Finally, my report of what went down on the evening of May 4! A little late, I know, but I've been around a bit since then, and, well. The Chennai summer has been sapping me of the will to live, leave alone write.
However! Here we go.
It was the afternoon of the fourth of May, and it was HOT. I mean, not any more than usual, but it's not the kind of afternoon you'd want to play cricket in. With much sympathy (a rare thing for fans as entitled as we), three of my friends and I met up at a shopping mall nearby and took an autorickshaw to about as close as it could get to the stadium. On the way, we saw the team bus, and possibly spotted Albie Morkel at the window. Excited? Hell yeah.
Having purchased our CSK caps from one of the several vendors lurking around, and having made sure we were all decked in yellow, we proceeded to walk toward our designated gate. We were soaked in sweat by the end of that walk. I was dreading how much more of our body volume we were about to lose inside the stadium.
Security was... well. About as tight as they could manage. We knew about the no-food, no-water rule, but they also confiscated my tube of sunscreen and my friend's deo spray, which, well. Kind of pissed us off. Serves you right if my face comes off in great bloody strips and the toxic fumes from several thousand sweaty armpits kill us all, was my thought. In retrospect, it was probably silly, but that close to the stadium? I think I was already prepping myself for mindless emotional reactions. Yay!
So! Into the stadium we went. It'd been three years since I'd last been to the MAC (the last time was a CSK v DC match I went to with my family; that happened to be one of the only two games DC managed to win the whole '08 season, so I warned the others that they were taking a bad-luck charm with them). It looked... pretty, with the giant white canopies and the gaps between the stands and the profusion of giant screens (counted at least three at first glance). The major improvement, though? The seats. Also, the general appearance had made a giant improvement: I remember the first time I visited the MAC and being hugely disappointed by how shabby everything looked. Now, though? I felt like I was really visiting the stadium for the first time.
Our stand was the I stand, lower tier, which was fantastic because it was right by where the players practiced before the match started. The Men in Startlingly Bright Yellow were already there, stretching and doing catching practice when we arrived. The Rajasthan Royals had not come out yet, and the stadium was just starting to slowly fill in. Armed with those inflatable Zoozoo headband things we went straight to the fence to start gaping at the players ("who's that with the weirdass shirt?" "Hussey?" "You kidding me? That's Albie." "ALBIE! Look here!")
Just as Raina was leaving, we called out to him, waving frantically. He turned back, grinned at the four of us, and waved back. Did I mention Raina is awesome? Because he is. We tried the same with Morkel; he kinda glanced back and gave a reluctant little wave with his hand still near his hip; Badrinath didn't even respond. Which is kind of rude, since we were the only people out there calling for him. (We didn't laugh when his pants came down, though. Not much, anyway.)
So as the toss and the pre-match interviews went on ("there's no time gap between the pitch-report and the toss?" gasped my friend, a first-timer. Aaah, the routine of watching cricket on TV. Anything for ads featuring two-timing girls with bulky mobile phones.) and we started settling in (not really). We painted giant yellow hearts on one side of our cheeks and a CSK player's name on the other (I was "Ashwin" by the way; why not Dhoni, you ask? Ashwin needs all the fan-support he can get, yo! Plus it occupied maximum space, so. Y'know. Fun.)
So there we were, screaming and laughing and creating a right royal ruckus a good half-hour before the match had even begun. We managed to draw the attention of the official CSK website photographer, who snapped us grinning wide enough to split our faces open. Aaaand the photo came on the CSK website!
Our 0.2 seconds of fame, I declared.
Anyway. The match started, and it was tremendous fun. For one, it was actually cool. As in, it was pleasant and not horribly stuffy as we'd dreaded, mostly due to the fact that there'd been a lovely cool breeze blowing every few minutes. Also, we were in the shady part of the stadium, which meant there was no direct sunlight. It was an amazingly pleasant surprise.
Dravid was going great guns - it was a little surreal to be watching it real-time with no closeups of the batsman or following the ball as it went to the boundary; I swear at one point I was grasping at thin air for an invisible remote - and there was much chanting of "C-S-K! C-S-K!" from behind us in encouragement. Just to rile them up, we would go "Ra-jas-than! Ra-jas-than!" every time they started their chant. What? It was fun, although we did get a lot of funny looks.
However, we didn't always have a great view of the action, and had to move a little higher later in the second innings. Another disadvantage of being where we were was that Aniruddha Srikkanth kept fielding right in front of us, and we had a near-constant view of his generously-endowed posterior and his occasional fielding gaffe (he fell right over the ball even as it raced under him in the first over. I pray he didn't hear us cursing. We love you really, Aniruddha!).
Wickets fell like rain in the last ten overs - skiers falling down the throat of Murali Vijay, mostly; damn, that man must be a specialist in that sort of thing by now - and we screamed, oh how we screamed! Gave high-fives and vent to our throats in a way that would've cracked glass were we watching this at home. This is it, I thought, this is aaaall it's about. And it's brilliant.
It was. To give yourself to the ebbs and flows of the game like that, with complete abandon, and have ten thousand others do it with you? The feeling is like the best drug, man.
The second innings began, and perhaps the only blip there was that we lost Vijay early (one of my friends who's a HUGE Vijay fan was crushed; I laughed until I was reminded that I'd react the same way if Dhoni were to get out early. Which, y'know. Touche.) and that the result was all too predictable toward the end. "Let Raina get out and Dhoni come in!" cried my first-timer friend. "Let it be a cliffhanger like the Kolkata game!" Hell-llo. Gift. Horse. Mouth. A strict no-no. That is all.
At the end, Raina did get out with 4 to get, which amused me to no end. We cheered for Shane Watson and Johan Botha to break up the monotony ("Botha! Botha! Bo-THA!" "Dude. That sounds wrong." "Um. Johan, Johan?" "THE J IS SILENT!" "Geez. You sound like you're his mother.")
Shaun Tait, who was not playing but passed by where we sat, received a few cheers from us, too. He turned and gave a small wave, which, yay.
There were many aborted attempts at Mexican waves - aborted because one section of the crowd, the stand right next to us, in fact, would just not get up. Finally they did, and we did six continuous Waves. It was kind of awesome.
The winning moment was more of a "finally!" than a "wow! awesome!" moment, but yeah. A superbly comprehensive victory, the weather was great, and we were not the little puddles of skin-coloured goo on the cemented floor as we'd feared. The drinks were a tad expensive - Rs. 60 for an iced tea that was neither iced and tasted nothing like tea; in fact, it kinda tasted like ultra-diluted beer, but an incredibly enjoyable experience otherwise. There's nothing like being there, particularly with friends who are just as cricket-crazy as you.
Let me tell you what I love about this CSK team. They are a team. They are about the most locally represented team out there. Badrinath, Vijay, Ashwin... indispensable. (My heart still aches that Balaji is among the men in yellow anymore). I love that there's always somebody who steps up when the others aren't performing: if it's Hussey and Raina one day, it's Albie and Dhoni the next, or Vijay and Badrinath. If Albie and Randiv are bowling crap, it's Dougie and Jakati; if it's Ashwin and Bravo one day, it's Raina and Kulasekara the other. Mumbai is all Tendulkar, Rayudu and Malinga; Bangalore = Gayle. Not so Chennai. I love it.
I especially love that these guys can come back from bad situations and fight blood, tooth and nail till either victory or the very last ball. Is why they are the most successful IPL team out there any mystery? I don't think so.
Showing posts with label Twenty20. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Twenty20. Show all posts
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Brilliance in an airport lounge.
I went for the CSK v RR match on May 4. There is much I want to tell regarding that, but considering I left that very night for a trip to Sri Lanka and returned only today, the report will come a little late.
Before that, however--
Just a few hours ago, I was in the Colombo airport, in the departure area, boarding passes in hand, flight just half an hour away, itching to go back to Chennai. They were showing the KTK v RCB match on the TV, and after I spent a few minutes boggling at the new Bangalore uniform -- lime green, seriously? They look like runaway runway markers. Or like unicorns vomited on them. -- Prashanth Parameswaran came to bowl to Chris Gayle. I like Parameswaran. I like that he came from nowhere, with a mouthful of a name that pulls Danny Morrison's tongue into knots and tons of cool attitude. I wondered how he felt, bowling to somebody like Chris Gayle. I mean, sure. Sehwag is Sehwag and everything, but Gayle tends to be even more unpredictable, and can demoralise you like nobody's business in the space of a few balls.
That over went for 37 runs.
Thirty-seven, people.
If I remember right, the first ball went for 6. The second was a no-ball hit for six, so that's 7, and the free-hit went for 4, so that's 11 runs off that second ball. Then I think he hit two more sixes and two more fours.
It was quite a scene. We were all gathered around the TV, some of us with huge grins on our faces, others with hands over their mouths, still more staring at the screen, fascinated, like it was some sort of newly discovered extra-terrestrial life-form. The last call for boarding the flight was on. Nobody moved. A frustrated wife tried to pry her husband away from the TV, but he kept saying, "Just one more ball! Just one more!"
(thirty-seven. the mind still boggles. such casual violence.)
Then Vinay Kumar came on to bowl. As Gayle came on strike, there was much conferencing. Mahela, Vinay, the 'keeper, everybody. Prashanth stood by the side, sweating and maybe a little shaken. Vinay threw everything he had. A bouncer. Slower ball. There seemed to be a catch dropped off his bowling, but it was a bump ball that bounced inches in front of a diving Ramesh Powar.
Then. Finally. Vinay went for a Malinga-style yorker. Went under the toe-end of Gayle's bat and dismantled his off-stump. Much rejoicing.
This was the point we all rushed to the coach that would take us to the flight, but the match situation at that point in time?
3.4 overs, 67 runs, chasing 126.
Freakishly awesome, and all in that space of time in an airport lounge in Colombo.
Before that, however--
Just a few hours ago, I was in the Colombo airport, in the departure area, boarding passes in hand, flight just half an hour away, itching to go back to Chennai. They were showing the KTK v RCB match on the TV, and after I spent a few minutes boggling at the new Bangalore uniform -- lime green, seriously? They look like runaway runway markers. Or like unicorns vomited on them. -- Prashanth Parameswaran came to bowl to Chris Gayle. I like Parameswaran. I like that he came from nowhere, with a mouthful of a name that pulls Danny Morrison's tongue into knots and tons of cool attitude. I wondered how he felt, bowling to somebody like Chris Gayle. I mean, sure. Sehwag is Sehwag and everything, but Gayle tends to be even more unpredictable, and can demoralise you like nobody's business in the space of a few balls.
That over went for 37 runs.
Thirty-seven, people.
If I remember right, the first ball went for 6. The second was a no-ball hit for six, so that's 7, and the free-hit went for 4, so that's 11 runs off that second ball. Then I think he hit two more sixes and two more fours.
It was quite a scene. We were all gathered around the TV, some of us with huge grins on our faces, others with hands over their mouths, still more staring at the screen, fascinated, like it was some sort of newly discovered extra-terrestrial life-form. The last call for boarding the flight was on. Nobody moved. A frustrated wife tried to pry her husband away from the TV, but he kept saying, "Just one more ball! Just one more!"
(thirty-seven. the mind still boggles. such casual violence.)
Then Vinay Kumar came on to bowl. As Gayle came on strike, there was much conferencing. Mahela, Vinay, the 'keeper, everybody. Prashanth stood by the side, sweating and maybe a little shaken. Vinay threw everything he had. A bouncer. Slower ball. There seemed to be a catch dropped off his bowling, but it was a bump ball that bounced inches in front of a diving Ramesh Powar.
Then. Finally. Vinay went for a Malinga-style yorker. Went under the toe-end of Gayle's bat and dismantled his off-stump. Much rejoicing.
This was the point we all rushed to the coach that would take us to the flight, but the match situation at that point in time?
3.4 overs, 67 runs, chasing 126.
Freakishly awesome, and all in that space of time in an airport lounge in Colombo.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
'Tis the season of the Eye-Pee-Elle!
Disjointed post, ahoy!
1. Okay, I'm getting sick of the Dhoni-madness. I lapped it all up with much glee the first couple of days, but all the bandwagon-hopping hypocrite groupies are pissing me off. You really love the man so much? Try sticking by him when he's not winning World Cups!
2. IPL! I mean, look. I consider myself a pretty indefatigable cricket fan: keep it comin', is my motto. I'll snark, I'll groan, I'll shake my fists, but trust me, I'll make sure I follow the match somehow: TV, internet commentary, radio, mobile updates, what have you. But this time? First match was CSK v KKR, and I couldn't work up anything. I was half-asleep until the last five overs of the match. The World Cup took more out of me as a spectator than I'd expected. Huh. Who'd've thunk?
3. Speaking of the last five overs, hah. What an exercise in hilarity. But good for you, Southee. Aaaalso, I think everybody needed that cliffie. Both teams and their fans were sleepwalking till that time. All of us needed that fillip, I think. Feeling ready for the rest of the season? I think. Hopefully I'll get tickets to go to a few of the matches this time 'round.
4. I know I've been pretty critical of IPL opening ceremonies in the past, but I expected this to be better, since, you know. It's Chennai, and everything. But, no. It sucked beyond belief. I couldn't even watch it. Why?
5. It was physically painful to see Balaji bowl for the opposition. Seriously. Love the man so damn much, and he sticks out like a sore thumb in the Sourpuss Squad, also occasionally known as the Kolkata Knightriders.
