FIESTA de IPL: KNIGHTS REBUFF THE CHALLENGE

LINEUP

KOLKATA KNIGHT RIDERS: With a win under their belt, they aimed to carry the day at their home, the Eden Gardens. Rohan Gavaskar was in for Laxmi Ratan Shukla as Kolkata went in with 4 specialist bowlers.

BANGALORE ROYAL CHALLENGERS: To start of with a win is always important, and Banglore would know that a winning momentum can do wonders. Anil Kumble opted for young brigade for the opening match as Shreevats Goswami got a chance ahead of Boucher to accommodate Eion Morgan from the foreign recruit.

Knight riders won the toss and elected to field first.

KNIGHTS TAKE THE INITIATIVE

Kolkata stared of from where they had left the last game, succinct bowling spell, Charles Langeveldt and Ishant Sharma bowled a probing line well assisted by the slowness of the pitch. Bangalore gambled by putting Goswami alongwith Kallis to open even though they had Robin Uthappa in the playing eleven who eventually came at 5 down. The experienced campaigner Charles Langeveldt showered Goswami with an array of well directed bouncers, Goswami was getting wary at each dot delivery; he was moving to the leg side, trying to make room and throwing his bat at about everything. He charged down to another bouncer but was caught at third man. The revelation of 2^nd IPL Mansih Pandey walked out to the middle and walked back without troubling the scorers, Angelo Mathews picked up his first of the match. Another youngster Virat Kolhi also fell cheaply, as Murali Karthik smelled success in the first over itself. Eion Morgan showed glimpse of his approx. 99 lakh worth, when he lofted Brad Hodge coolly over the long off boundary for a maximum, but Karthik stuck again as Morgan’s reverse sweep attempt failed and had to pay the price with his wicket. Dravid tried to build a partnership, and he looked  be in good touch but unluckily Dravid dragged an inside edge to the wicket, Angelo Mathews got his second. At the other end Kallis hung on but was not at his ruthless best for sure. Eventually he survived till the end to post a total of 135 courtesy a massive six and a four of the final over. Angelo Mathews finished with an impressive 4-19 in allotted 4overs.

CLINICAL RUNCHASE

Manoj Tiwary and Brad Hodge had no pressure at all, 136 in any kind of pitch is very gettable.Praveen Kumar and Kallis started of with an intention of picking up early wickets, Tiwary and Hodge though started of slowly but denied any success for the bowlers upfront. But after a farce mix-up, where Tiwary picked up an ankle injury, he stepped on the acceleration crashing Kllis to 2 fours and a six. Tiwary continued as he hoisted Styen for a long off maximum. Hodge joined the party with 2 consecutive boundaries as Kolkata cruised to 52 in 5 overs. Kumble himself came in to bowl the last power play over, but Tiwary with deft touch past backward point and a powerful slog treated himself with couple of fours .Van de Merwe and Anil Kumble restrict the run flow but fail to get any breakthrough. For major part of the innings both Brad Hodge and Tiwary rotated the strike with odd boundaries in between. Van De Merwe got the breakthrough a bit late though, pouncing on a sharp return catch of Tiwary and Hodge getting holed out at long on. Both gone for a well made half centuries. Pujara joined Dada as the equation read 20 runs from 30 balls.No alarm bells rang in KKR camp till now, as Ganguly and Pujara accumulated singles and inched closer to victory. Dada then hit Styen for a mammoth six, typical Dadagiri, getting his front foot out of the way, the ball sailed over long off. Eden Garden Erupted. Ultimately Pujara and Shah completed the formality to hand KKR their second win in as many matches.

THE SHINING KNIGHT

There were many good performances, Angelo Mathews’s 4 -19, Tiwary and Hodge’s magnificent 50s, but the shining Knight at least for me was Eden Garden’s own Dada. Saurav Ganguly was at his tactical best as he rotated the bowlers splendidly, not allowing the batsmen to settle down for one kind of bowling, his field placements were spot on and icing on the cake ,The trademark dads six over long off. He can not  get it wrong at Eden, can he???

