IPL10 - CSK win for third time

The IPL10 finished with its regular share of twists and turns, and the Comeback Star Kings (CSK) won it for the third time.

Picture Courtesy - espnCricinfo website

Called the "Dad's Army", CSK had nine players who were 30+ and turned the disadvantage to a plus! One of the oldies came to the rescue in every match, taking the team past the winning post in every match (Dhoni, Bravo,Rayudu, Tahir and Watson).

In the final, it was a great effort by CSK to win the title easily. Let us use the R-B factor to see how the winners got through. A look at the individual numbers (R-B) gives us good insight. Watson tops the list here too. Du Plessis and Rayudu have negative R-B but their contributions in partnering Watson when he was struggling was invaluable. All the others who batted, have a healthy R-B value, adding to the overall run-rate & ensuring CSK won the match by lots to spare. Just imagine the case that Dhoni, Bravo & Jadeja did not have to bat at all - that much fuel was available for CSK in the tank!!

Now, let us see the charts of SRH.Kane Williamson, Carlos Brathwaite  & Yusuf Pathan were the ones who did well with a R-B rate of 40+. The rest of the batsmen were guilty of consuming too many balls to score their runs! If the others had gotten up their R-B rate higher, CSK might have ended up chasing a score more than 200. But, as I mentioned earlier, three big-hitters did not step on to the field at all - Hence, CSK might have still ended up winners!

What do you think might have changed in the IPL final, in hindsight?Please share your thoughts.

IPL-8 - Match-54 - Watson takes Royals to the last four

Rajasthan go past KKR through to the last four, thanks to Shane Watson's heroics

IPL-8 - Match-15 - Royals thrash CSK

CSK suffered their first defeat in this year's IPL thanks to Watson and Rahane's impressive partnership.

T20 World Cup - Has Club Cricket won over the crowd?

India won four of the five matches they played in the tournament !
India also took all the ten wickets of their opponent in four matches !!
Three of the top Five bowlers with the best average in the World Cup are Indians
After Chris Gayle and Shane Watson, the person with the highest number of fifties is Virat Kohli
Virat Kohli also stands sixth in the number of runs scored in the World Cup.

Definitely looks good on paper, right? Yes. But what was the outcome? Nothing different from the previous editions - an exit from the Super Eight stage itself.

Why does the Indian team always deliver such an ordinary performance at the T20 World Cup (after their initial win)? Just look at the same set of players who will appear in the forthcoming Champions League in South Africa and look at the body language! You will know the difference.

T20 as a national game has lost its interest within India especially, thanks to the numerous leagues around the world. Thanks to the ICC ruling, countries play 1-2 national T20's and hence there is no purpose in these games from the players perspective. Hence, you see countries like Australia use this forum as a platform to try out their newcomers (and in the case of George Bailey, a new captain)!

There is no wonder that the favourite for the World Cup and one of the finalists is West Indies. Why is not such a surprise? The team is not from one country - it is made of a combination of island countries (a replica of the type of teams you would see in IPL!) It will not shock anyone if they go on to win the title!

This is also possibly the reason why the crowds stay away from the World Cups while they will throng the stadiums in CLT20! The crowd is able to relate better to the IPL and Big Bash teams rather than their national teams in T20 especially. This is very much synonymous to the football leagues all over the world, especially in the European regions. You can talk to any football lover and he will tell you that he is an Arsenal fan rather than a fan of England. Of course, when the World Cup or the Euro Cup come, they are fanatic followers of their country.

From the players perspective also, Chris Gayle, Kieron Pollard have clearly stated their interest where their intentions to participate lie in. It is an open fact that players like to have the financial cushion in their short careers and this can be possible (especially for players from cash-strapped cricketing boards) in IPL or Big Bash alone!

Hence, the cricketing circus has reached its maturity level (though not to the scale of football obviously because of the limited reach) in T20 cricket. Now, the next step for ICC is to take it around the world for the non-Commonwealth countries to follow it more closely. Maybe they need an Ecclestone to take them to the higher level!

IPL4 Match 66 - Watson crushes Mumbai

Shane Watson came to the party today to help send off Shane Warne in his last (so far) T20 match against Mumbai Indians. Mumbai are now in danger of losing their qualification.

IPL4 Match 23 - Kings XI crush Rajasthan

An overwhelming victory for Kings XI Punjab, thanks to the large score put up by Shaun Marsh, Paul Valthaty and Adam Gilchrist. Shaun Tait and Shane Watson bowled well but were not supported well enough by other bowlers.

IPL4 Match 12 - Kallis and Gambhir take KKR home

Thanks to exploits of Kallis and Gambhir, KKR reached a stiff target of 160 in a canter. Trivedi and Warne tried to pull back in the middle overs but could not restrict the two stalwarts. It was surprising why Shane Warne did not make Shane Watson the opener during Rajasthan Royals innings.

