Something unusual about it

What a day is tomorrow. To see my team through to the semis I would need to wish my second favorite team lose to a team which is my second least favorite.

Juggling of numbers.

I have no hopes. I have assumed India is out.

Less hurt. Less frustration. Less agony.

If Australia go through they are my favorites, if they dont then its India.

But the onus of the early exit would lie on 3 individuals and they would be RP, Ishant Sharma and Harbhajan Singh.

Not many Indian fans support Pakistan except if you live in those pockets in India where…..but tomorrow would be an exception.

And there are signs that Younis wants to play India in final. Of course, thank you. But dont expect Manmohan Singh to ask his team to lose it to your team again.

30th Sep is never so complex.

Get over it ASAP….

Dhakkan vs Dhakkan

Dhakkan gets a Dhakkan. RP gets his IPL team mate Gibbsie. Time for Zaks to get his bunny Smithie 🙂

India vs England LIVE

Its the toss time and very soon Dhoni and Collingwood would be on the pitch to do the toss. Remember the best option for India would be win the toss, bowl first and restrict feeble England to a low total. Win with a handsome net run rate. Dont leave it to the final game. Though Saffers are in full flow.

Toss comes in. And we are chasing. Yes. Way to go. Ojha and Irfan go out. Jadeja and RP come in. Good choices. India makes sensible choices. Spin + pace. England get in Ryan Sidebottom in and Adil Rashid, the spinner goes out..

Lord’s is already blue with Indians and English supporters. Time for Anthems. Its proud to stand to Indian national anthem. Great to see likes of DK, Irfan, Zaheer, Yusuf sing along with the likes of Bhajji, MS, Gambhir and Yuvraj.

There. Diff between Indians and English supporters. Every Englishman sung national anthem despite camera focussed on them. And Indians. They jumped and waved when focus shifted to them even when Jan gan man was played.

Asoka Desilva is the one umpire along with Aussie Steve Davis. We all know how much DeSilva loves India. First ball. Swing off the off stump. Bopsie on strike. 2nd ball, played back.

Hussain says 160 is winning total. Not quite. Wide ball and good take by MS. First runs on the board for England. Good run. First runs off the bat. Virender Sehwag is a crucial man in Indian line up. He is the next batting great. He has to feature in every crucial game.

Not to forget Zaheer is playing against his favorite opposition England. 1st over gone. England 3/0.

RP next. 2 dot balls. Great ball. Wright shuffled too much. Leg slip for Wright. Sachin there. Sachinnnnnnnnnnnnnn. Chance for out. Catch out. India draw first blood. Yousuf gets it. Short ball. Wright goes for it. and India get the first wicket 🙂

KP comes in. Get in Yuvraj. Pie-chucker. Remember KP is injured. Bonding seems great between the team much in contrary to what ass media reports.

2 gone England 4 for 1. Typical English start. Bad ball, first boundary. 8 for 1 in 2.1 Bopara bats like Sachin ? :O. Hussein all right ? Zaheer pitching in leg side. Bad ball again. KP off the block with a boundary. Strike rate of 400. Mis fiekding. Poor stuff. Yuvraj there. Supposedly best. Hussein warns about the backlash if either of the team goes out today.

15 for 1 in 3. Rp comes in for 4th over. Short ball. One more. 17 for 1 in 3.2
Bad ball again. 4 more. 21 for 1 in 4 overs. Appeal of the last ball. Not given. Ishant comes in the attack and rightly so. We need a Indian commentator in the box. Bishop and Hussein too anti-Indian.

Bad start to Ishant. Four. Too much of misfielding happening here. India needs a wicket here. Gambhir dis time. Six to end the over. 34 for 1 in 5.

Last over of Power plays. Bumble in the commentary box. Four. Great stuff from KP. England running away. No imagination from Indian bowlers. Dhoni tsands up to the stumps. Good fielding from Raina. End of restrictions. 40 for 1 in six.

Will we see Yuvraj come in? Apt time for him to come on right now. Stop KP before he opens out. He comes. But goes for a 4. Bopara. KXIP team mates. 6 off 3 balls. KP avoiding Yuvraj. Pie chucker. There he comes. 7 off 5. Four. 11 off the over.

51 for 1 in 7. Bhajji on to match on. Match on to Videocon. 4 off 4 balls. Flighted delivery. Good fielding by Mr Useless. 56 for 1 in 8. Good start. India needs to get a wkt here. Ishant has been a let down. Yusuf Pathan, Raina and Useless should get few overs. IPL experience.