6. What the hell, Gambo. Comin' in at 6? Not one of your brighter ideas. I get it when Dhoni does it - he's played in every position in the line-up, and 6 is usually his place. But you're an opening batsman, dude. Not a slogger.
7. One of my favourite moments from last night's game was this: Gambo hits one to long-on (I think, I was still fighting sleep at the time), where Albie's fielding. Albie fumbles a bit, but he gets the throw back to Dhoni, who kinda stops the ball with his body. The ball rebounds off his gloves and dribbles behind him, so he loses sight of it. Gambo senses an opportunity and scampers for the second run. Dhoni's looking frantically for the ball, but Styris swoops down on it and throws it at the stumps with Gambo short of his crease. KKR sink further into the depths. And what happens? Even abject incompetence from Dhoni is made to look like genius. He set Gambo up for the run-out by muffing the take! seemed to squeal the commentators. Dhoni just grinned sheepishly. I laughed and laughed and laughed.
8. I love that CSK is more or less the same team as the last three seasons. How much do I love this team, you ask? Sometimes even more than the Indian team, is my answer. Chennai, the city, remains my only love in India.
9. ... And that's all she wrote. I'm back at the hospital after a break, and I am exhausted. Possibly last night's fatigue wasn't entirely due to post-World Cup hangover. Whatever.
ADDENDUM: Oh god, I'm so tired I think I'm hallucinating. I just saw Laxman hitting a six.
*reaches blearily for caffeine*
1. Okay, I'm getting sick of the Dhoni-madness. I lapped it all up with much glee the first couple of days, but all the bandwagon-hopping hypocrite groupies are pissing me off. You really love the man so much? Try sticking by him when he's not winning World Cups!
2. IPL! I mean, look. I consider myself a pretty indefatigable cricket fan: keep it comin', is my motto. I'll snark, I'll groan, I'll shake my fists, but trust me, I'll make sure I follow the match somehow: TV, internet commentary, radio, mobile updates, what have you. But this time? First match was CSK v KKR, and I couldn't work up anything. I was half-asleep until the last five overs of the match. The World Cup took more out of me as a spectator than I'd expected. Huh. Who'd've thunk?
3. Speaking of the last five overs, hah. What an exercise in hilarity. But good for you, Southee. Aaaalso, I think everybody needed that cliffie. Both teams and their fans were sleepwalking till that time. All of us needed that fillip, I think. Feeling ready for the rest of the season? I think. Hopefully I'll get tickets to go to a few of the matches this time 'round.
4. I know I've been pretty critical of IPL opening ceremonies in the past, but I expected this to be better, since, you know. It's Chennai, and everything. But, no. It sucked beyond belief. I couldn't even watch it. Why?
- Too much Bollywood. I honestly expected the likes of Sivamani, Simbu, Vijay, etc, etc., to be shaking a leg out there. Not Sunidhi Chauhan and Shah Rukh friggin' Khan. WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF BOLLYWOOD, AND ITS STUPID, GENERIC PSEUDO-PUNJABI BEATS. IF YOU WANT A CEREMONY IN CHENNAI, YOU MIGHT TRY MAKING IT A LITTLE MORE LIKE IT'S ACTUALLY IN CHENNAI.
- What's that? SCREW "NATIONAL APPEAL". YOU WEREN'T EVEN ABLE TO ENTERTAIN THE CROWD PRESENT AT THE STADIUM, YOU FOOLS.
- Blah blah blah magic and then the obligatory Shah Rukh friggin Khan "speaking" (read: horribly dubbed) in Tamil, and dancing to the very obligatory Appadi Podu. Do you guys realise that that song is over eight years old? Man, slap a label and milk it to the very last stereotypical drop! Insulting and disappointing.
- SRK? Vijay pwns you in the dance-department. Just saying.
- I repeat: this is Chennai. Not pseudo-Mumbai. What a frustrating and terrible ceremony.
5. It was physically painful to see Balaji bowl for the opposition. Seriously. Love the man so damn much, and he sticks out like a sore thumb in the Sourpuss Squad, also occasionally known as the Kolkata Knightriders.
6. What the hell, Gambo. Comin' in at 6? Not one of your brighter ideas. I get it when Dhoni does it - he's played in every position in the line-up, and 6 is usually his place. But you're an opening batsman, dude. Not a slogger.
7. One of my favourite moments from last night's game was this: Gambo hits one to long-on (I think, I was still fighting sleep at the time), where Albie's fielding. Albie fumbles a bit, but he gets the throw back to Dhoni, who kinda stops the ball with his body. The ball rebounds off his gloves and dribbles behind him, so he loses sight of it. Gambo senses an opportunity and scampers for the second run. Dhoni's looking frantically for the ball, but Styris swoops down on it and throws it at the stumps with Gambo short of his crease. KKR sink further into the depths. And what happens? Even abject incompetence from Dhoni is made to look like genius. He set Gambo up for the run-out by muffing the take! seemed to squeal the commentators. Dhoni just grinned sheepishly. I laughed and laughed and laughed.
8. I love that CSK is more or less the same team as the last three seasons. How much do I love this team, you ask? Sometimes even more than the Indian team, is my answer. Chennai, the city, remains my only love in India.
9. ... And that's all she wrote. I'm back at the hospital after a break, and I am exhausted. Possibly last night's fatigue wasn't entirely due to post-World Cup hangover. Whatever.
ADDENDUM: Oh god, I'm so tired I think I'm hallucinating. I just saw Laxman hitting a six.
*reaches blearily for caffeine*
Friday, March 26, 2010
From Eye-Stabbing to Jaundiced
One of the few pleasures of being a Chennai Super Kings fan is the sitting around during breaks, trying to come up with new names for the colour of their costume ("uniform" doesn't sit well with the whole shindig, and "gear"? Gaaah, I'll pass).
From digusting poetry ("like the buttery sunshine that breaks through dense foliage on a pleasant summer afternoon") to disgustingly medical ("purulent exudate from an abscess"), it's been rather fun. I used to settle for the all-occasions "Men In Startlingly Bright Yellow", but it these days it often vacillates between "Eye-stabbing" to just plain "jaundiced".
Was there any other point to supporting the team?
... Oh, oh right. The cricket.
I honestly believe if these jaundiced men had gotten their asses into gear at the right moments, our w/l tally would be 5-1.
See, the game against-
... okay, let me try that again. The GAME AGAINST P-
Oh, lord. Fine. THAT game. The game I'm trying my hardest to forget, the game that actually haunted my dreams the night I saw it played. We were - we -
Geez. But really: that exposed something vital in the inner circuitry of the team. And it has been malfunctioning ever since. Contrary to popular opinion, I believe Raina did the best he could. It's just that something vital's just missing. Against Punjab (yes, I said it - I think I may be moving on. No padded rooms for me, nossir), where our middle order was cracked open like a rotten egg, we found a man unable to handle the pressure that he is meant to handle: Albie Morkel. If Ashwin was determined to be monumentally idiotic in the last over, I would endeavour to say Morkel was even more so, in giving Ashwin the chance to be monumentally idiotic!
That's where, friends, we need Dhoni.
Dhoni isn't revered because he's got prodigious talent with the bat/gloves (he doesn't), or that he's the greatest tactician out there (he isn't), or because he's got some supernatural Jedi-like ability to calmly smile in the face of an approaching tsunami (he'd be sensible and run like hell). It lies primarily in his ability to go out there, see the situation for what it is, and stop it from going sideways (most of the time). He's built most of his success as captain/batsman in making sure his team doesn't fall into the hole it resolutely persists in digging, and that's exactly what we needed there, exactly what Raina provided in our win against Delhi (seems so long ago). Except he got run-out for a needless run (all run-outs are for "needless runs", if you'll notice) against Punjab, and neither Parthiv nor Albie had it in them to take up the responsibility.
This, needless to say, is worrying.
It was like watching your favourite cousin fail in the finals after topping the class the whole year. :(
So, anyway: major dent to the psyche? Check.
Next game: Bangalore.
Look, nobody was really expecting CSK to win this one, and being the gracious team that they are, they obliged.
But how!
CSK, here's a clue: if you're gonna lose, do it humiliatingly. 100 runs, ten wickets, I don't care. That's it. Make me not care.
Don't lose... like this! (because "going down fighting" is a load of bull-crap that doesn't change anything except make you depressed and anxious; "going down with a thump" is something you can laugh off and forget)
Raina was awesome on the field as captain. Like I said, responsibility does him good! I really liked his body-language, and liked even better that that language expressed in great stops and stunning catches.
Unfortunately, the Tamilians in the squad had been hit by an Evil Supernatural Jinx greasopalmus. It's a terrible blight. I present my case:
First, Balaji dropping Kallis off Morkel. "Lost the ball in the background"? Hm.
Second, Ashwin dropping Uthappa while nearly colliding into Tyagi. What are you playing, people? An under-15 friendly?????
Third, Vijay dropping Uthappa at long-on, with no excuse. It's the kind of catch he would catch blindfolded, one arm amputated and the other with just three fingers on. And he dropped it, with all his faculties in full function. Dropped it!
And 35 runs were scored in the next two overs! (And Raina, I thought, made a serious tactical error in saving up Balaji and Ashwin for the death. Either one of them in the end is risky enough. But both? Nuh-uh.)
And "Robbie" Uthappa won the MoM! And he has the NERVE to say that he "wanted to stay till the very end"! What he should've said is, "I'd like to dedicate this award to my South Zone teammates from TN, who were kind enough to recognise that my career as an international player is close to non-existent, and help me out in that regard, as they are generally wont to do, given their modest, reserved and helpful natures. Guys, I can't thank you enough. Three jigarthandas on me next time we play in Chennai."
"GAH" is sometimes all you can say.
So: 172? No big deal, right? Easy.
Except Parthiv gets out early and Raina makes Serious Tactical Error No. 2: George Bailey.
No. 3, yo. Raina, it's YOUR position, and nobody else's. Particularly if that nobody's name starts with "George" and ends with "Bailey."
Mr. Bailey ate up a lot of balls and regurgitated nothing, until I was practically begging at the TV, "George, just get out." He obliged, but only after getting Hayden run-out. And I had practically blown my last remaining fuse by then.
It was too much, too late for the rest, and we folded predictably. And guess how many runs we lost by?
Thirty-six.
I bet Vijay's hands were burning at that point.
Speaking of bets, next match: Mumbai. Again, not one a lot of people were expecting us to win, but hey, Dhoni's back! And that raises the awesomeness by a few hundred degrees.
Buoyed by all the awesomeness and annoyed beyond measure that a lot of my classmates seemed to supporting Mumbai ("Sachin's there" is NOT an excuse. Arre, does nobody get territorial about sporting teams anymore??), I proclaimed, rather bravely, that CSK was bound to win.
And we started off well, we did.
A) No George Bailey. All rounder replacing all-rounder, i.e., Perera (who I was frightened to find out is only a year older than me) replacing Kemp. Great.
B) Dhoni's playing.
C) That point deserves repeating. DHONI. IN THE TEAM.
D) Ashwin out, Jakati in.
E) Raina walking in at No. 3.
We batted well, Raina and Badri were so awesome, but they were never really able to... just. push. the. gear. up. one. more. notch. It was a bloody shame that we were able to scrounge up only 7 overs off the last over with two batsmen who'd been out there for 15 overs at the crease, but Malinga bowled genuinely well.
So. Bowling and fielding. The single most undisciplined effort I've seen from CSK all tournament. It was painful to watch: the sheer no of wides, no-balls, sloppy stops that gave the batsmen opportunities to sneak in extra runs - was this the same team that was so delightfully sharp on the field just a couple of games ago? We really need to pull ourselves together, and fast.
Still, a few timely wickets, and the match was sweetly balanced at the end of 16 overs.
Then Perera came on to bowl, and Dhoni said ten agonising minutes later, "Hm. That might have been a mistake."
Five full-tosses. "Juicy" as they say. All of them hit for four. Twenty-one runs off the over. It was like some sort of mini Groundhog Day: Perera would run in, bowl a full toss, Sachin/Pollard would flick it off, and poof! boundary, Perera would grimace and groan, and Dhoni would get this look that says, "well, it seemed like a good idea at the time...." and then Perera would run in to bowl again, and -
You get the general idea.
Game, set and match after that.
CSK need to do some collective soul-searching. I firmly believe that this is a team with vastly underestimated players - so underestimated, in fact, the players do it themselves. They've got to figure out their roles, and need to forget 21/3/2010. It never existed.
Also, we've got the absolute worst reserve bench in the whole of the IPL. Thishara Perera? Look, I know the guy was good in India last year for Sri Lanka, but he's young, inexperienced. I thought we had Thilan Thushara in the ranks? And you know who would've been perfect? Nuwan Kulasekara. I cannot believe that he wasn't snapped up by any IPL franchise (I think).
Local players? Hi, where are the bowlers? Playing for other teams! It's actually kind of pathetic. We've got a weak pool to choose from, it's sad.
Still, we're an awesome outfit. I love this team way too much to be cussing it for prolonged periods, and I think we're in for a turnaround. Lessee.