FIESTA de IPL: DAREDEVILS TAME LIONS OF PUNJAB

KINGS AND DEVILS

KINGS XI PUNJAB: Lead by Kumara Sangakkara the Mohali outfit opted for two genuine spinners for a lively pitch and included Manvinder Bisla of Haryana ahead of his more flamboyant counterpart, Karan Goel. Kings have lead the Daredevils 3 – 1 in head to head encounters in IPL.

DELHI DAREDEVILS: They could be termed as the proverbial chockers of IPL, two semifinals finishes in last two editions, Daredevils lead by new captain Gautam Gambhir would be eyeing to do one step better this season . They opted to bench explosive David Warner for an extra bowler in Farveez Mahroof, alongside speedster Dirk Nannes and young sensation Pradeep Sangwan and YO Mahesh with Amit Mishra being the only spinner.

Delhi won the toss and elected to field first.

KINGS SUCCUMB TO DEVILS PLAY

Ravi Bopara and Manvinder Bisla walked out to the middle in a hope to give their team a flying start but Dirk Nannes started of as usual with speed, swing and conviction. The first over yielded only a single and a direct hit from Mithun Manhas put Manvinder Bisla back to the hood. The opening bowlers Dirk Nannes and Mahroof extract maximum bounce and swing making batsmen’s life a misery. After a lusty blow straight over the top of bowler Mahroof, Sangakarra departed soon followed by Yuvraj and immediately superseded by Jayawerdene for a golden duck. After 7 overs scorecard reads 49/4 in favour of the Devils. Bopara on the other end played himself in negotiating the good deliveries and pouncing on the loose one with good effect. Irfan Pathan joined Bopara and scored a handy 21 of 15 before being foxed by Dilsan. Good captaincy shown by Gauti to give the ball to Dilsan who has the knack of taking wickets at crucial juncture. When Bopara was holed out in deep square leg of the bowling of Yo Mahesh, all hopes of a late flourish smoked out and in the end Kings managed to put up a decent but below par 142.

KINGS RESURGENCE, GAUTIS PURSUANCE

When Virender Sehwag is on the crease, Devils look formidable and others mere minions, but when Sehwag departs the roles are reversed and that’s what exactly Southern Sizzler Sreesanth did for Kings XI Punjab. After many months Sree looked sharp for the first time and bowled full to produce sterling out swingers. Sehwag and Dilsan out in the second over itself and Devils where in a spot of bother. Pathan and Sree exploited the new ball, and bowled superbly to put Delhi in the same position as they were while batting. The good work by the opening bowlers was carried on by Yusuf Abdulla and Piyush Chawla as they stuck to the basics giving away nothing building pressure on Gambhir and AB De Villers. The stress showed as AB went for a non existent single eventually getting run out. Dinesh Karthik came in and scratched his way to 18 balls 20 before getting caught at long off. Amidst all this ataxia, Gambhir was determined nudging the ball here and there and producing some exquisite cuts and paddle sweep to keep his team in the hunt. The veteran Mithun Manhas joined Gauti and he played excellently without any urgency rotating the strike and running hard between the wickets. The match looked like to be hanging in a balance, until Sangakarra introduced off spinner Romesh Pawar into the attack in the 14^th over as Gambhir launched his assault over the spinner, milking 16 of the over. Mithun and Gauti continued to inch closer to victory without any further fuss. The 19 over saw Pathan drop a sitter of Manhas, and when Manhas crashed one into the fence, Pathan would have thought that he had dropped the match. Gambhir assured a victory hitting the 5^th ball of the penultimate over high superbly over long off for a 6.The equation read 4 from 6, though Gauti got out for a valiant 72 of 53 Mithun Manhas and Mahroof ensured a clinical victory for the Devils.

THE REAL DEVIL

Captain Gautam Gambhir proved to the deciding factor in the match as he guided his beasts from hell to victory, a real captain’s knock this will definitely boost his morale in the coming matches both as captain and a batsmen.