3 off 2 balls. KP now. He s got better of Yuvraj. 4 off 1. 5 off 2. 4 off 3 balls this over. 5 off 4. Mr Useless does it again. Misfield. 9 off 5. Another misfield. 10 off the over.

65 in 9.

Harbhajan for 2nd over. 10th of the innings. 2 off 3 balls. Great stuff from Bhajji. he is a surd from Punjab. Smart street. 3 off 4. Was it a chance ? 3 off 5. Wickets man wickets. Wrong one. 71 for 1 in 10.

Jadeja comes in. Sachinnnnnnnnnnnnn. Last time they showed Sachin a wkt fell. What about this time ? 2 off 2 balls. Left arm spinner from RR. Shane Warne find. 3 off 3. England have got their runs off leg side mostly. Thats it. Bowled him. Bopara trying to make the room, a faster one. Bopara bowled. 2 for 74. Shilpa Shetty’s Dimmy comes in. 75 for 2 in 11.

Ishant Sharma back. 1 oof 2 balls. KP on strike. Bad throw. 2 off 3. 3 off 4. Jadeja everywhere. 5 off 5. Good running. 7 off the over. Next one to go out would be Ishant Sharma. 20 off his 2. So now 40 of 84 runs have come in 4 overs. Take that away and score then reads 44 in 8.

Wide ball. Dimmy faces his own team mate. 3 off the 3 balls including one wide and a dot ball. First six of the game. 10 off 5. Thats out. Big wicket. Huge wicket. Wooo hooo. 92 for 3 in 13.

sharma for 3rd over. Colly next. 1st run off the over on the 3rd ball. 39 more to go. Nah. Its Owais Shah who is in. 2 off 4 balls. Good bowling. 4 off the over. 3/96 in 14.

Jadeja for the 15th over. My blog named by Ian Chappell. Arm Ball. 33 more. Good bowling. 1 off4. 2 off 5. 100 for England in 15 overs. 8 off last 2.

RP has 1, Zaks has 2, Bhajji has 2. Jadeja has 1. Ishant iin for his last. 3 off 2.
4 off 3. Ishant is a poor bowler in this format. he proves it again. 8 off 4. Zaks walks off to him. 32 off 3.5 overs. assholle. 36 off 4 overs. Take them off and the score would be 77 in 12.

Jadeja for his last over. MS slow in whipping off the bells. Wide. Four. 7 off 3. off 4. 8 off 5. Good end. And a brilliant spell. 26 off 4 with 2 wkts.

Bhajji on. 17 balls to go. Gone. End of Shah. Collingwood comes in. Jadeja everywhere. Bhajji too good for Colly. 5 wides. Bad stuff.

Bad stuff continues. 135 for 4 in 18.1. 6 off 2 balls. Wide ball. Ridiculous.Switch hit and gone lbw. James Foster next man. 140 for 5. Direct hit would have taken Foster. 142 for 5. 1 more to go and 5/143.

Bhajji to bowl last. Why not RP ? Good over this. Bhajji gets Foster. And now bowled. 3 off the hatrrick ball. 4 wides. Yuvraj Singh misfields. Mind games. 7 for 153. 20 extra runs off fumbles.

India needs 154 to win and stay alive.

India on to batting.

bad shot. Lucky escape. Wide this time. Lucky escape for Gautam gambhir. Good bowl. Mr Useless beaten all ends up. Wide ball. 6 off first over. 148 to win off 19. First voundary through luck. Mr Useless. Fuck Mr useless. Asshole. dude this iss not India. This is England. Gotta wait for ball on backfoot.

India’s Kirris Gayle

In most probability, India’s Chris Gayle (shunning Tests for T20) would be Yuvraj Singh given his attitude and his Test record. If and whenever that happens, we shouldnt be surprised. At least I wont be.

And next to follow the suite could be:

1. Sreesanth
2. Irfan Pathan
3. RP Singh

And Pragyan Ojha could never debut in Tests, not that he would not be selected. Just that he might not find 5 days in the field too interesting and economically viable.

I dont say this on any facts or basis of analysis. But on the hunch and a pattern that goes into this lads way of cricket.

Indian squad for World T20

The T20 World Cup defense squad for India doesn’t hold any surprise. All the major elements expected to be in the team have found out a favor of the selectors. Performance or no performance in the ongoing IPL doesn’t matter. I doubt that now how much motivation is to be taken away by the fringe players like Karan Goel, Abhishek Nayar etc. The major stars of the Indian team have not delivered in the tourney and the form of some of the big names is going to be a big worry ahead of the title defense. More so for the skipper, Sehwag and Gambhir. It’s a relief to see no Munafa and no Karthik in the team even though the lad has performed well for Delhi in the IPL. Munaf was waiting to be axed and it is the right step. Uthappa had a chance to be in the reckoning but he messed up with his chances in the first 6 games with Royal Challengers.