(And it's in these kind of moments that I really, really miss Amy. :( )
From digusting poetry ("like the buttery sunshine that breaks through dense foliage on a pleasant summer afternoon") to disgustingly medical ("purulent exudate from an abscess"), it's been rather fun. I used to settle for the all-occasions "Men In Startlingly Bright Yellow", but it these days it often vacillates between "Eye-stabbing" to just plain "jaundiced".
Was there any other point to supporting the team?
... Oh, oh right. The cricket.
I honestly believe if these jaundiced men had gotten their asses into gear at the right moments, our w/l tally would be 5-1.
See, the game against-
... okay, let me try that again. The GAME AGAINST P-
Oh, lord. Fine. THAT game. The game I'm trying my hardest to forget, the game that actually haunted my dreams the night I saw it played. We were - we -
Geez. But really: that exposed something vital in the inner circuitry of the team. And it has been malfunctioning ever since. Contrary to popular opinion, I believe Raina did the best he could. It's just that something vital's just missing. Against Punjab (yes, I said it - I think I may be moving on. No padded rooms for me, nossir), where our middle order was cracked open like a rotten egg, we found a man unable to handle the pressure that he is meant to handle: Albie Morkel. If Ashwin was determined to be monumentally idiotic in the last over, I would endeavour to say Morkel was even more so, in giving Ashwin the chance to be monumentally idiotic!
That's where, friends, we need Dhoni.
Dhoni isn't revered because he's got prodigious talent with the bat/gloves (he doesn't), or that he's the greatest tactician out there (he isn't), or because he's got some supernatural Jedi-like ability to calmly smile in the face of an approaching tsunami (he'd be sensible and run like hell). It lies primarily in his ability to go out there, see the situation for what it is, and stop it from going sideways (most of the time). He's built most of his success as captain/batsman in making sure his team doesn't fall into the hole it resolutely persists in digging, and that's exactly what we needed there, exactly what Raina provided in our win against Delhi (seems so long ago). Except he got run-out for a needless run (all run-outs are for "needless runs", if you'll notice) against Punjab, and neither Parthiv nor Albie had it in them to take up the responsibility.
This, needless to say, is worrying.
It was like watching your favourite cousin fail in the finals after topping the class the whole year. :(
So, anyway: major dent to the psyche? Check.
Next game: Bangalore.
Look, nobody was really expecting CSK to win this one, and being the gracious team that they are, they obliged.
But how!
CSK, here's a clue: if you're gonna lose, do it humiliatingly. 100 runs, ten wickets, I don't care. That's it. Make me not care.
Don't lose... like this! (because "going down fighting" is a load of bull-crap that doesn't change anything except make you depressed and anxious; "going down with a thump" is something you can laugh off and forget)
Raina was awesome on the field as captain. Like I said, responsibility does him good! I really liked his body-language, and liked even better that that language expressed in great stops and stunning catches.
Unfortunately, the Tamilians in the squad had been hit by an Evil Supernatural Jinx greasopalmus. It's a terrible blight. I present my case:
First, Balaji dropping Kallis off Morkel. "Lost the ball in the background"? Hm.
Second, Ashwin dropping Uthappa while nearly colliding into Tyagi. What are you playing, people? An under-15 friendly?????
Third, Vijay dropping Uthappa at long-on, with no excuse. It's the kind of catch he would catch blindfolded, one arm amputated and the other with just three fingers on. And he dropped it, with all his faculties in full function. Dropped it!
And 35 runs were scored in the next two overs! (And Raina, I thought, made a serious tactical error in saving up Balaji and Ashwin for the death. Either one of them in the end is risky enough. But both? Nuh-uh.)
And "Robbie" Uthappa won the MoM! And he has the NERVE to say that he "wanted to stay till the very end"! What he should've said is, "I'd like to dedicate this award to my South Zone teammates from TN, who were kind enough to recognise that my career as an international player is close to non-existent, and help me out in that regard, as they are generally wont to do, given their modest, reserved and helpful natures. Guys, I can't thank you enough. Three jigarthandas on me next time we play in Chennai."
"GAH" is sometimes all you can say.
So: 172? No big deal, right? Easy.
Except Parthiv gets out early and Raina makes Serious Tactical Error No. 2: George Bailey.
No. 3, yo. Raina, it's YOUR position, and nobody else's. Particularly if that nobody's name starts with "George" and ends with "Bailey."
Mr. Bailey ate up a lot of balls and regurgitated nothing, until I was practically begging at the TV, "George, just get out." He obliged, but only after getting Hayden run-out. And I had practically blown my last remaining fuse by then.
It was too much, too late for the rest, and we folded predictably. And guess how many runs we lost by?
Thirty-six.
I bet Vijay's hands were burning at that point.
Speaking of bets, next match: Mumbai. Again, not one a lot of people were expecting us to win, but hey, Dhoni's back! And that raises the awesomeness by a few hundred degrees.
Buoyed by all the awesomeness and annoyed beyond measure that a lot of my classmates seemed to supporting Mumbai ("Sachin's there" is NOT an excuse. Arre, does nobody get territorial about sporting teams anymore??), I proclaimed, rather bravely, that CSK was bound to win.
And we started off well, we did.
A) No George Bailey. All rounder replacing all-rounder, i.e., Perera (who I was frightened to find out is only a year older than me) replacing Kemp. Great.
B) Dhoni's playing.
C) That point deserves repeating. DHONI. IN THE TEAM.
D) Ashwin out, Jakati in.
E) Raina walking in at No. 3.
We batted well, Raina and Badri were so awesome, but they were never really able to... just. push. the. gear. up. one. more. notch. It was a bloody shame that we were able to scrounge up only 7 overs off the last over with two batsmen who'd been out there for 15 overs at the crease, but Malinga bowled genuinely well.
So. Bowling and fielding. The single most undisciplined effort I've seen from CSK all tournament. It was painful to watch: the sheer no of wides, no-balls, sloppy stops that gave the batsmen opportunities to sneak in extra runs - was this the same team that was so delightfully sharp on the field just a couple of games ago? We really need to pull ourselves together, and fast.
Still, a few timely wickets, and the match was sweetly balanced at the end of 16 overs.
Then Perera came on to bowl, and Dhoni said ten agonising minutes later, "Hm. That might have been a mistake."
Five full-tosses. "Juicy" as they say. All of them hit for four. Twenty-one runs off the over. It was like some sort of mini Groundhog Day: Perera would run in, bowl a full toss, Sachin/Pollard would flick it off, and poof! boundary, Perera would grimace and groan, and Dhoni would get this look that says, "well, it seemed like a good idea at the time...." and then Perera would run in to bowl again, and -
You get the general idea.
Game, set and match after that.
CSK need to do some collective soul-searching. I firmly believe that this is a team with vastly underestimated players - so underestimated, in fact, the players do it themselves. They've got to figure out their roles, and need to forget 21/3/2010. It never existed.
Also, we've got the absolute worst reserve bench in the whole of the IPL. Thishara Perera? Look, I know the guy was good in India last year for Sri Lanka, but he's young, inexperienced. I thought we had Thilan Thushara in the ranks? And you know who would've been perfect? Nuwan Kulasekara. I cannot believe that he wasn't snapped up by any IPL franchise (I think).
Local players? Hi, where are the bowlers? Playing for other teams! It's actually kind of pathetic. We've got a weak pool to choose from, it's sad.
Still, we're an awesome outfit. I love this team way too much to be cussing it for prolonged periods, and I think we're in for a turnaround. Lessee.
(And it's in these kind of moments that I really, really miss Amy. :( )
Saturday, March 20, 2010
You know what Chennai's problem is? I'll tell you what it is.
Okay, I've been watching the IPL rather faithfully, but my laptop decided to up and die on me.
However! I believe it's been fixed (mostly), so, blog? Right, the blog.
Part of Chennai's problem is that they're too awesome for their own good. Who comes in where? Who gets to captain when Dhoni's injured? I was dubious about Raina being chosen (Badri, I thought, was a natural choice seeing as he's got actual captaincy experience, and has led India A and India Emerging Players on several occasions), but the responsibility seemed to do him some good against Delhi. I wasn't able to catch but the last 5 overs of Delhi's innings, where the fielding and the catching was really impressive. But more than anything else, I loved his batting. He took a leaf out of Mahi's book, and paced his innings well, staying there and finishing the job, even finishing the chase off with a six, as MS is wont to do. An emphatic 'screw you, we're all over this' to the opposition.
The only thing to avoid now is complacency.
The major part of Chennai's problem is their bowling. Look, I appreciate teams being objective about their supposed weak spots, but I think Chennai underestimates their bowling way too much. Give your bowlers a chance, yo - they're actually rather awesome, and the more you put them down, the more they're going to return the favour. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy, or something. Just one more cliche (just to annoy you): you're only as good as your weak spot. And our weak spot ain't actually that weak.
Also, this got me thinking: are there no other pacers playing for Tamil Nadu? I'm aware of Yomahesh, who's playing for the Daredevils, and of course, there's Balaji, but who else? C Ganapathy? Dakshinamoorthy Kumaran? There's Rajagopal Satish, who's intrinsically awesome (yes, I watched the first ICL tournament which the Chennai Superstars won, and the ICL tri-series where Satish led ICL India to victories against ICL Pakistan and ICL world and I know, I'm jobless), but he's playing for the MI. I'm pathetically unaware of what TN is doing with its bowling stocks, it's sad.
(And what about Thiru Kumaran of the awesomely shiny pate? He did a good job for the Superstars, too - has he been picked up by any franchise?)
Third: the Mongoose. Seriously, my sanity is at risk. If I hear one more mention about that bat in conjunction with Hayden's innings, I'm going to snap. ("Mr. Mongoose"? Seriously?) I mean, what kind of attribute is that to a cricket bat? "I've got a longer handle and a shorter blade, but don't worry: I've got a bigger sweet spot!"? And the way the papers are hyping this, you just know it's not going to end well.
Speaking of the papers:
I get the Hindu, the Deccan Chronicle, the New Indian Express and the Times of India at my home (the whole newspaper + coffee in the morning is ingrained into our genetic makeup, so more papers means less fighting/tearing each others eyeballs out between family members in the morning), and the preview to the CSK v DD match in each of them was entertaining to read and compare.
The Hindu was diplomatic (and the only paper to not have a special IPL page: go, Hindu!) while reporting Dhoni's injury: said he'd be missing only two games, that his absence would be felt, but more than compensated by Hayden and Raina, who were bound to find form.
The Deccan Chronicle who spent a long time lovingly lingering over the DC v KXIP preview (and I swear, it's the only paper that calls them the "Bulls"), and declared that CSK was nothing (nothing, I say! Nothing!) without Dhoni. Hayden and Raina have failed to put bat to ball! Kemp and Morkel are stop-gap chokers! Flimsy bowling attack can't face up to the likes of Sehwag and Dilshan and deVilliers! The Apocalypse approaches! It also said that Dhoni was definitely to miss not less than three matches, so CSK was doomed (doomed, I say!).
The Times of India bypassed all the nonsense, solemnly declared that Dhoni was to have his arm checked on the 21st, and left it at that.
I didn't read the TNIE, because I hate it.
Bring on the paper wars, yo!
(Either that, or I'm reading waaaay too much into all of this).
EDIT: You know what the Deccan Chargers' problem is? I'll tell you what it is: Gilchrist. He talks way too much.
So, you know, on one hand, it's "yap yap yap" and the other hand his bat also goes "thwack thwack thwack", so: worst of both worlds if you're the opponent.
However! I believe it's been fixed (mostly), so, blog? Right, the blog.
Part of Chennai's problem is that they're too awesome for their own good. Who comes in where? Who gets to captain when Dhoni's injured? I was dubious about Raina being chosen (Badri, I thought, was a natural choice seeing as he's got actual captaincy experience, and has led India A and India Emerging Players on several occasions), but the responsibility seemed to do him some good against Delhi. I wasn't able to catch but the last 5 overs of Delhi's innings, where the fielding and the catching was really impressive. But more than anything else, I loved his batting. He took a leaf out of Mahi's book, and paced his innings well, staying there and finishing the job, even finishing the chase off with a six, as MS is wont to do. An emphatic 'screw you, we're all over this' to the opposition.
The only thing to avoid now is complacency.
The major part of Chennai's problem is their bowling. Look, I appreciate teams being objective about their supposed weak spots, but I think Chennai underestimates their bowling way too much. Give your bowlers a chance, yo - they're actually rather awesome, and the more you put them down, the more they're going to return the favour. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy, or something. Just one more cliche (just to annoy you): you're only as good as your weak spot. And our weak spot ain't actually that weak.
Also, this got me thinking: are there no other pacers playing for Tamil Nadu? I'm aware of Yomahesh, who's playing for the Daredevils, and of course, there's Balaji, but who else? C Ganapathy? Dakshinamoorthy Kumaran? There's Rajagopal Satish, who's intrinsically awesome (yes, I watched the first ICL tournament which the Chennai Superstars won, and the ICL tri-series where Satish led ICL India to victories against ICL Pakistan and ICL world and I know, I'm jobless), but he's playing for the MI. I'm pathetically unaware of what TN is doing with its bowling stocks, it's sad.
(And what about Thiru Kumaran of the awesomely shiny pate? He did a good job for the Superstars, too - has he been picked up by any franchise?)
