Chennai Super Kinks Vijay Gaan

Chennai Super Kinks ki Bara Bajau. 

Kya whistle podi hai

Sreekanth aaj khush hai

Srini aaj khush hai

Dhoni bahut udaas hai

Khush he zamana aaj

26 tareekh hai jee 

Chennai jiti he CLT20

Srikanth ka din he ji

Anni India ja raha hai

Dabri Chennai aa raha hai

Karthik Endhiran Endhiran gaa raha hai

Khush he zamana aaj Chennai diwas hai

Khush he zamana aaj Srini khush hai….

Chennai Super Kinks ki barah ka dher….

Champions League jeete hai aaj

Tamil Nadu league agla nishana hai

Endhiran Endhiran Endhiran!!!!!!

Virat Kohli, #7 go man

The # 7 spot in India’s ODI team is up for grabs, the incumbents right now occupying the spots have not inspired any confidence. Yeah the great allrounder Ravinder Jajdeja, the spineless allrounder who cant hit, cant field and cant bowl. Enuf said.

RCB’s campaign in CLT20 has thrown up a name we already know and he has in a way redeemed himself after disastrous SL tour.

Virat Kohli, my go man for # 7 spot for now.

Curious case of Vijay, Dabri and Raina

Here are Raina speak:

I wanted to make sure we rotated the strike, and that we hit the loose ball for four,” said Raina, who scored a commanding 87. “When you bat at number three it gives you time to build an innings. When you bat at number seven for India, it’s very difficult to score a 50 or a century

Great he scored a match winning super stroked 87 for his home team. Great his one innings got Chennai a win good enough to go semis for now.

But he just spoke garbage. 

He bats at 7 for India ? Since when ? The no 7 spot belongs to great allrounder Ravinder Saheb JadduKha who has made the spot his own.  

At 7 its not necessary to score a 50 or 100 always. Quick cameos depending on situation (240 odd in 45 overs) or stabilising 50s or 100s are need (100 for 5 in 20 overs) are prescribed. 

I do not remember an occasion in last 3 years (since 2008 when he made a comeback post Chappell era) Raina Saheb has batted at 7 for India.  And except useless JadduKha many no 7 players have hit big runs for India — Dravid at times, Kaif, Uthappa and Pathan have been successful for India at that position. 

Coming in 43rd or 44th over many players have hit quick fire 50s to change the complexion of the game altogether while chasing or setting a target.

Raina is just giving an excuse to prove his failure with bat for India. Here is the reason:

Raina plays for CSK in IPL (and hence for CLT20) and gets money from India Cements owner Nambiarayan Srini. No wonder he is topmost Indian run getter in IPL 3 editions thus far. 

A look at his ODI stats in the 3 years say the picture : 

He has played 58 innings and made 1832 runs at 40 runs per game with 3 hundreds and 12 fiftees.  Great record. Last time he played at 7 for India was in 2008.  In 2009-2010 period he has mostly batted at 5 or 6 for India. Increase the spot by 1 in matches when Tendulkar does not play. 

Deflated figures without consistency.  Good in one tourney, average in other. 

And contrast those figures with the IPL. Awesome records in all 3 seasons.  600, 400 and 500 runs.  Amazing strike rates, innovations, big hits, short balls negotiated and what not. 

When playing for India constantly getting out to short balls, ugly hits over square leg leading to dismissals. Why ? 

Is he fixing the games or chosing the games to play well ? Play well in more money games like IPL or CLT20? Be an average batsman in games for India ? What if BCCI matches ODI match fee as money he gets for IPL game? Will then he play consistently ?

Ditto for Dabri and Vijay. ZVijay today made 68 at amazing strike rate of 130.  He had great IPL. But contrast that to India matches.  

ODIs : 4 games 71 runs and 17.75. Against Zimbabwe, the weakest of ODI playing teams (forget associate teams) he was scratchy and made 10 off 40 balls. 