Ashes series - Australia prune their squad

The Australian selectors dropped four players from their original squad of 17 with one surprise. Nathan Hauritz, the spinner they have preferred for quite some time now, has been dropped in favor of Xavier Doherty. The left-arm spinner has come out of nowhere in recent times into the squad and will fight with Steven Smith for the spinner's slot.

Are the Aussie selectors hoping to target Kevin Pietersen with the left-arm spinner? KP fell to a left-armer in the warm-up match - continuing his failures against left-arm spinners all around the world. If this was the reason for the Oz selectors, then I feel it is probably a short-sighted selection. Hauritz has gained by his experience and would have probably done a better job - though one must admit that in the spin department, England has the better bowler.

No other surprises in the squad though one wonders what option the Oz will go if Simon Katich is injured for the test match. Shane Watson is a converted opener and an injury to Katich against the formidable English opening pack will mean disaster. Peter Siddle, Ben Hilfenhaus, Doug Bollinger will fight out for two slots to partner Mitchell Johnson with the new ball.

After their strong performances in the warm-up matches, the English team must be very confident of the series that starts this week. The Australian team must feel the pressure but they still have the game to turnaround. This series will truly be a memorable one to follow.

Related articles

• The Ashes 2010: Shane Warne blasts Australia selectors for omitting Nathan Hauritz from 13-man Test squad (telegraph.co.uk)
• Hussey retain but Hauritz cut (mirror.co.uk)

India series - Where did the Oz fail?

India finished the test series against Australia at home on a winning note though the difference was not big. The Oz team scored 400+ runs in the first innings of both the test matches but still lost. Where did they fail? Let us go through the team members that formed the composition of the Australian team?

1. Openers - Simon Katich and Shane Watson. The most consistent among the batsmen. Only the last innings in Bengaluru was when they failed to raise a huge stand. They managed to counter the threat of Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma and Sreesanth with the new ball but could not manage to score a larger one. Watson did not ball as much as he could have - that might be the only complaint against him in this series.
2. Ricky Ponting - The captain himself agreed that he let the team down by not scoring centuries. He was effective in countering the threat of Harbhajan but not successful in continuing further.
3. The Two Michaels - Clarke and Hussey. While the first one was a complete failure in this series, the second one made starts but again, did not score big (one dismissal was unfortunate in the first test though). It was quite surprising to see Clarke fail since he plays spin so well.
4. Marcus North - He was always under the sword but managed to regain his spot with a century. But still, one feels that he is not convincing as a test cricketer.
5. Tim Paine - One of the successes of the tour - being a replacement of Haddin, he performed well both in front of as well as behind the stumps. Very good prospect for the Aussies.
6. Nathan Hauritz - another failure on this tour. He was not helped by the bad field placement in the last innings of Bengaluru but at no time did he manage to trouble any of the Indian batsmen. Steve Smith will fancy his chances for the Ashes series.
7. Mitchell Johnson - Was the senior-most bowler of the squad but did not behave like one. His performance was up and down in both the tests. Only when he is back in the old form he is known to have, can the Aussie team manage to win test matches with the ease of old.
8. Ben Hilfenhaus - bowled better than the other bowlers and showed that swing was not his only expertise. He could bounce out Sehwag and provide breakthroughs regularly.
9. Doug Bollinger - Injury forced him to miss the latter part of the first test but he showed glimpses of talent that can make him a permanent bowler in the squad.
10. Peter George - Another exciting prospect who learnt test match cricket the hard way. He will have to be tested on home soil once as well.

Overall, the team was talking more of the Ashes rather than the series on hand - maybe that was one of the reasons for the bad performance. There are talks of Ricky Ponting's bad captaincy but who is the next option? Michael Clarke, who had a poor series? These are troubled times for Ponting when he doesn't have the services of all the greats (Mcgrath, Warne, Gillespie, Gilchrist, Hayden) - imagine what would have happened if Clive Lloyd had the current crop of West Indian bowlers as part of his team!

Will the Aussie team bounce back? Definitely. They will show the world that they are still strong at home by beating the English team at the Ashes series.

Watch the Betfair page for betting on the Ashes series.

Related articles

• India cruises to easy win, sweeps series 2-0 (thehindu.com)
• India beat Aussies to win series (news.bbc.co.uk)

Why are the Oz targeted?

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

First it was Harbhajan calling Symonds a monkey (even though it might be interpreted differently as a different phrase in punjabi)

Now, it is Asif calling Shane Watson a "bloody white" (considering the lack of English language finesse of the Pakistan players, I don't know if he was aware of any other gaali to mouth)

Why is it that the Aussies are always at the receiving end, especially from teams of the sub-continent? Do they not realize that what goes around, comes around.

Of course, one cannot compare the choice of words used by the Oz players vis-a-vis the other teams.

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