Third: the Mongoose. Seriously, my sanity is at risk. If I hear one more mention about that bat in conjunction with Hayden's innings, I'm going to snap. ("Mr. Mongoose"? Seriously?) I mean, what kind of attribute is that to a cricket bat? "I've got a longer handle and a shorter blade, but don't worry: I've got a bigger sweet spot!"? And the way the papers are hyping this, you just know it's not going to end well.
Speaking of the papers:
I get the Hindu, the Deccan Chronicle, the New Indian Express and the Times of India at my home (the whole newspaper + coffee in the morning is ingrained into our genetic makeup, so more papers means less fighting/tearing each others eyeballs out between family members in the morning), and the preview to the CSK v DD match in each of them was entertaining to read and compare.
The Hindu was diplomatic (and the only paper to not have a special IPL page: go, Hindu!) while reporting Dhoni's injury: said he'd be missing only two games, that his absence would be felt, but more than compensated by Hayden and Raina, who were bound to find form.
The Deccan Chronicle who spent a long time lovingly lingering over the DC v KXIP preview (and I swear, it's the only paper that calls them the "Bulls"), and declared that CSK was nothing (nothing, I say! Nothing!) without Dhoni. Hayden and Raina have failed to put bat to ball! Kemp and Morkel are stop-gap chokers! Flimsy bowling attack can't face up to the likes of Sehwag and Dilshan and deVilliers! The Apocalypse approaches! It also said that Dhoni was definitely to miss not less than three matches, so CSK was doomed (doomed, I say!).
The Times of India bypassed all the nonsense, solemnly declared that Dhoni was to have his arm checked on the 21st, and left it at that.
I didn't read the TNIE, because I hate it.
Bring on the paper wars, yo!
(Either that, or I'm reading waaaay too much into all of this).
EDIT: You know what the Deccan Chargers' problem is? I'll tell you what it is: Gilchrist. He talks way too much.
So, you know, on one hand, it's "yap yap yap" and the other hand his bat also goes "thwack thwack thwack", so: worst of both worlds if you're the opponent.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Pseudo-tension
All you need to sum up yesterday's match between the Delhi Daredevils and Kings XI Punjab. After the fireworks earlier in the day? Boring.
Toward the end, the camera kept snapping to the Delhi bench, showing players apparently squirming with tension as Delhi chased 143. I'm not sure why. Maybe Mishra really wanted to go to the bathroom and was hoping they wouldn't need him out there in the middle at the last minute. Or something.
Because really? There was nothing to be tense about.
The most entertaining moment of the match came when Dirk Nannes muffed a straightforward stop and had the ball go straight between his legs for four. Or DK's overthrows that went straight down the ground for four.
Least entertaining? The constant Preity Zinta footage. KXIP hit a four? Here's Preity's reaction. KXIP lost a wicket? Here's Preity's reaction. Michael Jackson died? Here's Preity's reaction.
Then the commentators have to react to her reaction. "Look at her go" and the ilk.
Creepy.
Toward the end, the camera kept snapping to the Delhi bench, showing players apparently squirming with tension as Delhi chased 143. I'm not sure why. Maybe Mishra really wanted to go to the bathroom and was hoping they wouldn't need him out there in the middle at the last minute. Or something.
Because really? There was nothing to be tense about.
The most entertaining moment of the match came when Dirk Nannes muffed a straightforward stop and had the ball go straight between his legs for four. Or DK's overthrows that went straight down the ground for four.
Least entertaining? The constant Preity Zinta footage. KXIP hit a four? Here's Preity's reaction. KXIP lost a wicket? Here's Preity's reaction. Michael Jackson died? Here's Preity's reaction.
Then the commentators have to react to her reaction. "Look at her go" and the ilk.
Creepy.
Ooh, JUST when you think those smug smiles are gone...
... Pathan gets out.
Wow, Yusuf Pathan, why don't you do this more often for, say, I don't know, the national team, maybe?
Nice match, some great batting all around - most of which I've forgotten because Pathan was so awesome. I was just thinking about how this whole thing was a done-deal at RR being 69/4 after 10 chasing 213, and how much I hated poor Ali Murtaza because he has a very close resemblance to a particular Tamil VJ I loathe on sight (seriously, it's Pavlovian), when Yusuf Pathan said, "Screw this", and hit three sixes in a row.
Then everything his bat touched scurried to the boundary. Can wood get scabies?
And yeah, I was hoping for those smug smiles to be blasted to smithereens - the Mumbai Indians, that is.
Did you see them grinning everywhere after the match? Dudes, next time you defend like this, you ain't gonna be as lucky. What if next time you score 120, huh? Huh?
Hi, IPL, it's not good for my digestion when you have me so actively against Sachin Tendulkar so close on the heels of loving him for his double-century super-awesomeness.
Just saying.
Wow, Yusuf Pathan, why don't you do this more often for, say, I don't know, the national team, maybe?
Nice match, some great batting all around - most of which I've forgotten because Pathan was so awesome. I was just thinking about how this whole thing was a done-deal at RR being 69/4 after 10 chasing 213, and how much I hated poor Ali Murtaza because he has a very close resemblance to a particular Tamil VJ I loathe on sight (seriously, it's Pavlovian), when Yusuf Pathan said, "Screw this", and hit three sixes in a row.
Then everything his bat touched scurried to the boundary. Can wood get scabies?
And yeah, I was hoping for those smug smiles to be blasted to smithereens - the Mumbai Indians, that is.
Did you see them grinning everywhere after the match? Dudes, next time you defend like this, you ain't gonna be as lucky. What if next time you score 120, huh? Huh?
Hi, IPL, it's not good for my digestion when you have me so actively against Sachin Tendulkar so close on the heels of loving him for his double-century super-awesomeness.
Just saying.
Friday, March 12, 2010
We are not entertained.
... except by one teensy little insignificant thing called cricket, but we'll get to that later, shall we?
Look. I haven't watched cricket in a long while, OK? And I've been looking forward to this IPL. So while sitting down to watch the opening ceremony yesterday, I did not expect an absolutely unpalatable hodge-podge of poorly executed amateur gimmicks. Hi, people! 2010! Billions of rupees! Internet! International access to the best around the globe! Creative heads!
You can do better!
So it starts off with.... silence. The ceremony took the longest time to kick off, and meanwhile the camera kept panning over the crowd in the weirdest headgear. Weird headgear only = awesome when they're funny, people. These... were not funny.
I was reduced to watching reruns of Psych I'd already watched twice before when I heard that the ceremony had started. Eagerly I flicked channels. And seriously, Psych was helluva lot more entertaining.
There is this huge... cloth cuboid tent thingamajig that's slowly lifted off the stage in the centre of the ground, revealing... okay, the performers, I guess. The guy in front starts singing, and dude. It's the most boring song ever. Look, I'm as big an Abba fan as anybody, but, really? For this ceremony? For this tournament?
Indian Premier League! I.n.d.i.a.n.
Get a few local artistes, belt out some pop B'wood tracks, get the crowd on their feet, and everybody wins. What is this goshdarned obsession with foreigners? Look, if you're going to get foreigners, you might as well get Lady Gaga or somebody. Not some washed-out band that's decades old (no offence meant). The singers were the ones jumping about on the stage, shaking their made-up manes, trying to infuse some non-existent energy. The crowd? Maybe just slightly bewildered.
Then these people with the white dresses standing around the boundary came filing in.
Whoever came up with that idea, please fire him.
They were... look, I don't know. My brother suggested, "chefs" while my grandmother was pretty insistent they were "hospice nurses" or maybe "nuns". Personally, when some built in lights in their dresses started glowing, I was going for extras from a hybrid of Star Wars and The Omen (don't ask me why).
These lights were of different colours, and a lot of them didn't even work. They were scrambling about, ostensibly trying to get into some kind of formation, but I don't know. They were just going about with confused, embarrassed smiles on their faces. It was like slow torture, having to watch this (until I realised that, you know, I didn't have to watch it).
Then came Deepika Padukone and her ultra-short dance routine, with support dancers who were dressed in costumes so grotesque I can't even snark about them. The song selection started off great (I gotta feeling, by Black Eyed Peas) and quickly devolved into lameassery. And the dance moves? Were not even fit for exhibition on a Filmfare awards show.
When I came back again, they were showing a laser show on the big white tent, a sort of 'nostalgic' recap of the first two IPLs. And people, I was ready to lose it. Hello, you are only two years old! We haven't got short term memory loss, you know! We remember (like you ever let us forget)! Look ahead! Do something new and flamboyant and stop wasting our time!
And then came Lionel Ritchie and some song and some fireworks, but by that time I was tired and pissed off and wishing really hard for some cricket.
The cricket turned out to be actually kind of awesome (KKR def DC! That makes me happy) but it turns out there was one more annoyance lurking in the bushes:
In between balls of an over, the camera would shift to the digital board, which would blare out an ad in full volume.
And, listening to Akshay Kumar's inane, loony laughter while 'advertising' Micromax mobile for the umpteeth time, I really lost it.
I HATE THIS. I REALLY, REALLY DO. SHUT UP, PEOPLE. THIS EXCESS IS PISSING ME OFF SO BAD, I DON'T HAVE THE WORDS.
Either that, or I'm getting cynical in my old age.
EDIT: Oh, it would be amiss of me to not mention the match preview show. Navjot Singh Sidhu is back, with all of his metaphors and gesticulations, a hilarious counterpoint to the anchor's style.
So he's waxing poetic about "music as a language" and Mr. Kocchar decides to take a brave step beyond saying "Indeed" and adds "Music is really bubbly, it gets all the batsmen bubbled up" and somewhere I was dying out of laughter.
Now that's entertainment.
Look. I haven't watched cricket in a long while, OK? And I've been looking forward to this IPL. So while sitting down to watch the opening ceremony yesterday, I did not expect an absolutely unpalatable hodge-podge of poorly executed amateur gimmicks. Hi, people! 2010! Billions of rupees! Internet! International access to the best around the globe! Creative heads!
You can do better!
So it starts off with.... silence. The ceremony took the longest time to kick off, and meanwhile the camera kept panning over the crowd in the weirdest headgear. Weird headgear only = awesome when they're funny, people. These... were not funny.
I was reduced to watching reruns of Psych I'd already watched twice before when I heard that the ceremony had started. Eagerly I flicked channels. And seriously, Psych was helluva lot more entertaining.
There is this huge... cloth cuboid tent thingamajig that's slowly lifted off the stage in the centre of the ground, revealing... okay, the performers, I guess. The guy in front starts singing, and dude. It's the most boring song ever. Look, I'm as big an Abba fan as anybody, but, really? For this ceremony? For this tournament?
Indian Premier League! I.n.d.i.a.n.
Get a few local artistes, belt out some pop B'wood tracks, get the crowd on their feet, and everybody wins. What is this goshdarned obsession with foreigners? Look, if you're going to get foreigners, you might as well get Lady Gaga or somebody. Not some washed-out band that's decades old (no offence meant). The singers were the ones jumping about on the stage, shaking their made-up manes, trying to infuse some non-existent energy. The crowd? Maybe just slightly bewildered.
Then these people with the white dresses standing around the boundary came filing in.
Whoever came up with that idea, please fire him.
They were... look, I don't know. My brother suggested, "chefs" while my grandmother was pretty insistent they were "hospice nurses" or maybe "nuns". Personally, when some built in lights in their dresses started glowing, I was going for extras from a hybrid of Star Wars and The Omen (don't ask me why).
These lights were of different colours, and a lot of them didn't even work. They were scrambling about, ostensibly trying to get into some kind of formation, but I don't know. They were just going about with confused, embarrassed smiles on their faces. It was like slow torture, having to watch this (until I realised that, you know, I didn't have to watch it).
Then came Deepika Padukone and her ultra-short dance routine, with support dancers who were dressed in costumes so grotesque I can't even snark about them. The song selection started off great (I gotta feeling, by Black Eyed Peas) and quickly devolved into lameassery. And the dance moves? Were not even fit for exhibition on a Filmfare awards show.
When I came back again, they were showing a laser show on the big white tent, a sort of 'nostalgic' recap of the first two IPLs. And people, I was ready to lose it. Hello, you are only two years old! We haven't got short term memory loss, you know! We remember (like you ever let us forget)! Look ahead! Do something new and flamboyant and stop wasting our time!
And then came Lionel Ritchie and some song and some fireworks, but by that time I was tired and pissed off and wishing really hard for some cricket.
The cricket turned out to be actually kind of awesome (KKR def DC! That makes me happy) but it turns out there was one more annoyance lurking in the bushes:
In between balls of an over, the camera would shift to the digital board, which would blare out an ad in full volume.
And, listening to Akshay Kumar's inane, loony laughter while 'advertising' Micromax mobile for the umpteeth time, I really lost it.
I HATE THIS. I REALLY, REALLY DO. SHUT UP, PEOPLE. THIS EXCESS IS PISSING ME OFF SO BAD, I DON'T HAVE THE WORDS.
Either that, or I'm getting cynical in my old age.
EDIT: Oh, it would be amiss of me to not mention the match preview show. Navjot Singh Sidhu is back, with all of his metaphors and gesticulations, a hilarious counterpoint to the anchor's style.
So he's waxing poetic about "music as a language" and Mr. Kocchar decides to take a brave step beyond saying "Indeed" and adds "Music is really bubbly, it gets all the batsmen bubbled up" and somewhere I was dying out of laughter.
Now that's entertainment.