Tests : 6 games for 259 runs. Highest of 87 vs SL last year.  Just 2 50s. Why ? Is he content with 30s and 40s for India? Does his talent go hiding when playing for India and it comes out in open for CSK and Tamil Nadu?

This guys have to sort out their priorities right, else they would / should be kicked out of the national team for there is no dearth of deserving batsmen. Why is it that all evils today emanate from Tamil Nadu in Indian cricket? Selection issues? Quota selections? Rigged auctions?  No state has had more fringe players than Tamil Nadu in last few years, yet none of those Tamil Nadu players have been able to fix their spots.  Is TNCA and CSK so insecure that it has to fire a coach for not playing a bowler in A tour ? 

filtered

2008-2010

67

58

12

1832

116*

39.82

1897

96.57

3

12

3

148

51

Mumbai Chokers

For this very reason MI is a team who would not win the CL20 or IPL. Except Tendulkar the rest of the team is a mixture of jokers. Good for nothing. Sathishes, Rayudus, Pollards all combined dont make half of what Sachin Tendulkar contributes. I feel for the guy. He gives his all even in a club tourney and the big money makers dont even put the worth of the talent to bail out the team of the crisis.

Zaheer had a forgettable comeback, but thats excused as coming from a break. Harbhajan never takes wickets this days be it T20s or Tests or ODis. And he is still India’s no 1 spinner….Get off dude.

The Lions who had just 2 Test players or ones with some international experience ran amok the IPL team which is costliest, belonging to the richest Indian and captained by a guy who has made more runs, scored more 100s than anybody else in the cricketing world. Yet they are unable to win a tight contest. Chokers would be a good tag to label on Mumbai Indians.

Except for Sachin Tendulkar none other were playing a game. And when Tendulkar got out, the game was all over for MI.

There was a tweet from Rajdeep Sardesai that more people watched Boppana Quraishi lose the uS open doubles final than Tendulkar and he’d never expected this to happen. Cmon man this is a CLT20, not an India match.

Media is going gung ho about possible India Pakistan combine to play sport. Thats an impossible union ever.  Media keeps imagining things and when they get a rude jolt from Qureshis (Foren mantri) and 10%s (rashtrapati), they get back to usual bashing……..

CLT20 : Mumbai Indians Preview

Mumbai Indians are placed top of group B in the CLT20. And they are led by Sachin Tendulkar, so that should make it an interesting watch.
Sachin had an awesome IPL 3 at home and he remodelled his game to suit T20 switching from the ODI mode and excelled in it. He had just made a 200 in the ODI at Gwalior vs SA and he had excelled in IPL too.
The MI squad is:
Shikhar Dhawan, Sachin Tendulkar, Ambati Rayudu, Saurabh Tiwary, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, R Sathish, Ali Murtaza, Dhawal Kulkarni, Aditya Tare, Kieron Pollard, Dwayne Bravo, JP Duminy, Lasith Malinga, Ryan McLaren.
The starting squad could be:

1.
Tendulkar
2.
Dhawan
3.
Rayudu
4.
Bravo / Tiwary
5.
Duminy
6.
Tare
7.
Pollard
8.
Zaheer
9.
Harbhajan
10.
Malinga
11.
McLaren / Kulkarni
MI team does not look very strong and if you take out Tendulkar then there is virtually nobody to anchor the innings. The team looks prone to collapses and should Tendulkar not excel this team does not look good to go through the semis.
The fortunes of the team depend a lot on Tendulkar and subsequently on the middle order which looks a bit weak. Tiwary has not had any match practice despite being part of 2 teams in SL.
Zaheer would be back from shoulder injury and he would surely be a little rusty. Harbhajan Singh has not been in great form recently in the Tests or ODis or T20s. He bowled well in IPL but went wicketless in world T20 and was a shadow of himself in the SL test series.
Kulkarni has had a good A tour of England in May – June and Malinga was in top form in the test series with India.
Key players:
Tendulkar, Malinga, Duminy, Bravo and Harbhajan Singh
Prediction : Semis if Tendulkar fires and first round if he does not.

