IPL-8 - Match-30 - CSK lose for once

CSK were defeated after a long time that people had forgotten when! Thanks to Uthappa.

CLT20 2014 - KKR make it 13 in a row

KKR have been on a roll - 13 is the latest count. Thanks to Robin Uthappa and Manish Pandey, they reached the semifinals without any big worry.

CLT20 2014 - KKR win again

Gautam Gambhir and Robin Uthappa started off with a bang that ensured KKR crossed the line with ease (despite the hiccups in the middle).

IPL5 - KKR gets past CSK

KKR finally had their moments of glory in their fifth attempt. After several controversies, they had the trophy to cherish under a captain who led from the front. If reports are true, there will be a bus ride in Kolkata and the team will be honored by the Chief Minister of West Bengal! Manvinder Bisla deserves his moment in the sun, thanks to his blistering knock.

Let us look at all the teams and see how they fared overall:

1. Kolkata Knight Riders - Gautam Gambhir proved that his demotion from the post of vice-captain from the national team was so wrong. He put runs on the board consistently and ensured that there were winners from the rest of the team as well. Kallis was wonderful with his all-round abilities while Sunil Narine gave the mystery factor to the team. Best Indian player - Gautam Gambhir. Best Foreign player - Sunil Narine.
2. Chennai Super Kings -  Lucky was the word attached to the CSK team. In the knock-out stages, they showed that they had the skills to match as well. Without a singularly outstanding player in their team, CSK was able to reach the final and take the team to the last over. Simply hats off to the overall franchise for being able to be consistently successful. Best Indian player -  Suresh Raina. Best Foreign player - Faf Du Plessis.
3. Delhi Daredevils - A team that was so consistent in the league phases, Delhi failed in two attempts to reach the final! Call it choking or bad strategies but Sehwag's team had done all the right things in the initial phase.With all their international players (Kevin Pietersen, David Warner, Mahela Jayawardene) firing, Sehwag provided the Indian touch to ensure Delhi reached the final stages. Sehwag also nurtured the Indian fast bowlers Umesh Yadav and Varun Aaron very well - a good sign for the national team. Best Indian player - Umesh Yadav. Best Foreign player - Morne Morkel.
4. Mumbai Indians - While Rohit Sharma shone in bits and pieces, Mumbai was also helped by timely knocks from Rayudu, Tendulkar and Pollard. The bowling was in the safe hands of Munaf and Malinga. Harbhajan led well though his individual form was not encouraging. Best Indian player -  Ambati Rayudu. Best Foreign player - Lasith Malinga.
5. Royal Challengers -  RCB was unfortunate to lose out on the knock-out stage because of their run-rate. Their dependence on Chris Gayle was worrying for the management while Murali's efforts on the field was exemplary as usual. Though Vinay Kumar and Zaheer Khan were among the wickets, they were not consistent enough to threaten the other teams. Best Indian player - Mayank Agarwal. Best Foreign player - Chris Gayle.
6. Kings XI Punjab - David Hussey captained the team mostly in the absence of Adam Gilchrist but the role Punjab played mainly was that of party-poopers. Spoiling RCB's chances to move to the next stage, Kings performed well in patches thanks to the efforts of Mandeep, Awana and Piyush Chawla. Best Indian player - Mandeep Singh. Best Foreign player - Azhar Mahmood.
7. Rajasthan Royals - Led ably by Rahul Dravid, Rajasthan lost steam after their good start. Ajinkya Rahane, Owais Shah and Shane Watson shone for the team but the bowling was their weak-spot. Siddharth Trivedi was their best bowler and he was ranked 18th on the wicket-taking list - proof enough that the team was lacking the firepower. If the team can introduce more star power to their bowling lineup, they can do much better than where they finally ended up. Best Indian player - Ajinkya Rahane. Best Foreign player - Owais Shah
8. Deccan Chargers - The only surprise from the Chargers was how they managed to avoid the wooden spoon this year. Thanks to Dale Steyn, the Chargers gave their opponents a lot to worry about but the batting was not consistent despite the efforts from Shikhar Dhawan and Cameron White (both appearing in the Top 10 list of top scorers). Best Indian player - Shikhar Dhawan. Best Foreign player - Dale Steyn.
9. Pune Warriors - Sourav Ganguly's team was erratic to start with and then went downhill in the latter part of the tournament, not knowing whether the captain was part of the team or not. Robin Uthappa and Steve Smith tried their best with the bat but their efforts were not enough. The bowling department lacked penetration which is reflected in the overall position of the top wicket-taker Ashish Nehra (25th)! Best Indian player - Robin Uthappa. Best Foreign player - Steve Smith.

If there was a team selected from the other eight teams to play against the winners Kolkata, this would be my list of sixteen players

1. Shikhar Dhawan
2. Chris Gayle
3. Ajinkya Rahane 
4. Suresh Raina (captain)
5. Mandeep Singh
6. Robin Uthappa
7. Azhar Mahmood
8. Steve Smith
9. Mayank Agarwal
10. Ambati Rayudu (wk)
11. Lasith Malinga
12. Dale Steyn 
13. Piyush Chawla
14. Parvinder Awana 
15. Umesh Yadav
16. Morne Morkel

What would be your list?

