Freelancing in T20 Kiran Potdar way

Mumbai Indians got their first win in the CLT and this is not good enough to see them through to the semis even if they beat RCB in their final game.  The savagery of Kiran Potdar aka Keiron Pollard was sole reason why MI could win this one by 31 runs.

Besides Zaks and Harbhajan got wickets too.

Good for their morale, good for India (really?).

By the way Pollard’s success in non international T20s suggest a disturbing trend :

“The T20 players play great in club / franchisee level T20s but they fail to deliver when they play for their country.”

Have not heard Pollard succeed in ODIs and T20Is for West Indies.

He belongs to the category of Suresh Raina, Murali Vijay, Dabrinath.  So turning freelance is a good option for Vijay, Dabris and Rainas. Even Jaddukha and Dinesh Karthik can join this club and stop competing for slots in Indian team for ODI/T20/Tests.  The original freelancer Freddie Flintoff retired today from all forms of cricket including IPL.

I am sure CSK would retain following players in the upcoming IPL4 auction:

• Dabri
• Raina
• Anni
• Vijay

And bid for Dinesh Karthik to snatch Tamil player from cruel North Indian franchisee Delhi DareEvils.

Champions League update thus far

CLT20 is on in full flow and thats the Cricket Ka Asli Muqabla.  There are lot of new faces in the commentary boxes and thats a welcome sign. Saurav Ganguly is in the box and so are Shastri, Gavaskar — India’s finest. Good respite from the likes of Arun Lal, Shiva and company. On the flip side we also have Pommie Bangwa and Russell Arnold. The results so far are as expected.

1. Out of the 10 playing teams 3 are from India and 2 of them have won the first games emphatically when they were supposed to struggle and flaunder in this conditions. The critics forget that it was in South Africa, that India has had their best run in the ICC editions of the World Cup and World T20. A world cup final in 2003 and World T20 win in 2007. So how the teams would struggle is beyond comprehension. This point of view has been pastered on us by Sanjay Manjrekars of the world who refuse to see anything silver lining in the dooms.  Sachin Tendulkar the batsman continued his good form and that pretty much almost covered his unusual errings in the field as captain. Kumble and MSD led their respective teams to victories with ease and they should be good for the semis if they continue to play the same way they did in their first games.
2. Wayamba is as useless as Mahelangakara’s character rants. They failed miserably against Warriors and a lot of  that blame has to go on Mahila who fell for a duck. I guess the major reason they failed to win was that the character juice supply was in short and a lot of that did not arrive from Lankan godowns.  Only positive point of their team was old Kulatunga and young Pareira (there are so many Pareiras playing for Lanka, its difficult to track them all) with their positive batting. The praise ends here.
3. Australian teams have had mixed bag so far. South Australia RedBacks beat Lions (SA) by 19 runs on day 2 of the tourney and Victoria, the Aussie version of Tamil Nadu lost their opening game to Warriors who look  good to go the semis route at least.
4. Windies and Kiwis teams had horrible outings in conditions that should have suited them ideally.

As of now given the form RCB, CSK, Warriors and one of RedBacks/Lions look good to go the distance to the semis.

Kumble had figures of 1/10 in 4 overs against Guyana. Harbhajan could not take a wicket in the game against Lions.  When Kumble played Harbhajan often got wickets owing to the pressure built by Kumble from the other end. Since Kumble retired, Harbhajan has struggled in Tests and that has impacted further his ODI and T20 bowling.

Kallis is continuing his good run this year in CL as well and he came good with bat and ball in the game vs Guyana. Dravid had a 33 which was solid and flair of typical Dravid in his peak in ODIs. Unfortunately he grassed a few dollies which prompted few to call for his axing and a well tracked farewell. Uncalled for.

Sachin had a good outing in first game as batsman and his other big names failed. Dumniny, Pollard, Rayudu, Sathish were miserable. Except Malinga none came good in bowling. Sachin is too good a player to repeat his captaincy mistakes in the second game tomorow.

Indian players have had a good outing so far. Unexpectedly Junior Cheeka had a 42 which should fast track his place into national colors. That there are other deserving players than him to get the India cap is another story, he has that advantage of having DAD at high position backed by Nambiarulu Srinivasan, the CSK owner and powerful BCCI sachiv.

So if he finds a place in the ODI team as a replacement for great Sobers in making RavinderSing Jaddukha, it sould not be a surprise as Cheeka would have ensured a good entry behind the door.

Dabri had a good outing again and like his Chennai friend DK he would now come into contention for every team India plays and once in he would be back to usual scoring pattern of 10s, 20s and 30s.  Its good. It keeps our community (bloggers and twitterers) busy guessing who # 6 in Tests and # 7 in ODIs would be. Not to forget that the jokes would continue too.

PS : Thanks SoulBerry for mentioning that this blog is one of the good ones for IPL and CLT20. It means a lot when this blog has more distractors than admirers. Appreciate a lot.

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).

CSK fixing

There have been news reports on CNN-IBN that 2009 auctions for IPL were fixed. Now foes, then friends N Srinivasan and Lalit Modi fixed Flintoff for CSK. The news reports also suggest that Srini actually tried convincing MI this season not to go for Keiron Pollard but unfortunately Ambanis did not heed to him when the tiebreak was broken (MI tied with CSK for Pollard).