CLT20 : RCB Preview

AirTel CLT20 kicks off on Sep 10th in South Africa in their earlier summer and 10 teams play in the 2nd edition of the premier tournament. No England and Pakistan teams here due to clashes with the domestic season and political reasons respectively. For England’s absence blame it on the lack of the FTP window for IPL and CLT20.

There are 3 teams from India, 2 each from SA and Aus, 1 each from WI, NZ and SL.

Its MI, CSK and RCB for India. Only RCB made it to the first edition in 2009 where they failed to make it to the semis.

Let me start a series of preview for the teams I know of — 3 IPL teams.

Starting with the team I shall support : Royal Challengers Bangalore. Just bcos its led by legendary Anil Kumble.

The squad of 15 is :

Anil Kumble, Rahul Dravid, Robin Uthappa, Manish Pandey, Praveen Kumar, R Vinay Kumar, Virat Kohli, Cameron White, Ross Taylor, Dale Steyn, Jacques Kallis, Dillon du Preez, B Akhil, Abhimanyu Mithun, Nayan Doshi.

There are foreign players in Cameron White, Ross Taylor, Dale Steyn, Kallis, Preez. No Boucher. Kallis, Taylor, White were eligible for playing their home teams too, but RCB has eased out its wallet to retain this key players.

I presume CLT20 also allows IPL teams to play 4 foreign players and in that case the RCB has 5 foreign players to chose from. Not sure about du Preez who he is and what his credentials are. This could be the starting XI for RCB in their first game:

*
Kallis
*
Pandey
*
Uthappa
*
Taylor
*
Kohli
*
Dravid
*
White
*
Praveen
*
Steyn
*
Kumble
*
Vinay Kumar / Mithun

White and Kumble would be the spinners. Kallis, Steyn, Praveen and one of Vinay and Mithun would be the pacers. Having Steyn and Kallis in the team and playing in the home conditions actually helps RCB.

Prediction : I’d assume RCB would make it to the semis given the golden run they had in SA conditions in 2009 IPL.

They are in group B ranked 4th with Mumbai Indians as top rank team.

The other teams are Guyana (WI), MI (India), South Australia (Australia), Lions (SA).

Dream run of T&T

T&T have shown they are on a fairy tale in Champions League. When the hearts have no fear and mind knows no boundary, the outcome happens what T&T are seeing right now.

Who would have imagined T&T would even reach semis ?

Thats the game of cricket above all, the game of glorious uncertanities. And nobody can change it. No Bollywood or Hollywood or Lollywood script (read match fixing) 🙂

Get the T&T planted in the real WI side and let the fake players of WI go and cool their heels off Florida beaches.

Amazing stuff.

T&T a fairy tale

Trinidad and Tobago’s progression to the semis is fairy tale.

Why not replace the entire crap WI team with this superb warriors of T&T team.

RCB through to Eights.

Alrighty. The Challengers are through to the next round. The so called pathetic Indian iPL teams went through. The flat track bullies of Uthappa and Kohli along with super Kallis and peerless Bumjo (AK) powered RCB to 2nd round albeit with no points.

2 Indian IPL teams now in Super 8. One Aussie.

Tomorrow one more Aussie team would be in the Super 8s. SL and NZ would end their campaign soon.

Character kings would have got some experience in India, so lets see how they play in their upcoming tour to this country.

Uthappa should find his way back to the team in Blue to play his original scoop shot which was hijacked by Dilly Billy.

Great stuff. Robin should play now in place of Yusuf Pathan in the ODIs and prolly in T20s too. Its just 6 months for the T20 WC and for India to regain their title. 😛

Bangalore take on Cobras

Anil Kumble swings back into action today in CLT20. I fancy him to win the title which he could not in the IPL.

And he plays in his own home town, own home ground. One more time after 2008 when he last played Test against Australia and went wicketless.

Get in Anil, would be a pleasure watchin ya again. After all habits of 19 years dont go away in a year or so.