honchos in the fray. Interestingly that big honcho was Mumbai Indians who had proposed that uncapped players be retained rather than going for the auction but it did not happen.

What happened was that the rules where mended in such a way that  uncapped players could be racked up just like that. A sort of internal matter, meaning that if an uncapped or capped players were of that high demand some extra "perks' might be added to lure them in to any particular franchise. Think of Manish Pandey, Amabati Rayadu andSourabh Tiwary  Not a fair play right??? And moreover who the hell decides these rules ?????

Well one of those rule makers might be the name mentioned earlier.

FIESTA de IPL: MI SURVIVE A PATHAN BLITZKRIEG

A Butcher with a knife would have looked more civilized than Yusuf Pathan with a piece of wood. It was onslaught at its best as powerhouse Pathan brought up the first ton of IPL-3 in ridiculously 37 deliveries, second fastest in the history of T20 format, yet his team was not able to pull of the victory against Mumbai Indians.

SQUAD

Mumbai Indians: After finishing in the bottom 4 on previous editions of IPL, MI were keen to start of with a winning note. The Master blaster alongside Jayasurya ,Zaheer and Lastish Malinga had the ICL recruits Ali Murtaza, Ambati Rayadu, and Rajgopal Satish for this opening encounter.

Rajasthan Royals: Warne opted for Speedster Shaun Tait, Mascarenhas and Graeme Smith, as he rested Munaf and Siddharth Trivedi for debutant Amit Uniyal and Imran Khan.

Mumbai Indians won the toss and elected to bat first

DETONATIVE START

Jayasurya started the proceedings with an array of boundaries with the very first over milking Mascarenhas for 13 runs. Tait bowled the second over with conviction Sachin greeted him with disdain. Amit Uniyal’s very first IPL over yielded him with the wicket of Jayasurya, a clever slower one, jayasurya out LBW. Tait bowled off radar conceding 5 wides in a single over, not an ominous start for the Royals as Sachin leg glanced and cover drived Uniyal for two exquisite boundaries before Aditya Tare launched one over the boundary line, Mumbai Indians to a stellar of a start.

YOUNG BRIGADE TAKE CHARGE

Mascarenhas returned strongly to pick up Sachin and Tare in the same over, bringing Amabati Rayadu and young Saurabh Tiwary to the crease. Rayadu started of well flicking Mascarenhas for 4 before dancing down the track flicking Warne to mid wicket, class written all over it. Tiwary joins the party with powerful drives and back foot jabs as both the lads accumulate runs maintaining the 10 runs per over rate, for most part of the innings scoring their maiden half centuries in the process. A 19 runs 14^th over bowled by Abhishek Jhunjhunwala assures Indians a score par 200. Mumbai Indians end up with their highest total of 212/6, but a Shuan Tait full toss hits Harbhajan on the knee roll, the turbanator has to retire hurt.

ROYALS DISINTEGRATE

Fantasitc opening spell by Zaheer Khan and Ryan McLaren backed up by superb fielding puts royals to the wall; by the end of 7^th over royals were 43/3 with asking rate over 15.MI were definitely on top as Malinga castled one more in the 10^th over. The first half surely belonged to the Indians.

PATHAN PANDEMONIUM

The firework instigates; Yusuf Pathan blasts three consecutive sixes, one over long on, another over mid wicket and third past long off. The 11^th over reads 1, 6, 4, 4, 6, 1wd, 4

Sachin gives the bowl to Ryan Mclaren, and after a lengthy deliberation the long on is brought inside the ring, clearly hinting full length deliveries. But there is nothing to stop this powerhouse; he digs out Yorker length deliveries to 4.Indians looked perplexed.  In a matter of 2 overs, the current run rate and required rate becomes equal, and Rajasthan royals sense something marvelous. A tight Malinga and Zaheer over puts the pressure back on the batsmen, but Pathan continues his rampage with 2 sixes and a 4 of one Jayasurya over. Pathan gets his hundred of just 37 deliveries which includes 9 boundaries and 8 maximums. Satish is back into the attack after a total drubbing by Yusuf, first ball to Pathan’s silent partner Dogra, he hits the ball straight back to the bowler, and Satish whips of the bail, third umpire rules the decision in favor of the bowler , and Mumbai Indians suddenly look a happy bunch, Pathan departs after a whirlwind innings. Yet the drama continues as Dogra launches a late attack with two sixes and couple of boundaries.

The equations reads 19 from 12.With Zaheer and Malinga to bowl, the Indians look like to be the favorites. Finally, the seasoned campaigners hold on to their nerves and produce 2 near perfect overs, the Mumbai Indians wrap up the match, maybe in hope of not experiencing the blitzkrieg like this for the entire tournament.

MI 1 _ RR 0