IPL4 Match 31 - CSK win again

CSK coasted to an easy win against Yuvi's Pune Warriors by eight wickets, completing a second win against the same time in 3 days. Badrinath and Suresh Raina completed the act, after the good start given by Murali Vijay. Yuvraj Singh and Robin Uthappa had contributed useful scores to help Pune post a score that eventually was not enough.

IPL4 Match 10 - Pune keep winning

Mohnish Mishra is the next Indian batsman who has come out of nowhere to be the star. He helped Pune chase the tough target with an over to spare. Where batsmen like Yuvraj and Robin Uthappa failed, Mishra took his team through.

Pointers from the Indian selectors and Ranji matches

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Two pointers from news incidents that happened today:

•  The new contracts were given by the BCCI - Yuvraj Singh being the surprise movement in the list of contracts. Suresh Raina replaced him while Virat Kohli, Murali Vijay and Pragyan Ojha have moved up to Grade B. Rohit Sharma has been demoted to C. RP Singh and Munaf Patel, who were previously in Grade B, have not been offered contracts. This definitely shows the thinking of the Management involved in the selection. Raina has made good progress in test cricket while cementing his place as a dependable player in ODIs. Yuvraj has fallen out of contention in test matches and his ODI form has been nothing great to write about.
• Similarly, the Ranji matches has thrown up performances from fringe players like Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Yusuf Pathan, Vinay Kumar, Robin Uthappa has increased our hopes that the bench strength remains as a good pipeline for the national teams. Let us hope they continue this performance and reach greater heights.

Yuvraj Singh has the matches till the ODI series against the "Black Caps" starts, where he will play at least 5 matches. This should give him good practice period to get back to his groove.

India, meanwhile, start their 2nd test against NewZealand tomorrow at Hyderabad. Rain could play a major role in this test match, which should see the Indians win if the match is played in full-time. VVS Laxman is playing his first test at home - hope he makes a century in front of his friends and family.

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T20 World Cup - India goes past the Proteans

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MS Dhoni tried to up the ante (as though it was required in the first place) at the beginning of the match against South Africa today - resting one of his strike bowlers (Zaheer Khan) even though he know that his regular opening batsman, Gautam Gambhir was suffering from diarrhea. It was as though he was asking his team to raise their game by multiple notches as compared to the previous game against Afghanistan.

His team responded and how - Suresh Raina took it as a personal challenge and scored a century against the Proteans, who had erred by leaving out Johan Botha (who had in fact bowled better than the Indians in the similar face-off in the last T20 World Cup). Bowling short-pitched balls at the batsmen, the bowlers thought that they could make the batsmen dance to their tunes but the pitches were not as responsive as the English ones, which meant that the Indian batsmen could take their time to settle down before launching their assault.

Another good outcome of the match was the form of Yuvraj. He is slowly but surely returning back to form, auguring well for the next round. MS Dhoni once again finished well - showing that he had figured out the way to play in T20 matches (maybe not the same way as ODI matches). The IPL tryst has definitely 'cleared' his mind - probably the last-over win against Punjab XI really helped.

About the bowling, given the number of spinners he had, MSD relied on them to dry up the run-rate and the Proteans crashed. I feel that the next match will see Zaheer coming in place of Praveen Kumar.

Albie Morkel was waiting in the dressing room but the batsmen in the middle were not getting out !! In fact, I feel that Jacques Kallis is posing quite a strange problem to the team management (just like he did for RCB). His all-round value is of no doubt but he is probably choking in the middle overs needing a lot to be done for the latter batsmen. The task was done by a Robin Uthappa in IPL but who will it be for SAF in this World Cup? Unless they figure out how they tackle this 'problem', things will be a bit difficult for them.

For the Indians, they are in the next round high on confidence. They did a right thing (on hindsight obviously) by not playing the warm-up matches in the World Cup. Most probably, they will once again, like last World Cup, play West Indies, Australia and then Sri Lanka in the next round (all things being equal). With the matches now being played on a different surface, the Indians will have to learn how the pitch behaves (of course, there are couple of matches before theirs on the same ground) and then tackle the opposition accordingly. 2 pace bowlers and 3 spinners + Yusuf Pathan will be the strategy in the next few games, especially against Australia and West Indies. The Indians look hot favorites, complacency being guarded against.

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IPL3 Performances - Post-mortem

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The IPL finished yesterday with Chennai SuperKings winning this version but the news today was overshadowed by the Modi-factor. Newspapers feel that readers are more interested to know more about LKM than the final match itself.