Friday, December 11, 2009
India Darcy'd
Perhaps the contrasting performances of the two captains playing at number three best described the proceedings in the Twenty20 played between India and Sri Lanka on Thursday.
Sangakkara, suave, authoritative and just as articulate with the bat as he is with the English language, blasted 60-odd off 20-odd, while Dhoni left with a failed attempt at (once again) transcribing his ODI game into his Twenty20 one.
While not as big an Austen fan as some of my contemporaries, I've been very fond of Leela's "brown Mr. Darcy" assessment of Kumara Sangakkara.
India's problems probably started before the match itself.
For one, it's bowling "attack". Nehra, Dinda, Ishant Sharma. Yusuf Pathan.
... What?
Ishant Sharma has been dropped from the ODI and Test teams. So why was he in the Twenty20 team? Has he confidence or recent good performances in the shorter versions of the game on his side? Was he successful in the IPL? Hell, was he even part of a successful team in the IPL?
And what was with Zaheer Khan being treated like a giant pista and rested for the Twenty20s?
The less said about the fielding, the better.
The last time India -- the same India that's ostensibly deriding the highest echelons of the game, ruthlessly promoting Twenty20 to the point of blatant exploitation -- won a Twenty20 international convincingly was October 2007.
India falling prey to a lack of seriousness in Twenty20 that used to characterise its opponents in the past?
I don't know, but then again, I don't know how else to explain the selection of the likes of Ishant, Dinda, Yusuf Pathan, Rohit Sharma.
Sangakkara, suave, authoritative and just as articulate with the bat as he is with the English language, blasted 60-odd off 20-odd, while Dhoni left with a failed attempt at (once again) transcribing his ODI game into his Twenty20 one.
While not as big an Austen fan as some of my contemporaries, I've been very fond of Leela's "brown Mr. Darcy" assessment of Kumara Sangakkara.
India's problems probably started before the match itself.
For one, it's bowling "attack". Nehra, Dinda, Ishant Sharma. Yusuf Pathan.
... What?
Ishant Sharma has been dropped from the ODI and Test teams. So why was he in the Twenty20 team? Has he confidence or recent good performances in the shorter versions of the game on his side? Was he successful in the IPL? Hell, was he even part of a successful team in the IPL?
And what was with Zaheer Khan being treated like a giant pista and rested for the Twenty20s?
The less said about the fielding, the better.
The last time India -- the same India that's ostensibly deriding the highest echelons of the game, ruthlessly promoting Twenty20 to the point of blatant exploitation -- won a Twenty20 international convincingly was October 2007.
India falling prey to a lack of seriousness in Twenty20 that used to characterise its opponents in the past?
I don't know, but then again, I don't know how else to explain the selection of the likes of Ishant, Dinda, Yusuf Pathan, Rohit Sharma.
Monday, November 2, 2009
The night of the Run-Out and myriad annoyances
... not the least among them being the fact that India lost despite turning in their best bowling/fielding performance in over a year and a half.
I'll get there soon.
So, okay, I haven't blogged in a while, right? I've got several totally valid (seriously) reasons for that:
a. I'm lazy.
b. I haven't watched a cricket match in its entirety since India toured West Indies in July.
c. Apparently, studying to become a doctor is about as tough as it sounds.
d. I'm lazy.
e. India didn't play for a long time and the Ashes were yawn-worthy.
f. ... did I mention I'm lazy?
But really, the thing that had me cringing away from cricket for a while there? The overdose of Twenty20. Look, I'm about as big an advocate for the shortest format of the game as they come, and there has been nothing that has annoyed me more than players and administrators alike ridiculing and belittling a format of the game they are supposed to represent ("We lost the tournament because we didn't take it seriously" smacks of so much unprofessionalism, it's pathetic, it's holding yourself above the sport when you let your performances make obvious what you'd rather be playing), but the recent overload and gimmickry is just as harmful. IPL 2009 followed immediately by the T20 WC was exhausting enough, but also the Champions League? No. No WAY. E-N-O-U-G-H.
It was not until yesterday morning that I even found out who won the damn thing. The tournament format by itself was interesting enough, but I vote we have actual Indian domestic teams playing in the League, instead of the IPL teams representing India because the "Indian" teams are about as Indian as I am Polish. I am glad none of the IPL teams made the semis, and Mr. Roebuck puts things into perspective rather nicely here. We do have annual domestic T20 tournaments here, right? If I remember right, the winner of the inaugural one was Tamil Nadu (and I was seriously pissed that not a single member of the victorious team was considered for the squad that was sent for the WC in '07), and it'd be interesting to throw our domestic teams into the fray and see how they match up. DISCONNECT IT FROM THE IPL. PLEASE.
Anyway, coming to the on-going series. Despite everything, I'm actually rather happy with our performance. I was driven into the heights of ecstasy with Dhoni's century at Nagpur (LONG overdue, yo) and India's successful salvage operation at Delhi. This is an excellent ODI team, there is absolutely no doubt about that. I wasn't even annoyed with the disappointment in the Champions Trophy (aside from the fact that we lost to Pakistan), I still feel we were desperately unlucky at South Africa. Apart from fielding what was far from our best XI, I don't think we got a chance to make up for the Pakistan loss, given that the game against Australia was washed out. It doesn't seem fair to really judge India's performance there, unlike the T20 WC '09, where we were pathetic and deserved to be booted early.
However, once people start acknowledging their potential, this team has an unfortunate habit of coming to pieces.
Yesterday's game was preceded by endless by-lines of "India'll become no. 1 when they win this game" and "Sachin just 47 runs away from 17,000 ODI runs" to the extent that I was deeply tempted to throw something at the television. Take the spotlight off the Aussies, underestimate them, distract the Indians... yeah, thanks a lot, guys.
Coming to the game itself, India's performance on the field up-first was a pleasant surprise (with the obvious exception of Ishant Sharma), wickets, direct hits, slick stops galore! I could hardly believe I was watching the same team that had been playing for the past one year. When Australia folded for 250 and the camera showed a delicious close-up of Ponting's face shrivelling when the last few Australian wickets fell in an ungainly heap, I allowed myself to Hope - to hope that this Indian team had found itself capable of going for the jugular of the opposition no matter the expectations placed on them, no matter the milestone waiting to be achieved. The way we started our chase only heightened the feeling.
If India's fielding was a sweet burst of endorphins through the system, Sehwag bludgeoning Mitch Johnson in the beginning of the chase was a hypodermic of adrenalin straight to the heart. No way we can lose this, I thought, as the 5th over finished with the scoreboard reading 40/0.
Of course we all know how things turned out after that.
Apart from Johnson's excesses in the first few overs (if I were a conspiracy theorist, I might say they were a cunning ploy to get Sehwag to cut loose and play similar shots against good bowling and get himself out - which is eventually what happened. Ha ha, I SEE WHAT YOU DID THAR.), the Aussie bowling was commendable. Bollinger seemed damn near unplayable and even Henriques, who looked lacklustre in Delhi, seemed challenging. The real turning point that pushed the match toward Aus was of course, Sachin's dismissal, and later, Yuvi's unfortunate run-out.
Sachin was frustrating last night, and I fancy that he was frustrated, too. Every run he scores takes him closer to that 17,000, he knows it, the opposition knows it, the crowd knows it, MILLIONS OF PEOPLE KNOW IT. That big scoreboard was also kind enough to display some sort of perverse "countdown" wherein every time Sachin took the crease, it'd display "Sachin needs xx runs to get to 17,000 career ODI runs" or whatever. That there? Is mighty annoying. Priorities, people! And what's the point anyway? Every run that Sachin scores now is a world record. Even though Sachin leaving at 40 to what can only be called a dubious leg-before decision (to be fair, it's probably the first dubious decision of the series) hurt India, I was sort of perversely glad.
And Yuvi's run-out. No, Australia, you still haven't found out how to break the power of the YuvinDhoni. Run-outs by centimetres don't count.
There followed a predictable middle-order collapse (yawn). And voila, Aussies victors by 24 runs.
Dhoni, hailed as captain extraordinaire just two days ago, bombarded with doubts: Was Kohli coming at three the right thing? (If you ask me, I'd've preferred Raina or Dhoni there, but that's just me) Was it right to elect to chase? Where did the pacing go wonky? And what is with Ishant Sharma?
Thing is, it was a riveting ODI in a riveting ODI series that's now tied 2-2, advantages, momentum negated. Both sides go into a three-match series with empty slates. Who said ODIs are dying?
Lessee the Indians picking themselves up and givin it back to the Aussies.
I'll get there soon.
So, okay, I haven't blogged in a while, right? I've got several totally valid (seriously) reasons for that:
a. I'm lazy.
b. I haven't watched a cricket match in its entirety since India toured West Indies in July.
c. Apparently, studying to become a doctor is about as tough as it sounds.
d. I'm lazy.
e. India didn't play for a long time and the Ashes were yawn-worthy.
f. ... did I mention I'm lazy?
But really, the thing that had me cringing away from cricket for a while there? The overdose of Twenty20. Look, I'm about as big an advocate for the shortest format of the game as they come, and there has been nothing that has annoyed me more than players and administrators alike ridiculing and belittling a format of the game they are supposed to represent ("We lost the tournament because we didn't take it seriously" smacks of so much unprofessionalism, it's pathetic, it's holding yourself above the sport when you let your performances make obvious what you'd rather be playing), but the recent overload and gimmickry is just as harmful. IPL 2009 followed immediately by the T20 WC was exhausting enough, but also the Champions League? No. No WAY. E-N-O-U-G-H.
It was not until yesterday morning that I even found out who won the damn thing. The tournament format by itself was interesting enough, but I vote we have actual Indian domestic teams playing in the League, instead of the IPL teams representing India because the "Indian" teams are about as Indian as I am Polish. I am glad none of the IPL teams made the semis, and Mr. Roebuck puts things into perspective rather nicely here. We do have annual domestic T20 tournaments here, right? If I remember right, the winner of the inaugural one was Tamil Nadu (and I was seriously pissed that not a single member of the victorious team was considered for the squad that was sent for the WC in '07), and it'd be interesting to throw our domestic teams into the fray and see how they match up. DISCONNECT IT FROM THE IPL. PLEASE.
Anyway, coming to the on-going series. Despite everything, I'm actually rather happy with our performance. I was driven into the heights of ecstasy with Dhoni's century at Nagpur (LONG overdue, yo) and India's successful salvage operation at Delhi. This is an excellent ODI team, there is absolutely no doubt about that. I wasn't even annoyed with the disappointment in the Champions Trophy (aside from the fact that we lost to Pakistan), I still feel we were desperately unlucky at South Africa. Apart from fielding what was far from our best XI, I don't think we got a chance to make up for the Pakistan loss, given that the game against Australia was washed out. It doesn't seem fair to really judge India's performance there, unlike the T20 WC '09, where we were pathetic and deserved to be booted early.
However, once people start acknowledging their potential, this team has an unfortunate habit of coming to pieces.
Yesterday's game was preceded by endless by-lines of "India'll become no. 1 when they win this game" and "Sachin just 47 runs away from 17,000 ODI runs" to the extent that I was deeply tempted to throw something at the television. Take the spotlight off the Aussies, underestimate them, distract the Indians... yeah, thanks a lot, guys.
Coming to the game itself, India's performance on the field up-first was a pleasant surprise (with the obvious exception of Ishant Sharma), wickets, direct hits, slick stops galore! I could hardly believe I was watching the same team that had been playing for the past one year. When Australia folded for 250 and the camera showed a delicious close-up of Ponting's face shrivelling when the last few Australian wickets fell in an ungainly heap, I allowed myself to Hope - to hope that this Indian team had found itself capable of going for the jugular of the opposition no matter the expectations placed on them, no matter the milestone waiting to be achieved. The way we started our chase only heightened the feeling.
If India's fielding was a sweet burst of endorphins through the system, Sehwag bludgeoning Mitch Johnson in the beginning of the chase was a hypodermic of adrenalin straight to the heart. No way we can lose this, I thought, as the 5th over finished with the scoreboard reading 40/0.
Of course we all know how things turned out after that.
Apart from Johnson's excesses in the first few overs (if I were a conspiracy theorist, I might say they were a cunning ploy to get Sehwag to cut loose and play similar shots against good bowling and get himself out - which is eventually what happened. Ha ha, I SEE WHAT YOU DID THAR.), the Aussie bowling was commendable. Bollinger seemed damn near unplayable and even Henriques, who looked lacklustre in Delhi, seemed challenging. The real turning point that pushed the match toward Aus was of course, Sachin's dismissal, and later, Yuvi's unfortunate run-out.
Sachin was frustrating last night, and I fancy that he was frustrated, too. Every run he scores takes him closer to that 17,000, he knows it, the opposition knows it, the crowd knows it, MILLIONS OF PEOPLE KNOW IT. That big scoreboard was also kind enough to display some sort of perverse "countdown" wherein every time Sachin took the crease, it'd display "Sachin needs xx runs to get to 17,000 career ODI runs" or whatever. That there? Is mighty annoying. Priorities, people! And what's the point anyway? Every run that Sachin scores now is a world record. Even though Sachin leaving at 40 to what can only be called a dubious leg-before decision (to be fair, it's probably the first dubious decision of the series) hurt India, I was sort of perversely glad.