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

FIESTA de IPL: THE KNIGHTS OVERWHELM THE CHARGERS

 LEGIONS

Deccan Chargers – They dwelled at the bottom of the table for most of the Season 1; Season 2 witnessed their phoenix like rise from the ashes The defending Champs lead by the inspirational Adam Gilchrist wanted a win under their belt in their new home. Anirudh Singh was making his debut, with Gilly, Laxman, Gibbs, Symo and Rohit completing the famed batting array.

Kolkata Knight Riders – After a nightmarish Season 2, KKR and SRK would have been more than happy to return to India. They have to prove a point in this season, and what better way than a win. Highly rated Cheteswara Pujara, was in the eleven consisting of stalwarts Dada, Hodge, Ishant, Langeveldt.

Deccan won the toss and elected to field first.

EARLY SETBACK

Chaminada Vaas, the wily old fox, struck gold in the very first over, Tentative Manoj Tiwary gone for a nought, Dada followed 3 balls later, Late swing undoing both the batsmen. Chargers were of to an awesome start. Pujara showed glimpses of his art through two exquisite leg glances; Harsha Bhogle was reminded of the bequest this Saurashtra lad was carrying forward, legacy of the great Ranjitsinhji. Hodge targeted the nervous Jaskaran Singh with good effect; KKR seemed to be get going. Pujara departed when he failed to clear Pragyan Ojha stationed at mid on and when Jaskaran got the wicket of Hodge, the scorecard read 31- 4 in 5.1 overs. A Deccan Chargers steamroll was on the cards.

CONSOLIDATION

Angelo Mathews hit his very first ball into the stands for a maximum and there on started the comeback process, alongside Owais Shah he knitted a 130 run partnership to build a reasonable target and a late flourish ensured that the chargers needed to score at over 8 to open their account in the IPL. Ojha bowled with conviction though R.P was disappointing.

THE CHASE

Gilly and Laxman started of rather cautiously, while KKR embarked with sloppy fielding. Hodge dropped Gilly in the second over and Gilchrist made KKR pay with 2 successive boundaries in the very same over. Ever tried Bhatuure with sambhar, well,

Laxman was pretty much in that kind of a situation. The ever elegant Hyderbadi was trying to slog every other ball, and that too to some good effect, eventually he was holed trying a slog against the spin of Murali Karthik, but not before giving his team a solid and decent start. Gilly on the other hand carried forward strongly with a trademark flick to deep square leg for a massive six. The captain reached his fifty with another inside out lofty hit for maximum. He seemed to be in a hurry, but when Brad Hodge turned his arm for the first time, it yielded with a Gilchrist wicket, probably the turning point of the match.

PALTRY SHOT SELECTION

The wicket of Adam Gilchrist somewhat threw open the floodgates and poor shot selection led to Deccan loosing grip over the match. Karthik, Mathews and Shukla bowled brilliantly in the middle overs giving away nothing, sticking to basics. After a very subdued 24 ball vigil Gibbs tried to show some aggression, dancing down the pitch reaching out for an outside off stump delivery and throwing his wicket away. Symonds went similarly attempting to pull of a wide short pitch ball in no position to play that shot. Rohit sharma was undone by superb slower short pitch  by Angelo Mathews and KKR were in with a chance. Some tidy bowling in the fag end of the innings put pressure on Deccan batsmen, eventually the bowlers coming out triumphant.

KKR 1 _ DC 0

MAN AT ARMS

Clearly Angelo Mathews was the Shining Knight both with the bat and bowl, aptly supported by Owais Shah. He is not only a power hitter to the core but a sensible cricketer with brains. He will definitely prove to be a cardinal force for the Knight Riders in the coming matches.

COMING OUT OF THE WOODS

He was a prodigy who began to play golf at the age of two. In 1978, he putted against comedian Bob Hope in a television appearance on The Mike Douglas Show, this was the first ever glimpse of a champion to be, the greatest sportsperson of the new millennium He turned pro in 1996 and up till now he has amassed a whooping 71 PGA tour titles and 38 European tour, 3^rd in the all time list behind the “Perfect Swinger” Sam Snead and Jack “The Golden Bear” Nicklaus.