Yesterday’s innings came a bit too late. Jadeja, Ojha, Praveen Pehelwan, Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma are the new faces that are in the team from the 2007 team which won the title. The ones to miss out the bus from that team are Agarkar (no longer in national radar), Joginder Sharma (same), Sreesanth (injured or disciplined don’t know. One can still find him break dancing in the KXIP dug out) and Uthappa.

The starting XI could well be:

Sehwag
Gambhir
Raina
Yuvraj
Dhoni
Sharma
Pathan Y
Harbhajan
Pathan I / Ishant
Zaheer Khan
RP Singh

RP Singh was the most deserved entrant after an impressive show in the first 6 games of IPL for Deccan. Based on the current form the semi-finalists would be India, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand.

Players to look for T20 World Cup

Alright Deccan won the game last night. Not to forget the positives for TEAM INDIA out of the duel. The players who shone for their respective games: RP Singh for Deccan with his accurate bowling and Virat Kohli with his super orthodox innings. No hoiking, no cross batting , simple text book shots such a joy to watch.

Rohit Sharma is useless. He would show glittering form here but would fail in ODIs. So I am through him. From the matches so far I feel following players should be on selectors’ radar for the world T20:

1. RP Singh
2. Virat Kohli
3. Karan Goel

RP Singh was more than handy in England 07 and with the world cup happening there he would be an ideal partner to Zaheer and Ishant in World T20. And Kohli at 5 or 6 would be ideal. Oh yes that would make Mumbai contribution to world T20 team to just 1. Zaheer Khan.

Deccan chargers beat KKR convincingly

Deccan chargers got off to a walloping start in their first game. Thanks to the renewed spirits under Gilly. Though he didnt fire with the bat, he still showed his leadership skills. For most part he had been deputy to Ponting for Australia and had he been the skipper, Aussies would have better record than now.

RP Singh was a reveleation. He just loves this format. He should be in for the World T20. Ganguly, Laxman failed. Knight Riders have no strength in their ranks. Whatever they had SRK and Buch robbed them in the pre match runup. Imagine likes of Chopra batting in T20. He never played in any 50 over game. Ridiculous.

And Rohit Sharma played another “cameo”. He comes good when he plays in IPL. He doesnt when he plays for country. May be IPL has more motivation for him as there are lots of Shettys, Zintas and others, while international cricket doesnt.

So after the end of 1st round, the teams that had won their first games last season, have lost their 1st games this season except Delhi Daredevils. This season Deccan would be one of the favorites for semi-final spot.

Live updates for KKR vs Deccan Chargers….

So Knight Riders have won the toss and elected to bat. Gayle and mcCool open with Saurav coming on 3. Thank god, he is playing. If bloody Buchanan had his day, he would have sent Saurav back home and next year when IPL returns to India, Kolkattans would have barred Buch’s entry to the city. Ask Chappell.

Fidel Edwards would bowl to his captain. This is a game between 2 teams whose legends have been replaced by 2 bidesi cricketers. Ganguly and Laxman, # 5 and # 6 of the India’s best ever Test team of 2000’s were the incumbents. Cricket is not about the pretty lasses. Its not about oomph or the sex quotient of the Bollywood dumb beauties, but its about the contest bw the bat and ball. Its been the same since ages and would forever remain so. So move over Shetty’s , Zintas and Kaifs.

RP strikes. The skipper is gone. McCullum is gone. Poor dismissal. Oh man. Go away dude. Such a man is the skipper. Sourav comes in. Off the mark……Get going DADA…….We still love you captain or no captain. You are the legend, you will be the legend. Just 2 runs in 10 balls. Good start by Deccan chargers. Gayle getting impatient. Hit and miss. Will RP bring one in the left hander ?

Good 3rd over by Edwards. Almost got Ganguly. And now Gayle cuts loose for first boundary. And a huge six now. Hugest…Gayle starts the fireworks. RP can just laugh and then scoff. Gayle goes for big one and goes. Now its about Ganguly once again. Deccan Chargers looking very intense. Ganguly goes. End of match for me. The coach captain controversy has seemed to have effect on the knight riders. Laxman caught his ex-captain and his batting partner of countless partnerships in the Test team.

Btw with Hodge and Chopra on crease, its turned out to be a yawning game….Harmeet Pappe seems to be a kewl bowler jee. Pragyan Ojha is no legendary spinner. So i dont expect Vettori kinda success for him.