And Yuvi's run-out. No, Australia, you still haven't found out how to break the power of the YuvinDhoni. Run-outs by centimetres don't count.
There followed a predictable middle-order collapse (yawn). And voila, Aussies victors by 24 runs.
Dhoni, hailed as captain extraordinaire just two days ago, bombarded with doubts: Was Kohli coming at three the right thing? (If you ask me, I'd've preferred Raina or Dhoni there, but that's just me) Was it right to elect to chase? Where did the pacing go wonky? And what is with Ishant Sharma?
Thing is, it was a riveting ODI in a riveting ODI series that's now tied 2-2, advantages, momentum negated. Both sides go into a three-match series with empty slates. Who said ODIs are dying?
Lessee the Indians picking themselves up and givin it back to the Aussies.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
A matter of gloves
So I've been noticing Mushfiqur Rahim's wicketkeeping gloves.
They look incredibly familiar.
Why? That camouflage design. That pseudo-military-whatever-type pattern. That's Dhoni's gloves. His supposed custom designed gloves that also got him into a bit of trouble in Australia '08.
Exactly the same, right down to that little patch of brown tape on the left glove.
It's got me thinking: how? Why?
Here are my theories:
1. Obviously Dhoni is a pioneer. A fashion maverick in the cricketing world. About time other wicketkeepers started emulating him, eh?
2. Rahim probably thought he could cinch a bit of Dhoni's luck by copying/stealing (where's that dressing room security?) his gloves. Unfortunately all he's been able to supernaturally cinch is Dhoni's 'keeping skills (or lack, thereof) as was evident in that stumping he missed off Rohit Sharma - who, by the way, was so far out of his crease it should technically have been a run-out.
3. Dhoni's been discarding his old gloves and decided to give a pair to Rahim as a motivational gift out of the goodness of his heart. You know it's true.
4. Their cricketing kits have been either Confiscated/Burnt/Lost/kicked out of the plane, so they're sharing the one pair of gloves that Dhoni managed to smuggle under two layers of designer jackets.
Which one of them is true, I wonder. Oh well, at least the journos have something to ask in the post match press conference that won't be met with a barrage of mumbled and badly pronounced cliches.
In other news, apparently a game called Twenty20 cricket is going on. In fact, I hear, it's actually a World Cup. I hear people like Chris Gayle, Jesse Ryder and Yuvraj Singh have played innings that have been often described as "scintillating."
For me? I'm just experiencing the joy of listening to Harsha Bhogle again. And Wasim Akram, who keeps wanting me to "look at the noise", but honestly, Mr. Akram, I'm sorry, I'm not able to see it.
Not to mention the billion ads that often come in between balls of the same over (honestly, the IPL was so much better in that regard, at least they waited till the end of the over), but I don't mind anyway, because every second ad has Dhoni endorsing products ranging from cell phones to ceiling fans, looking debonair, gleeful (and occasionally appearing in really short running shorts and sending me into transports of glee) and suave.
New Zealand to win this year's T20 WC.
They look incredibly familiar.
Why? That camouflage design. That pseudo-military-whatever-type pattern. That's Dhoni's gloves. His supposed custom designed gloves that also got him into a bit of trouble in Australia '08.
Exactly the same, right down to that little patch of brown tape on the left glove.
It's got me thinking: how? Why?
Here are my theories:
1. Obviously Dhoni is a pioneer. A fashion maverick in the cricketing world. About time other wicketkeepers started emulating him, eh?
2. Rahim probably thought he could cinch a bit of Dhoni's luck by copying/stealing (where's that dressing room security?) his gloves. Unfortunately all he's been able to supernaturally cinch is Dhoni's 'keeping skills (or lack, thereof) as was evident in that stumping he missed off Rohit Sharma - who, by the way, was so far out of his crease it should technically have been a run-out.
3. Dhoni's been discarding his old gloves and decided to give a pair to Rahim as a motivational gift out of the goodness of his heart. You know it's true.
4. Their cricketing kits have been either Confiscated/Burnt/Lost/kicked out of the plane, so they're sharing the one pair of gloves that Dhoni managed to smuggle under two layers of designer jackets.
Which one of them is true, I wonder. Oh well, at least the journos have something to ask in the post match press conference that won't be met with a barrage of mumbled and badly pronounced cliches.
In other news, apparently a game called Twenty20 cricket is going on. In fact, I hear, it's actually a World Cup. I hear people like Chris Gayle, Jesse Ryder and Yuvraj Singh have played innings that have been often described as "scintillating."
For me? I'm just experiencing the joy of listening to Harsha Bhogle again. And Wasim Akram, who keeps wanting me to "look at the noise", but honestly, Mr. Akram, I'm sorry, I'm not able to see it.
Not to mention the billion ads that often come in between balls of the same over (honestly, the IPL was so much better in that regard, at least they waited till the end of the over), but I don't mind anyway, because every second ad has Dhoni endorsing products ranging from cell phones to ceiling fans, looking debonair, gleeful (and occasionally appearing in really short running shorts and sending me into transports of glee) and suave.
New Zealand to win this year's T20 WC.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
I DON'T LIKE THIS
Bangalore need 35 runs off 4 overs.
I thought: wow. Is this possible? Is Murali really actually made of that much awesome?
Then. Raina. Two sixes.
Then. Murali. A six.
Vijay Mallya. Jumping up and about with his cronies.
Blood pressure. Fuming. I don't like this. Do you hear? I DON'T LIKE THIS.
Jacob Oram for the penultimate over, 12 runs to get. Have you gone terminally crazy Dhoni?
First ball. Full toss above the waist, hell, below the chin - no ball. Four. Possibly a six.
That was a yorker in which alternate universe, Jacob?
7 runs to get in 2 overs.
Bangalore win.
Through to the finals to slug it out with Deccan.
There were people going about how great it was that the entire Southern Brigade was in the semis, but I would much rather have us losing to Mumbai, Delhi, Punjab, whatever, rather than Bangalore.
Bangalore vs Hyderabad in the final. Just how wrong is that?
I predicted this all along but I'm so pissed off I don't even know anymore.
Just. Just.
Bloody Hell.
Damn you, Dhoni.
I thought: wow. Is this possible? Is Murali really actually made of that much awesome?
Then. Raina. Two sixes.
Then. Murali. A six.
Vijay Mallya. Jumping up and about with his cronies.
Blood pressure. Fuming. I don't like this. Do you hear? I DON'T LIKE THIS.
Jacob Oram for the penultimate over, 12 runs to get. Have you gone terminally crazy Dhoni?
First ball. Full toss above the waist, hell, below the chin - no ball. Four. Possibly a six.
That was a yorker in which alternate universe, Jacob?
7 runs to get in 2 overs.
Bangalore win.
Through to the finals to slug it out with Deccan.
There were people going about how great it was that the entire Southern Brigade was in the semis, but I would much rather have us losing to Mumbai, Delhi, Punjab, whatever, rather than Bangalore.
Bangalore vs Hyderabad in the final. Just how wrong is that?
I predicted this all along but I'm so pissed off I don't even know anymore.
Just. Just.
Bloody Hell.
Damn you, Dhoni.
No. Just no.
Lalit Modi hints at two IPLs in the same year.
Bull shit. 'Nuff said.
Also, am at home to watch the second semifinal. Chennai vs Bangalore, live. Bring it on!
Chennai have never looked like champions this tournament and I'm frankly surprised that they've made it this far. Absolutely pathetic.
Bangalore on the other hand have also never looked like champions (quite frankly, only Delhi ever did, and we all know now what happened to them), but at least they haven't served up pathetic like Chennai has. And Anil Kumble is on a wild high. And their fielders can actually catch . That's something.
Let's see if the Men in Startlingly Bright Yellow can get their act together at least this time and put all their hands up in a convincing win that belies their run so far in the tournament.
... What? I totally support Chennai. I just believe in tough love.
Also came across an interesting interview of Albie Morkel and he talks about the dressing room team song.... written by Stephen Fleming and George Bailey. I mean, WTF? (I would love to hear it)
I was talking about this to a friend of mine. She was confused. "Don't they already have a team song? I mean, Chennai, Chennai Super -- "
"Nope this is different. Dressing room stuff. Top secret."
A small pause, before, "Oh. Makes total sense. An excellent idea."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah, I mean, what if one of them gets lost or something? It's like one of those old movies where long lost brothers find each other by humming the same song. Nifty stuff."
"... Oookaay..."
"Yeah, seriously!" She began to get excited. "Picture this: Dhoni all alone, lost in South Africa, humming the song, and somebody like Albie Morkel happens to hear it, he'll know, right? And then he'll come rushing and go --"
"Emmmm Esssss!" we crowed together, and found coherence through laughter only thirteen minutes and 56 seconds later.
Yes, I'm totally mature and I keep totally mature company, I know. As if you hadn't figured that out already from how mature this blog is.
Bull shit. 'Nuff said.
Also, am at home to watch the second semifinal. Chennai vs Bangalore, live. Bring it on!
Chennai have never looked like champions this tournament and I'm frankly surprised that they've made it this far. Absolutely pathetic.
Bangalore on the other hand have also never looked like champions (quite frankly, only Delhi ever did, and we all know now what happened to them), but at least they haven't served up pathetic like Chennai has. And Anil Kumble is on a wild high. And their fielders can actually catch . That's something.
Let's see if the Men in Startlingly Bright Yellow can get their act together at least this time and put all their hands up in a convincing win that belies their run so far in the tournament.
... What? I totally support Chennai. I just believe in tough love.
Also came across an interesting interview of Albie Morkel and he talks about the dressing room team song.... written by Stephen Fleming and George Bailey. I mean, WTF? (I would love to hear it)
I was talking about this to a friend of mine. She was confused. "Don't they already have a team song? I mean, Chennai, Chennai Super -- "
"Nope this is different. Dressing room stuff. Top secret."
A small pause, before, "Oh. Makes total sense. An excellent idea."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah, I mean, what if one of them gets lost or something? It's like one of those old movies where long lost brothers find each other by humming the same song. Nifty stuff."
"... Oookaay..."
"Yeah, seriously!" She began to get excited. "Picture this: Dhoni all alone, lost in South Africa, humming the song, and somebody like Albie Morkel happens to hear it, he'll know, right? And then he'll come rushing and go --"
"Emmmm Esssss!" we crowed together, and found coherence through laughter only thirteen minutes and 56 seconds later.
Yes, I'm totally mature and I keep totally mature company, I know. As if you hadn't figured that out already from how mature this blog is.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Agonising just got a new name
Yep, it has.
It's called "being a CSK fan".
As I start this post, CSK are 179/9, 11 runs to get off the last 2 balls, tailenders getting themselves run-out all over the place to get Morkel on strike.
Likely we're about to lose by 10 runs or less. Figures that the only two close matches in this year's tournament so far involve CSK. I'd like to spin some spiel about how "CSK always go down fighting", but we all know that's not the truth.
Ah, look, there's the result: CSK lose by 9 runs. Great.
There seems to be a central theme to the team's performance over the two seasons of the IPL. One, everything we do at the death sucks. Our bowling, our batting, our fielding. Today we got the most awesome start to the chase we could dare to ask for, with Hayden going bonkers at the likes of Nannes, Salvi and Nehra. Parthiv was giving him fantastic support, and after him Raina got smoothly into his groove as well. 40-odd runs to get off the last 5 overs. Piece of cake.
We score barely 30-odd runs in the last 5, losing 6 wickets, after going at more than 10 in the first 15, losing 3.
It happened quite a bit in last years' edition, too (with a few notable exceptions). This time, too, that Flintoff over that conceded 22 runs. Morkel's series of gaffes (that extended to his batting, too, but I'll get to that later). Muralitharan proving to be expensive as well. Gony feeding Dilshan boundaries. Ha ha, IRONY that Balaji turned out to be our best bowler today.
Another was how we completely failed to latch onto the big moments. Yeah, you know the ones. The match-turning kind. Like Suresh Raina dropping Yusuf Pathan (who was then only in single-digit figures) in the final last year, Morkel dropping AB today, or Flintoff bowling that one rubbish over in the end that goes for way too many runs than it should. Hayden dropping Tendulkar. Gony being rubbish on the field.
It's okay if your team is trampled upon by the opposition, I can toss my head back and belly-laugh it out of my system. Like the time RR had Sohail Tanvir put us through the meat-shredder the first time CSK played them last year. I could only laugh and laugh and laugh and think "it sucks to be them right now, huh."
Except most times CSK lose like this and I'm left tearing my hair out.
AB deVilliers has won the man-of-the-match, I think.
No fair. The man-of-the-match award should go to Mr. Morkel. He was the one who won it for the Daredevils after all.
16.2
Salvi to Morkel, no run, short, sitting up for the pull, but Morkel mistimes, and plays it straight to midwicket. Dot Ball. That's big
16.3
Salvi to Morkel, 1 run, another short delivery, Morkel is a touch late into the pull, and only just manages to clear AB at midwicket
18.4
Vettori to Morkel, 1 leg bye, lovely bowling again, Morkel looks to make room, Vettori follows with an arm-ball, getting just a leg-bye
18.5
Vettori to Gony, SIX, and Gony turns it around, Vettori had bowled so far this game, with this flighted delivery is clubbed from down on a knee, this could well be eight over midwicket boundary
19.1
Nannes to Joginder Sharma, 2 runs, Joginder makes room, lofts it over extra cover, but they stroll only for two
19.2
Nannes to Joginder Sharma, 2 runs, just short of a length, Joginder slaps it to wide of long-on, and they take two again. Surprising? Wouldn't they want Morkel on strike?