Eldrick (Tiger) Woods, now at the age of 34 has had an unprecedented career as a golfer. He dominated the golf world over the last decade and is the hottest choice as a marketing tool. He landed deals with the likes of Accenture ,AT & T ,NIKE, Gillette, TAG Heuer, EA Sports, Gatorade to name a few in the unending list of sponsorships and deals. A total rundown of sorts as an endorser. He is the world’s first athlete to make a billion dollars. An epitome of true sportsman he is considered the American hero, little weird though as he refers his ethnic make up as “Cablinasian” from Caucasian, Black -American, Indian, and Asian. Off the course also he is just perfect, The Tiger Woods Foundation, launched by Woods and his father in 1996, has raised millions of dollars to help underprivileged youth get started in golf and succeed in life.

It seemed he just cannot take a wrong foot, but he did. The lightning hit him, or rather his Cadillac hit a fire hydrant and all hell broke lose, by December the sports page regular Woods had pushed the likes of Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian etc. to the obscurity of inner pages of leading Tabloids. Tiger woods had become the Tabloid celebrity of the year.

It all started with Rachel Uchitel, and he ended up with half a dozen porn stars, couple of models and some waitress. Woods went into hiding while Tabloids were having a time of their life. Tiger’s wife, Elin Nordegren his very loyal but a very feisty wife had every reason to be angry, form filing divorce papers, to moving out with their children to hitting with a golf club she made her stand clear on the issue of her beloved husband’s infidelities. Tiger in order to save his marriage decided to take a break from golf, a right step in a long time, just imagine if Tiger would have been playing amidst this fiasco and after each hole sprang a new mistress out of the spectators, wow then it would have been tough to keep the count. Anyways, on 19^thFeb,2010 Tiger decided to come out of the woods and his rehab(ha, what a joke) to give a public apology in front of a select few, I guess he did not want any golf clubs or shoes flying at him, that’s why he hand picked his audience.

According to the great golfing legend Sir Arnold Palmer, Tiger Woods 13 minute painstaking apologia was sincere enough. But the hype and frenzied build up before the press conference was just too much, even back in India were very few people indulge in knowing golf as more than a sport of putting a the ball in a hole, news channels were at top gear for this telecast, Times Now’s Arnab Goswami abruptly stopped a discussion on unlawfulness in India to get the live feed of Tigers press Conference.

And the verdict, not convincing, many a sports journos thought of this as completely staged managed, lack of Human warmth,  not having a sense of true remorse.For many business analyst this apology looked more like trying getting back his endorsement deals, more than anything. From Buddhism to work at his foundation he put in a lot in his apology and that also kind of backfired. The surprising thing came at the end of the speech, about his golfing career, thats what people wanted to know and the answer was a bleak one, he would come one day, but did not know when. This was one thing his fans and supporters cared about and he came out with the lamest of all responses.

Well on the Hindsight, this scandal could be regarded as the most ill treated malicious gossip by the media, and poor John Terry and Ashley Cole are also facing its similar kind of backlash. This scandal though had its beneficiaries as well, Tiger Woods official site got more hits in these 2 months than ever before, and he became most talked about celeb and as for his endorsement deals, those guys can still make some bucks out of the woods by reducing the deal money and fitting in Tiger Woods. And as for the mistresses, they are smelling the moolah, One of them has landed a job on TV, another one is going to write a book, no prizes for guessing the plot.

In the end if Tiger really wants to apologize, he should do it to his own wife and no one else, and once he comes back to the course and becomes the Tiger Woods we know, this whole incident will be done and dusted with and the world will once again call him the greatest exponent of “The Greatest Game Ever Played”.

WEEPING BOYS OR RATHER WHIPPING BOYS

Whipping boys is an American expression for someone who is punished for the errors of others whereas weeping boys is expressing sorrow. Ironically, both these expressions duly fit in for the Pakistan cricket players and to make the matters worse the world is somehow conjuring their weeping boys image and ignoring the Whipping boy image. It’s definitely a pity that a bunch of exceptionally gifted and talent lot will be missing in probably the most entertaining platform of cricketing circuits, the IPL .Clearly the IPL teams will also be disappointed by this absence of the players and it will raise questions on IPL being global.

