IPL-8 - Match-18 - Tie and Super Eliminator

Shaun Marsh helped Kings XI go past Royals in the eliminator.

Boxing Day test - Australia have noses in front of India

India's fortunes in the 1st test on Boxing Day was expected to be hinging on the ankle and hamstring of their opening bowlers. Michael Clarke had this thought on the back of his mind probably and opted to bat first after winning the toss. Not surprisingly, the opening bowlers from India started gingerly, opting to be careful with their bodies than anything else. Warner and Cowan had a steady start before the introduction of the third pacer introduced runs and more importantly, wickets for India.

Warner tried to hook Yadav for another six but the extra bounce took his glove en route to the wicket-keeper. Shaun Marsh came and went without troubling the scorers, thanks to a full-pitched ball from Yadav. Ricky Ponting came to the crease and was promptly pinged on the helmet by a short-pitched one. This mislead the bowlers to focus on the short ball against Ponting, thereby playing into the hands of the Tasmanian Devil. The legend was losing his balance at the crease early on but with the diet of easy pickings, calmed his nerves and adopted a much better approach at the crease.

After the highest Australian partnership this year between Ponting and Cowan, Zaheer Khan decided to make his presence felt in the test match. Bowling with the older ball, he improved with each spell that he bowled and  made the ball talk. This energized Yadav to bowl the perfect ball to Ponting. Shocking him with a short ball, Yadav followed with a full-length delivery that took the edge to slips. Once again, the century eluded the veteran but he was looking good at the end compared to the start when he resembled a cat on hot tin roof.

Zaheer castled Clarke after the short partnership between the captain and Cowan. Bowling around the wicket to bring the ball back, Clarke's cut was not enough to stop the ball from hitting the wicket. The very next ball, out-of-form Michael Hussey got what the commentators called a jaffa !! Though all technological evidence showed no clear signs, the umpire gave Hussey caught behind to loud shouts from the slip cordon. Ashwin chipped with the wicket of Cowan to reduce the Aussies to 214-6. Even-stevens in the day till then. It was then that Haddin and Siddle put their heads down to bring the score to a respectable 277 at the end of day.

It was good news for the Indians to finish the day with the scoreline, especially compared to the tea-time score of 170-3 but not good enough compared to the score when Siddle came to the crease. But, Dhoni would have felt happy that none of his front-line bowlers broke down after bowling 20 overs each (Zak bowled 23 in fact). Ashwin gave a good impression in his first stint Down Under by extracting spin and bounce on the first day of the test. Will the pitch deteriorate further to help him in the second innings is to be seen. Dhoni could have perhaps used Virat Kohli, Sehwag and Sachin for few overs in between to reduce the load on the bowlers but it was not to be.

Overall, an intriguing day but the session score-board at the end of Day 1 shows the Aussies slightly ahead at 2-1.

IPL4 - Best of the rest

The IPL4 is over and CSK defended their crown successfully. RCB were not good enough in the final but which team would have been? Let me come up with a team of eleven consisting of players from the other teams who

• have done well in the latest tournament
• have 4 overseas players (just like the tournament guidelines)
• have players who are not veterans or injured or rested

What did the team look like? See below

1. Chris Gayle - any doubts on this gentleman, even though his national selectors are not interested in him.
2. Paul Valthaty - stand-out performance in the IPL that helped Punjab defeat CSK
3. Jacques Kallis - the best all-rounder in today's age
4. Virat Kohli - I would make him the captain of this team as well
5. Shaun Marsh - The best opening batsman that Australia never chooses
6. Ambati Rayudu - Wicket-keeper for the team as well as last-over specialist (a la Javed Miandad)
7. Shikhar Dhawan - 400 runs in the tournament without anyone noticing it!
8. Iqbal Abdulla - Best performance by a youngster
9. Lasith Malinga - again, no more arguments
10. Rahul Sharma - A definite future Indian spinner maybe not in test matches to start but definitely in the shorter version.
11. Sreenath Aravind - Left-arm opening bowler in contrast to Malinga's pace.

What do you think of this team? Any thoughts? Will they beat CSK? 

IPL4 - Top 4 teams identified.

It was a long-drawn affair for this year's IPL - 70 matches were played before the top 4 teams were identified. Here below, I have tried to note the individual performances in the IPL4 - teams that had batsmen scoring fifties/hundreds & bowlers claiming 4/5 wickets in an innings. It is not so surprising to see who has the best of all:

• Batting performances has been led by CSK (Hussey, Badrinath, MS Dhoni being the stalwarts) - obviously hinting at their batting stronghold for success so far.  Chris Gayle ensured that RCB gave a good fight to CSK (in fact, he was instrumental in the win over Chennai in the last match). It is surprising to see Punjab do well, helped by the heroics of Paul Valthaty, Adam Gilchrist and Shaun Marsh - they slipped in the middle bunch of games which cost them the final berth.
• The bowling department sees Punjab and Mumbai lead the way - Malinga for MI while Piyush Chawla and Bhargav Bhatt did the job for Punjab XI Kings. KKR and CSK have no such performance at all. 
• KKR is a surprise - they have neither the number of landmarks nor the bowling performances. They are definitely the team that relied more on team-work rather than individual brilliance. Will this help them win the final matches? Time will tell.

IPL4 Match 63 - Gilly floors RCB

It took a whirlwind knock by Adam Gilchrist, supported by Shaun Marsh, to stop RCB's winning streak in this IPL. Once the score was on the board, RCB had no answers to the bowling attack. It was a sorry finish to the game.

IPL4 Match 40 - Tendulkar gets Mumbai back on track

Thanks to his half-century and partnership with Ambati Rayudu, Sachin Tendulkar helped Mumbai Indians put up a competitive score for Kings XI Punjab. Punjab could never get going and the worm started going higher. Because of Shaun Marsh, the Punjab team was still in the hunt but once he was dismissed, things were all over for Punjab.

IPL4 Match 26 - Sehwag and Warner show

Sehwag and David Warner combined very well to post a large score for Delhi. The target was always going to be a difficult one to chase but Shaun Marsh tried his best with a whirlwind innings in vain.