It's called "being a CSK fan".
As I start this post, CSK are 179/9, 11 runs to get off the last 2 balls, tailenders getting themselves run-out all over the place to get Morkel on strike.
Likely we're about to lose by 10 runs or less. Figures that the only two close matches in this year's tournament so far involve CSK. I'd like to spin some spiel about how "CSK always go down fighting", but we all know that's not the truth.
Ah, look, there's the result: CSK lose by 9 runs. Great.
There seems to be a central theme to the team's performance over the two seasons of the IPL. One, everything we do at the death sucks. Our bowling, our batting, our fielding. Today we got the most awesome start to the chase we could dare to ask for, with Hayden going bonkers at the likes of Nannes, Salvi and Nehra. Parthiv was giving him fantastic support, and after him Raina got smoothly into his groove as well. 40-odd runs to get off the last 5 overs. Piece of cake.
We score barely 30-odd runs in the last 5, losing 6 wickets, after going at more than 10 in the first 15, losing 3.
It happened quite a bit in last years' edition, too (with a few notable exceptions). This time, too, that Flintoff over that conceded 22 runs. Morkel's series of gaffes (that extended to his batting, too, but I'll get to that later). Muralitharan proving to be expensive as well. Gony feeding Dilshan boundaries. Ha ha, IRONY that Balaji turned out to be our best bowler today.
Another was how we completely failed to latch onto the big moments. Yeah, you know the ones. The match-turning kind. Like Suresh Raina dropping Yusuf Pathan (who was then only in single-digit figures) in the final last year, Morkel dropping AB today, or Flintoff bowling that one rubbish over in the end that goes for way too many runs than it should. Hayden dropping Tendulkar. Gony being rubbish on the field.
It's okay if your team is trampled upon by the opposition, I can toss my head back and belly-laugh it out of my system. Like the time RR had Sohail Tanvir put us through the meat-shredder the first time CSK played them last year. I could only laugh and laugh and laugh and think "it sucks to be them right now, huh."
Except most times CSK lose like this and I'm left tearing my hair out.
AB deVilliers has won the man-of-the-match, I think.
No fair. The man-of-the-match award should go to Mr. Morkel. He was the one who won it for the Daredevils after all.
16.2
Salvi to Morkel, no run, short, sitting up for the pull, but Morkel mistimes, and plays it straight to midwicket. Dot Ball. That's big
16.3
Salvi to Morkel, 1 run, another short delivery, Morkel is a touch late into the pull, and only just manages to clear AB at midwicket
18.4
Vettori to Morkel, 1 leg bye, lovely bowling again, Morkel looks to make room, Vettori follows with an arm-ball, getting just a leg-bye
18.5
Vettori to Gony, SIX, and Gony turns it around, Vettori had bowled so far this game, with this flighted delivery is clubbed from down on a knee, this could well be eight over midwicket boundary
19.1
Nannes to Joginder Sharma, 2 runs, Joginder makes room, lofts it over extra cover, but they stroll only for two
19.2
Nannes to Joginder Sharma, 2 runs, just short of a length, Joginder slaps it to wide of long-on, and they take two again. Surprising? Wouldn't they want Morkel on strike?
No, Mr. Commentator, they wouldn't.
I'm sorry if I'm being unfair to Morkel - it's possible that he just had a really crappy day - but I'm deeply frustrated with the Men in Startlingly Bright Yellow right now. Chokers, that's what they are. First-rate Chokers.
Dhoni's saying that he hoped his bowlers were paying attention to the way Delhi bowled at the death. Yeah, Freddie, that one was especially for you. Considering you've been quite the Magnanimous One with your bowling at the death, in both the matches that we've lost so far.
Damn it all. Chennai's gonna end up choking its way to the bottom of the table. No use in claiming that we lose decently.
Then they can all come back to their chicken biryanis and thayirsaadams and Padmashrees and watch Mumbai play Delhi in the final on a big flatscreen TV.
It's all a conspiracy, yessir, it is
Chennai is playing Delhi in the IPL.
Forced to come home by illness, I'm sitting here watching Chennai shit all over their dreams of winning.
I'm watching AB deVilliers hit a CENTURY. I'm watching Flintoff getting carted around for 22 runs in the penultimate over. I'm watching Dhoni getting ready to silently combust.
More than anything, I'm sitting here watching Albie Morkel lose us the game.
Sample this:
15.2
Gony to de Villiers, 1 run, and AB enjoys the good luck for longer, lofted straight to Morkel at long-on boundary, and Morkel drops an absolute sitter
And then:
16.1
Morkel to de Villiers, FOUR, and Morkel is being tormented more by his compatriot. He bowls a fulltoss, and smacked over midwicket. AB is cashing in remorselessly
16.2
Morkel to de Villiers, SIX, He is a sucker for punishemnt, is Morkel, another fulltoss, AB goes midwicket again, but higher, and for a six. is he looking at 200?
What's going on?
And then earlier, Mr. Morkel was spouting this shit about how the players' respective boards had instructed them not to divulge too many secrets to their ipl teammates prior to the T20 WC.
Mr. Morkel, I usually think you are seventy five and a quarter different kinds of awesome, but if your only purpose today was to come and give your South African teammate some batting practice, you might as well have opted out of this gig.
Yeah, you SUCK, Mr. Morkel.
I'm just going to take my medicine and go to sleep and not watch Chennai lose.
Which they undoubtedly deserve to.
AB deVilliers. Seriously, guys? SERIOUSLY?
Forced to come home by illness, I'm sitting here watching Chennai shit all over their dreams of winning.
I'm watching AB deVilliers hit a CENTURY. I'm watching Flintoff getting carted around for 22 runs in the penultimate over. I'm watching Dhoni getting ready to silently combust.
More than anything, I'm sitting here watching Albie Morkel lose us the game.
Sample this:
15.2
Gony to de Villiers, 1 run, and AB enjoys the good luck for longer, lofted straight to Morkel at long-on boundary, and Morkel drops an absolute sitter
And then:
16.1
Morkel to de Villiers, FOUR, and Morkel is being tormented more by his compatriot. He bowls a fulltoss, and smacked over midwicket. AB is cashing in remorselessly
16.2
Morkel to de Villiers, SIX, He is a sucker for punishemnt, is Morkel, another fulltoss, AB goes midwicket again, but higher, and for a six. is he looking at 200?
What's going on?
And then earlier, Mr. Morkel was spouting this shit about how the players' respective boards had instructed them not to divulge too many secrets to their ipl teammates prior to the T20 WC.
Mr. Morkel, I usually think you are seventy five and a quarter different kinds of awesome, but if your only purpose today was to come and give your South African teammate some batting practice, you might as well have opted out of this gig.
Yeah, you SUCK, Mr. Morkel.
I'm just going to take my medicine and go to sleep and not watch Chennai lose.
Which they undoubtedly deserve to.
AB deVilliers. Seriously, guys? SERIOUSLY?
Friday, February 27, 2009
... and AGAIN.
Yeah.
So India apparently suck at Twenty20.
Startled by the inexplicability of the statement, I picked it up. Prodded. Examined. Dissected. Peeled off a cross-section and examined under the microscope. Made sketches. Notes.
And yet?
I'm left with more questions than answers. And a firmer conviction that this ain't gonna be a pretty tour for the Indians.
Also? I think I know what the other side feels like now. Remember the 2nd final of the CB series? Where Irfan, who was bowling utter crap, was given the final over where Australia required 13 runs to win? And he went on to bowl a superb over which not only fetched him two wickets but sealed a historically monumental win for India?
And this time around?
Irfan was bowling beautifully, 12 runs required to win off the last over, only 4 runs from the first 4 balls, and then?
And THEN?
The Brendon of McCullum hits two consecutive fours off the last two balls and New Zealand win and I die.
Reminds you of a lot of the Great Escapes that India has managed to pull off over the last year, yes? (The greatest of them being the World Twenty20 final, which was, ow. Unbelievable.)
Now I grit my teeth as I read people like Iain O'Brien go "It's wonderful to have beaten the world champions", (yeah, champ, why don't you have a cookie now) and the NZ newspapers go, "omg India is in such great form, they are clearly the favourites", and at this point I'm seriously wishing for them to tell us how crappy India really are, Aussie-style, because that never fails to rile the Men in (now a terrible shade of) Blue up and inspire them into spectacular performances.
Only tthree things console me now:
1. India've always been crappy starters on overseas tours, and going into this one with zero NZ experience, zero practice matches, a two week layoff after the SL tour where they vacationed, partied, and constantly had people telling them how great they were? Yeah, for them to be hitting the ground running would've expecting too much. Also, the performance in the second Twenty20 was a marked improvement from the first. I'm expecting better and better performances in the ODIs and Tests.
2. India, world Twenty20 champions, national team of the home of the IPL, chock-full of cricketing superstars, losing to hardworking, efficient and understated New Zealand? Hopefully it's enough of a slap in the face to shake off the last dregs of complacency and over-confidence.
(And also, Dhoni? Please to be shaking off your rustiness. It be painful to watch.)
((And who asked you not to play domestic cricket in the interim between SL and NZ, huh, HUH? Sheesh. ))
3. Remember South Africa's immensely successful tour of Australia recently? One of their few major blips was losing both their Twenty20s comprehensively to the Aussies. But they comfortably took both the ODI and Test series, and no prizes for guessing which was the happier team at the end of the tour. So, India? Hint there, hello!
Watching the team lose is a much harder pill to swallow now than before. What have you done to me, team?
So India apparently suck at Twenty20.
Startled by the inexplicability of the statement, I picked it up. Prodded. Examined. Dissected. Peeled off a cross-section and examined under the microscope. Made sketches. Notes.
And yet?
I'm left with more questions than answers. And a firmer conviction that this ain't gonna be a pretty tour for the Indians.
Also? I think I know what the other side feels like now. Remember the 2nd final of the CB series? Where Irfan, who was bowling utter crap, was given the final over where Australia required 13 runs to win? And he went on to bowl a superb over which not only fetched him two wickets but sealed a historically monumental win for India?
And this time around?
Irfan was bowling beautifully, 12 runs required to win off the last over, only 4 runs from the first 4 balls, and then?
And THEN?
The Brendon of McCullum hits two consecutive fours off the last two balls and New Zealand win and I die.
Reminds you of a lot of the Great Escapes that India has managed to pull off over the last year, yes? (The greatest of them being the World Twenty20 final, which was, ow. Unbelievable.)
Now I grit my teeth as I read people like Iain O'Brien go "It's wonderful to have beaten the world champions", (yeah, champ, why don't you have a cookie now) and the NZ newspapers go, "omg India is in such great form, they are clearly the favourites", and at this point I'm seriously wishing for them to tell us how crappy India really are, Aussie-style, because that never fails to rile the Men in (now a terrible shade of) Blue up and inspire them into spectacular performances.
Only tthree things console me now:
1. India've always been crappy starters on overseas tours, and going into this one with zero NZ experience, zero practice matches, a two week layoff after the SL tour where they vacationed, partied, and constantly had people telling them how great they were? Yeah, for them to be hitting the ground running would've expecting too much. Also, the performance in the second Twenty20 was a marked improvement from the first. I'm expecting better and better performances in the ODIs and Tests.
2. India, world Twenty20 champions, national team of the home of the IPL, chock-full of cricketing superstars, losing to hardworking, efficient and understated New Zealand? Hopefully it's enough of a slap in the face to shake off the last dregs of complacency and over-confidence.
(And also, Dhoni? Please to be shaking off your rustiness. It be painful to watch.)
((And who asked you not to play domestic cricket in the interim between SL and NZ, huh, HUH? Sheesh. ))
3. Remember South Africa's immensely successful tour of Australia recently? One of their few major blips was losing both their Twenty20s comprehensively to the Aussies. But they comfortably took both the ODI and Test series, and no prizes for guessing which was the happier team at the end of the tour. So, India? Hint there, hello!
Watching the team lose is a much harder pill to swallow now than before. What have you done to me, team?
Thursday, February 26, 2009
So we lost.
There's this Twenty20 the Indian team was supposed to be playing that kicked off their tour of New Zealand, right? Apparently we lost it. By 7 wickets.
Hm. Deep breath. Close your eyes, brace yourself.
Yes.
Fine. I think I've been spoiled quite a bit by India's winning streak, so despite my predictions of Doom and Gloom for the Indian team in New Zealand, I was kind of expecting them to win anyway, deep within. Apparently they had plenty of chances to do so, too - judging by the text-message updates a sick friend at home was kind enough to send me while I was in class. Oh, and they were entertaining text updates, too, my favourites being:
"dhoni has lost all his batting skills, i guess... what kind of a shot was that?"
"raina nails it! awesome 50. 162 for 8"
"ha ha, take that jesse ryder! 2 for 1 after 1"
"Ishant is throwin the match away 2 no balls seriously what is WRONG with him"
"India has lost major ground! nz 53/1 in 5.5! Recovery, we need recovery!"
"17 off yuvi's over, 39 req off 30. What is Dhoni SMOKING, bringing yuvi into the attack NOW?"