Over the course of the tournament, there were a large number of performers who shone. Let us try to decide the best player in each category (I am not including players who are obvious - ones like Sachin Tendulkar, Jacques Kallis, etc) 


The promising bowler from my perspective was Pragyan Ojha. Others who put in performances that were interesting in a couple of matches included Harmeet Singh (slower ball specialist), RP Singh, R Ashwin (opened the bowling in the latter part of the matches which revived CSK fortunes), Shadab Jakati (probably the best spinner in a squad consisting of Muralitharan - doesn't it say something?). Jaskaran Singh, A Uniyal, Umesh Yadav, Sumit Narwal, Abu Ahmed, KP Appanna, Jaidev U were some of the younger bowlers from different teams to notice going forward.


The promising batsmen was Saurabh Tiwary. The ones who shone as well included Robin Uthappa (amazing performance by the RCB batsmen in the end overs), M Vijay(came into the Indian team based on his performances at the top of the order), T Suman (One of the consistent performers of the Deccan Chargers team), Ambati Rayudu(must have gone up the pecking order for a backup wicket-keeper). Lone performances came from Manoj Tiwari, Manvinder Bisla, Manish Pandey, Abhishek Jhunjunwala, KM Jadhav, Kedar Jadhav.

From the all-rounders, it was clear that Angelo Matthews started well but did not sustain the level till the end. R Sathish, Yusuf Pathan, Juan Theron were the others who did well in both departments but not consistent enough. India definitely needs a bowling all-rounder who bowls medium-pace and if Sathish can play this role, it will be a great step forward for the team.


Naman Ojha is the keeper who has played well in the matches throughout the tournament other than the make-shift keepers like Uthappa or Rayudu. The duo of A Tare and Dinesh Karthick did well in matches but again, nothing startling.

Finally, the IPL Dream Team XV of the entire tournament who should be invited to play the World T20 winners - Sachin Tendulkar, Jacques Kallis, MS Dhoni(c), Suresh Raina, Andrew Symonds, Robin Uthappa (wk), Angelo Matthews, Zaheer Khan, Dale Steyn, Pragyan Ojha, Lasith Malinga

Best Catches - Watch here for the ones I feel are great in the tournament.

R-B Charts of all IPL3 matches are available here. What is R-B? Check here if you dont know.

Men of the Matches, their home-towns and home-grounds can be seen here.

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Making RCB the Indian T20 team

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The Indian selectors have come up with their team for the World T20 Cup on expected lines.

Though I more or less expected the team that was selected (except for Piyush Chawla), one another thought struck me today.

Why not take the RCB team that looks solid in the ongoing T20 World Cup and change it to suit the Indian team?

Lets look at the team composition -
Batsmen - Manish Pandey, Robin Uthappa, Rahul Dravid, Eoin Morgan, Virat Kohli
All-rounders - Jacques Kallis
Wicket-keeper - Mark Boucher
Bowlers - Praveen Kumar, Dale Steyn, Vinay Kumar, Anil Kumble


There are four overseas players and 2 players who no longer play T20 (Anil Kumble and Rahul Dravid). Replace these 6 players for like-to-like players from other teams and this might be a good composition. Who can be these replacements? Let us see

• Rahul Dravid can be replaced by Suresh Raina - a solid player who can take the middle-order slot.
• Eoin Morgan - Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir are the 2 players who walk into the team. They currently play for Delhi Daredevils team.
• Jacques Kallis - Yuvraj Singh (the most explosive player in the first T20 World Cup) can offer options on the ground in all the departments.
• Mark Boucher - no more discussions here as MS Dhoni brings in his presence to the team
• The Dale Steyn effect can be brought in by the experience of Zaheer Khan
• Anil Kumble gives way to his successor in the Indian team, Harbhajan Singh

All these players have been anyway playing together in the other formats for some time now. The flair of Manish Pandey and Robin Uthappa will bring in a whiz of fresh air to the team.

Of course, it usually does not work most of the times but it does not stop us wondering what might be, does it?

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Karnataka's topsy-turvy campaign ends

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Karnataka's Ranji campaign which was topsy-turvy from the beginning of the season came to an end with a disappointing loss to Mumbai.

The Domestic season started for the Karnataka players by the introduction of KPL - the local Board's offshoot of the now-legendary IPL. The matches were played with zest and sponsored by the local corporates - all in all, a half-successful business model was introduced even though Kumble and Srinath were not happy with the tournament.

There were many players who performed well in the bat and ball but the selectors did not rush to bring them onto the Ranji squad. If you notice, only a handful of players from the Top-10 list have made to the national team. In fact, there was a minor controversy over the selection of players as well.

Once the team was selected, credit needs to be given for the Management (Rahul Dravid, Robin Uthappa, Coach Sanath Kumar) for keeping the focus on the field. This resulted in a wonderful performance by the young team who never lost any matches in the tournament till the final. The top run-getters and wicket-takers were from this team itself.

The team has enough potential to prove themselves in the longer run and have time on their side to take their revenge on Mumbai in the next edition. Some of the younger players in this team have the option to show their wares in the Duleep Trophy also, to impress the selectors. Hopefully, Harsha's thoughts on the A series is read by the selectors and some action planned.

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