 But again all this chaos might have been avoided by IPL organizers themselves if they had not invited the players to be the part of the auction then later bluntly dismissing them stating all the fuss about visa requirements and government clearances. Nevertheless the Pakistan players are not facing this kind of a situation for the first time. The Terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan players was a very big blow for Pakistan cricket and due to that they were deprived of playing in their home. Whatever maybe the case, its not only Pakistan but sports in general has suffered a lot by many such instances.

But the point is who the beneficiary among this turmoil is. In recent days, the auction incident has spurred up like anything and has reached to the level of diplomacy. Ministers talking about insult of real ambassadors, to an extend it is true but deeming it as a conspiracy is clearly sick. Voicing of boycott of Pakistan Hockey team from World Cup to be held in India is again something unwarranted for. Not only in Pakistan ,even in India such sports related instances tend to take a very political scenario. Shiv Sena activists digging up kotla is one case in point and more recently Anti Telengana protesters disurupting a Ranji T20 match. One thing that is to be kept in mind is that IPL needs players, T20 world cups champs ,they need  Afridi, Tanvir, Razzaq to lighten up season 3,but they have some constrains, the biggest being security. The brand of politics played out in India is very murky and tends to become very ugly. Taking into account Mumbai, the MNS (Maharastra Navnirman  Sena) has warned Australians from playing due to the racial attacks in Australia , again absurdity, so one does not need to think hard to what extend they can go when you have players from Pakistan playing in Mumbai.

In the End it’s a loss to cricket and hopefully this should not lead to any weakening of diplomatic ties between the two countries.

why india crashed out of champions trophy

When the Indians lined up for the national anthem at the wanderers for their last group stage match against the West Indies ,40 km away at Centurion Tim Paine crashed an Umer Gul delivery to the boundary.But after 36 overs Indian had bundled out the West Indies for a mere 130,whereas the Australians were 187 for 8 needing 19 runs from 25 deliveries.Pakistan were in with chance of defeating the Aussies and it also boosted the India's chances of making it to the semis.But Brett lee and Nathan hauritz's last ball scramble ensured their semifinal berth.India one the other hand lost early wickets of Gambhir and Dravid.Though Dinesh Karthik and Virat kohli held their nerves and consolidated a win a for India to end their campaign at a high.

So why did India were not able to cross the first hurdle of champions trophy.

Coming into the champions trophy after a win in the compaq cup it lost the services of phenomenal sehwag and talisman yuvraj singh.Sehwag's replacement,rather middle order replacement Rahul dravid,though got a half century was not at his fluent best.In 1996 when Rahul Dravid made his debut in singer cup and during his golden years of 1999-2003 maintained a strike rate of 60 odd and even 70 which was reasonably good at that time.The advent of T20 scoring rate increased and also in 50 overs scores of 300 became very common leading to increase in strike rate of most of the batsmen.but rahul dravid was stuck in the first gear.With talents like Rohit Sharma,Virat Kohli and S.Badrinath under the wings it will be better for Rahul to concentrate on his forte of test cricket

Due to the absence of Zaheer khan Indian bowling attack was the weak link.BUt the irony is,Nehra in for Zaheer was considered as the weak link and Ishant was expected to fill in Zaheer's gap ,but nehra proved the best Indian bowler and Ishant a shadow of himself.The first change bowlers like Parveen kumar,R.P.Singh were not able to exploit the conditions.Even harbhajan,s lack of form crumpled in attack.The only saving grace was amit mishra and he proved his credentials at the highest possible level.

Thirdly,you have to listen to your elders and probably the Indian players turned a deaf ear to coach Gary.If the Indians had listened to him they might have had a recharged and higher testosterone levels and might have caused a mayhem.Nevertheless Gary Kirsten is still the coach and he might have some new tricks under his sleeves for the upcoming home series against Australia.