"28 req off 4"
"12 off 12"
Then, finally:
"4 off 10"
and the messages stopped. Um, I got the hint.
Oh well. I was predicting it anyway. I expect more of the same in the rest of the tour. (So prove me wrong, boys! )
Plus, plus, I'm delighted anyway because A R Rahman won both of his Oscars, (ahahaha, Chennaiite, people! "Ellam pugazhum Eraivanuke!" My heart burst with joy that moment, I swear!) and Jared Padalecki from Supernatural has suddenly risen up to Number Two on my all-time obsessive fangirling list, right after MSD. Mmm hmm.
Hm. Deep breath. Close your eyes, brace yourself.
Yes.
Fine. I think I've been spoiled quite a bit by India's winning streak, so despite my predictions of Doom and Gloom for the Indian team in New Zealand, I was kind of expecting them to win anyway, deep within. Apparently they had plenty of chances to do so, too - judging by the text-message updates a sick friend at home was kind enough to send me while I was in class. Oh, and they were entertaining text updates, too, my favourites being:
"dhoni has lost all his batting skills, i guess... what kind of a shot was that?"
"raina nails it! awesome 50. 162 for 8"
"ha ha, take that jesse ryder! 2 for 1 after 1"
"Ishant is throwin the match away 2 no balls seriously what is WRONG with him"
"India has lost major ground! nz 53/1 in 5.5! Recovery, we need recovery!"
"17 off yuvi's over, 39 req off 30. What is Dhoni SMOKING, bringing yuvi into the attack NOW?"
"28 req off 4"
"12 off 12"
Then, finally:
"4 off 10"
and the messages stopped. Um, I got the hint.
Oh well. I was predicting it anyway. I expect more of the same in the rest of the tour. (So prove me wrong, boys! )
Plus, plus, I'm delighted anyway because A R Rahman won both of his Oscars, (ahahaha, Chennaiite, people! "Ellam pugazhum Eraivanuke!" My heart burst with joy that moment, I swear!) and Jared Padalecki from Supernatural has suddenly risen up to Number Two on my all-time obsessive fangirling list, right after MSD. Mmm hmm.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Of cows, stocks and other such delightful things
Another year. Another February. Another day where cricketers sold like stocks. Or "cows". (Don't worry, Gilly, keep at it and one of those fanatic pro-Hindutva groups will come and save you from the eeevil IPL.)
The amounts of money being tossed around this time - defying global concerns over the Economic Recession - didn't startle me as much as it did last time 'round. I'm rather looking forward to this year's edition of the IPL. I had my fill of some spectacular Test cricket late last year, some good ODI cricket now, and I can't wait for the Twenty20 season to come. I generally don't get why some people can be so anti-Twenty20, pro-this, anti-that. I'm probably going to sound naive, but it's all cricket, each format requiring an unique set of skills. And as far as I know, the glamour never hurt anybody, least of all the cricketers themselves. Plus, it's a great way to attract new fans to the game. I know a lot of people who started watching not just T20, but also Tests and ODIs after the IPL last year.
... But that's an argument for another time.
So. Let's have a look at the teams post-auction.
Bangalore Royal Challengers
Kevin Pietersen - 1.55 million
Jesse Ryder - 160,000
Well, obviously. The 'Test team' of the IPL was going to need a whole lot of big hitters - especially now with Misbah's contract terminated - and Vijay Mallya must've made a steady beeline for KP. I have my doubts about whether he's worth that much, though. I mean, yeah, he's flamboyant, in-form, destructive hitter and everything, but seems too much money for a batsman who can't add any other attributes to his kitty.
Veritable bargain as far as Ryder is concerned.
Chennai Super Kings
Andrew Flintoff - 1.55 million
Thilan Thushara - 140,000
George Bailey - 50,000
\o/ - was my immediate reaction when I heard that Chennai had bagged Flintoff. We were in desperate need of an incisive pacer - with the added bonus of being an all-rounder - and he fits the bill perfectly. I believe he's worth every paise of his price - provided he doesn't get injured along the way. I remember Thushara as a good bowler with a penchant for big hits down the order - very nearly won the man of the series award in the ODI series against India last year - but I would've preferred Kulasekara ahead of him. The George Bailey fellow I've never heard of, but I took a look at his profile - Tasmania vice-captain, T20 strikerate of over 150 - fine by me.
Deccan Chargers
Fidel Edwards - 150,000
Dwayne Smith - 100,000
Ah, DC, DC, DC. Fidel Edwards is a good up-and-coming pacer - could be the surprise package of the IPL. Dwayne Smith... well, okay, he's a good fielder, fairly good batsman... well, okay, yeah. Not got much to say. Hopefully they perform better than they did last time 'round.
Delhi Daredevils
Owais Shah - 275,000
Paul Collingwood - 275,000
... Okay, so I've been rather fascinated by Delhi's moves the whole of last year. They've made some pretty smart moves, others not-so-smart (you're giving up Shikhar Dhawan? Are you, like, nuts?) Owais Shah can be a good buy, whereas Paul Collingwood? Wait, let me check my imagination.
Yep, it boggles.
Kings XI Punjab
Ravi Bopara - 450,000
Jerome Taylor - 150,000
Sensible pick-ups, both of them. Taylor could turn out to be the bargain of the IPL. Kings XI looking like one of the most well-rounded teams of the IPL.
Kolkata Knightriders
Mashrafe Mortaza - 600,000
... Okay. Mortaza has always been one of my most favourite Bangladeshi players - a good pacer and a useful big-hitter down the order, but buying him for 120 times his base price? Seems like a little too much. I'm not even that sure he'll make an adequate replacement for Umar Gul. Come on, KKR, I thought you were smarter than that.
Mumbai Indians
JP Duminy - 950,000
Kyle Mills - 150,000
Mohammad Ashraful - 75,000
Surely the effect of the recently concluded South African tour of Australia, where JP Duminy was the undisputed star. I think it's a great buy. Fantastic batsman in the form of his life, great fielder and useful part-time bowler. Kyle Mills I don't know much of and can't be bothered with finding out, but wow is that a bargain for Ashraful or what.
Rajasthan Royals
Shaun Tait - 375,000
Tyron Henderson - 650,000
With the glamour quotient cranked up considerably with the entry of Shilpa Shetty, I think RR have acquitted themselves well here. Shaun Tait can be super-dangerous provided Warney toughens him up mentally, and I remember Henderson plays for Middlesex and was one of the key reasons they won the Twenty20 cup last year (oh, that final was amazing). Maybe a wee too much paid for him, perhaps.
Unsold Players: Stuart Clark, Brad Haddin, Chamara Kapugedara, Ashwell Prince, Phil Jaques, Andre Nel, Luke Wright, Nuwan Kulasekara, Samit Patel, Shakib Al Hasan, Morne van Wyk, Steven Smith, Ashley Noffke, Gulam Bodi, Daren Powell, Tamim Iqbal, Jon Moss, Bryce McGain, James Franklin, Aiden Blizzard, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Michael Klinger, Kaushalya Weeraratne, Prasanna Jayawardene, Dominic Thornley, Yusuf Abdulla, Daniel Harris, Kemar Roach, Aaron Bird, Michael Dighton, Michael Hill and Brett Geeves.
That's a whole lot of unsold players.
The people I cannot believe have remained unsold to any team have been italicised. With special emphasis on Shakib-al-Hasan. How in the world can you not take this kid? He's the sole reason Bangladesh have done reasonably well this year! Number one in the all-rounder rankings! Smoking hot form! I couldn't believe my eyes.
... Anyway. Things are being set up for an exciting Twenty20 season ahead. Will try to follow it as much as I can, cheer for the Chennai Super Kings as much as I can, though it'll be tough with final exams coming around the same time. There's this contest going on to search for the next bunch of CSK cheerleaders and when I expressed a desire to participate, I received the Collective Withering Look of Doom from my family.
Whatever do you think they meant? ;)
The amounts of money being tossed around this time - defying global concerns over the Economic Recession - didn't startle me as much as it did last time 'round. I'm rather looking forward to this year's edition of the IPL. I had my fill of some spectacular Test cricket late last year, some good ODI cricket now, and I can't wait for the Twenty20 season to come. I generally don't get why some people can be so anti-Twenty20, pro-this, anti-that. I'm probably going to sound naive, but it's all cricket, each format requiring an unique set of skills. And as far as I know, the glamour never hurt anybody, least of all the cricketers themselves. Plus, it's a great way to attract new fans to the game. I know a lot of people who started watching not just T20, but also Tests and ODIs after the IPL last year.
... But that's an argument for another time.
So. Let's have a look at the teams post-auction.
Bangalore Royal Challengers
Kevin Pietersen - 1.55 million
Jesse Ryder - 160,000
Well, obviously. The 'Test team' of the IPL was going to need a whole lot of big hitters - especially now with Misbah's contract terminated - and Vijay Mallya must've made a steady beeline for KP. I have my doubts about whether he's worth that much, though. I mean, yeah, he's flamboyant, in-form, destructive hitter and everything, but seems too much money for a batsman who can't add any other attributes to his kitty.
Veritable bargain as far as Ryder is concerned.
Chennai Super Kings
Andrew Flintoff - 1.55 million
Thilan Thushara - 140,000
George Bailey - 50,000
\o/ - was my immediate reaction when I heard that Chennai had bagged Flintoff. We were in desperate need of an incisive pacer - with the added bonus of being an all-rounder - and he fits the bill perfectly. I believe he's worth every paise of his price - provided he doesn't get injured along the way. I remember Thushara as a good bowler with a penchant for big hits down the order - very nearly won the man of the series award in the ODI series against India last year - but I would've preferred Kulasekara ahead of him. The George Bailey fellow I've never heard of, but I took a look at his profile - Tasmania vice-captain, T20 strikerate of over 150 - fine by me.
Deccan Chargers
Fidel Edwards - 150,000
Dwayne Smith - 100,000
Ah, DC, DC, DC. Fidel Edwards is a good up-and-coming pacer - could be the surprise package of the IPL. Dwayne Smith... well, okay, he's a good fielder, fairly good batsman... well, okay, yeah. Not got much to say. Hopefully they perform better than they did last time 'round.
Delhi Daredevils
Owais Shah - 275,000
Paul Collingwood - 275,000
... Okay, so I've been rather fascinated by Delhi's moves the whole of last year. They've made some pretty smart moves, others not-so-smart (you're giving up Shikhar Dhawan? Are you, like, nuts?) Owais Shah can be a good buy, whereas Paul Collingwood? Wait, let me check my imagination.
Yep, it boggles.
Kings XI Punjab
Ravi Bopara - 450,000
Jerome Taylor - 150,000
Sensible pick-ups, both of them. Taylor could turn out to be the bargain of the IPL. Kings XI looking like one of the most well-rounded teams of the IPL.
Kolkata Knightriders
Mashrafe Mortaza - 600,000
... Okay. Mortaza has always been one of my most favourite Bangladeshi players - a good pacer and a useful big-hitter down the order, but buying him for 120 times his base price? Seems like a little too much. I'm not even that sure he'll make an adequate replacement for Umar Gul. Come on, KKR, I thought you were smarter than that.
Mumbai Indians
JP Duminy - 950,000
Kyle Mills - 150,000
Mohammad Ashraful - 75,000
Surely the effect of the recently concluded South African tour of Australia, where JP Duminy was the undisputed star. I think it's a great buy. Fantastic batsman in the form of his life, great fielder and useful part-time bowler. Kyle Mills I don't know much of and can't be bothered with finding out, but wow is that a bargain for Ashraful or what.
Rajasthan Royals
Shaun Tait - 375,000
Tyron Henderson - 650,000
With the glamour quotient cranked up considerably with the entry of Shilpa Shetty, I think RR have acquitted themselves well here. Shaun Tait can be super-dangerous provided Warney toughens him up mentally, and I remember Henderson plays for Middlesex and was one of the key reasons they won the Twenty20 cup last year (oh, that final was amazing). Maybe a wee too much paid for him, perhaps.
Unsold Players: Stuart Clark, Brad Haddin, Chamara Kapugedara, Ashwell Prince, Phil Jaques, Andre Nel, Luke Wright, Nuwan Kulasekara, Samit Patel, Shakib Al Hasan, Morne van Wyk, Steven Smith, Ashley Noffke, Gulam Bodi, Daren Powell, Tamim Iqbal, Jon Moss, Bryce McGain, James Franklin, Aiden Blizzard, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Michael Klinger, Kaushalya Weeraratne, Prasanna Jayawardene, Dominic Thornley, Yusuf Abdulla, Daniel Harris, Kemar Roach, Aaron Bird, Michael Dighton, Michael Hill and Brett Geeves.
That's a whole lot of unsold players.
The people I cannot believe have remained unsold to any team have been italicised. With special emphasis on Shakib-al-Hasan. How in the world can you not take this kid? He's the sole reason Bangladesh have done reasonably well this year! Number one in the all-rounder rankings! Smoking hot form! I couldn't believe my eyes.
... Anyway. Things are being set up for an exciting Twenty20 season ahead. Will try to follow it as much as I can, cheer for the Chennai Super Kings as much as I can, though it'll be tough with final exams coming around the same time. There's this contest going on to search for the next bunch of CSK cheerleaders and when I expressed a desire to participate, I received the Collective Withering Look of Doom from my family.
Whatever do you think they meant? ;)
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