It seems that Srinivasan is a true manipulator besides the screen and no wonder this reports lend some credibility to the earlier report of sacking of Pravin Amre as coach of India A. Now this two things are unrelated to each other, but this for sure indicates how strong CSK owner is.

More dirt comes out of the IPL closet and this also indicates how the corporate relationships are fragile. There have been some email leaks from IBN which indicate Srini saying “you are sweet” to Modi. What does that indicate.

Lalit Modi is tweeting videos exposing Srinivasan in this scenario but is not saying a tweet on his role in fixing Freddie for CSK. He was all powerful man in 2009 edition of IPL and if this fixing happened, it sure had (must have) Modi’s blessings.

CSK are IPL Kinks.

So in the end Mumbai Indians could not win the IPL and the inconsistent CSK won the tournament thus making MSD first Indian captain to win the IPL.   Mumbai lost it more than Chennai won it.  Robin Singh messed up Mumbai’s batting order for reasons unknown. How can you imagine Harbhajan Singh at 4 in a final chase.  Pollard being holded till 8.  15 overs gone and yet no signs of Pollard being on the crease.  What was MI management thinking?

CSK Perspective:

·         They rode on Raina’s batting to be able to post 169 as target for Tendulkar’s MI. Raina was dropped twice but he capitulated on both lives to rankle MI.

·         Hayden was patchy in the entire tournament and his struggle tonite ensured that the team got to the slowest 50 in a IPL final.

·         Dhoni came at 5 after Dabri. Why ?  Dhoni any day is a better batsman than the Dabri guy and he ought to have more time in the final given fact that it was his last chance to warm up before he took field on May 1, 2010 against Af in world T20. 

·         Bollinger was difference between the two teams and the balls he bowled in first 2 overs were awesome. Good enough to put the pressure on MI which never experienced pressure in league stages.

·         Dhoni was superb in his captaincy skills. He paced the innings well and has used R Ashvin effectively in tandem with Bollinger.  As a result the run rate was always going to increase for MI.

·         Raina was awesome in his batting and fielding. Only if he could now play such innings for his country, he would go further distance than just playing well in IPL games.

·         The team played better and won a tournament they did not deserve to win it if you consider their lop sided campaign in the league stages. But every time they found inspiration in MSD and he was a big influence on the team which was half dead at 7 games stage with a record 2-5.

MI perspective:

·         Batting order was mess. Abhishek Nayar at  3 ? Really? He had not played many games to be worthy to walk at 3. He scratched around thus putting pressure on Tendulkar to accelerate and subsequently fall.

·         Tendulkar being injured and thus preventing him to be in his typical own self. 

·         Pollard being sent at 8 ? Why ? Was he paid to be benched ? What was Robin Singh thinking ?

·         Poor fielding. 2 catches grossed.  13 and 28 for Raina.  Poor keeping in final over from Malinga which was turning out to be an excellent one. No run had been scored of first 4 balls and off next 2 11 runs were scored including a no.

·         The Mumbai Indians team reflected consistently of the Indian team of 90s when only Tendulkar played and the rest did not. The others including Rayadu, Tiwari, Pollard, Dhawan, Nayar did not own up and expectedly lost.  Given this huge dependency the team did not deserve to win. But then have a thought for Tendulkar. He did everything right. He trusted the so called youngsters giving them bigger roles than they actually deserved and scoring runs at will. Playing in despite an injury sets an example of his work ethic. Unfortunately his other team members could not get inspired.

·         Poor bowling from 14-20^th over when they allowed CSK to go to 5/168 from 3/96.  Even Zaheer could not stem the flow of runs and he dropped a hi-flier which should have been caught.

·         Inexplicable batting from the youngsters.  There was no other guy than Tendulkar whom they could have used to learn the pacing of innings, but instead they chose to play ugly hoists  thus leading to loss.

The focus now shifts on the WT20 which starts in 4 days time and India plays its league games over the weekend against Af and SA.   The batting order for that game looks more like settled :

Gambhir, Vijay, Raina, Yuvraj, Dhoni, Sharma / Jadeja, Pathan, Zaheer, Harbhajan, Nehra, Praveen Kumar

More on the WT20 later. For now lets congratulate MSD for yet another win as a captain and with a hope that this would inspire him to give even bester shot to the upcoming World T20 and wrest the trophy back. I just assume deep within the mind MS would have thought this final to be a warmup.  

Resemblance between MI and 90s India

Mumbai Indians without SRT batting is the Indian team abroad of 1990s.

IPL claims one more injury

With Robin Singh clearly defying not to rest any Indian player bound to World T20, the IPL has claimed one more injury to Zaheer Khan, one of the main reasons for super success of MI this season.

Today’s game is in Chennai where people are supposed to cheer for CSK, but its also Tendulkar who is playing. So he would be cheered and MSD would be an onlooker, so would be Vijay and Dabrinath.

Sachin renders club and city affiliations null and void.

Punjab disgrace again!!

What was Bisla thinking when he scooped Kumble ?

Or When Sangakara gave up gloves to be as a fielder and ground a skier to kick it with his legs for a four, I m sure with this kind of pyrotechniques we would not see Sanga again in IPL next season ownwards.

7 defeats out of 8….What a captaincy by Sangakara.

RCB now jump back to the 2nd spot and almost seal the semi final place.

Its now between Deccan, Rajasthan and Kolkata to fight out for the possible 4th spot in the semis soon. And today’s game is crucial for Deccan as they take on rampant Mumbai Indians.