FCKING BLOG

I’ve shared my wisdom pertaining to matters I have noticed in the IPL’s short history in a forum here. These explosive observations must have blown away the minds of readers who grasped the extent of it all.

Atleast that’s the only explanation for why there have been no replies.

A preview:

1) The Wooden Spoon Boon

MI and KKR finished 7th and 8th respectively in IPL2009.  What chance do they have in IPL 2010? A good chance of making it to the final, it seems. They are in the same position that the Royal Challengers Bangalore and Deccan Chargers were a year ago having finished bottom in year one.

Both teams put those performances behind them and fought hard to redeem themselves in 2009. The two reached the final on the back of brilliant individual performances and team contributions where Deccan Chargers held their nerve to steal the match from RCB.

Where in 2008 we had the story of the underdogs Rajasthan Royals, 2009 was a year when veterans reclaimed their pride. They showed the rest that putting it behind is the best thing you can do with a one bad season.

2) The Edge of Momentum

Teams in the final will both need will be on a streak of one win minimum. The quality of the opponents they faced in the semis is what gives them the extra edge. Both teams who’ve went on to win the finals faced the better opponent: Delhi Daredevils who seemed the only team capable of beating RR in season one and on top of the tables after round one in season two.

3) The Curse of the Orange Cap

If you’re playing in the semi final and have the Orange Cap among your ranks, you will be beaten by the eventual 1st runner up of the tournament. Shaun Marsh wore the purple cap playing for Kings XI Punjab in 2008. Their streak was ended in the semi final when he was planned against by the Chennai Super Kings. He fell early and the rest of the batting collapsed as CSK progressed to the final where they lost a nail biter to RR.

The wheels turned on CSK in 2009 when they stuttered their way to the semis on the back of some prolific scoring from Matthew Hayden. Jumbo ploy suffocated Haydos and the rest of CSK as RCB marched on to the final where Deccan thwarted their title hopes.

Got a prolifically scoring left handed opening batsmen in your team? Get a contingency plan just in case he fails on D-Day.

4) The Purple Cap Promise

It’s the success of your bowlers which will have a greater say in your team’s performance throughout the tournament. Two left hand quicks Sohail Tanvir and RP Singh razed opposition for Rajasthan Royals and Deccan Chargers in seasons 1 & 2 respectively. Regular early breakthroughs, nagging lines and lengths and smart death bowling got them wickets and derailed opponents at crucial times.

Delhi this year has Ashish Nehra, Dirk Nannes, Wayne Parnell and Pradeep Sangwan, four brilliant left arm pacers in their ranks. Wonder what Gautam Gambhir is thinking……

Anything else you’ve noticed? Leave a comment.

I hope Sachin’s upward progress since 2007 did not reach it’s climax at Gwalior on Wednesday. I pray that his wish of winning the World Cup in front of his home crowd is fulfilled; for someone who’s given so much joy to so many, that is a noble wish. It was one of those days when he lifted the spirit of an entire nation, a day when he made the rest of the world stop and watch the cricket, remember their dreams and rejoice over something truly special.

He’s come a long way since he made his debut but retains all the common sense and good habits he began with. He’s had to face a lot on his journey and he’s taken everything in his stride; his responses have always been emphatic without him having to resort to even a loud voice. He remains a role model for everyone aspiring to be something more.

The dip which co-incided with the Greg Chappell era and the subsequent rise from the ashes which kicked off post Chappell’s resignation was also a time when it seemed that we were undoing all the groundwork laid out by John Wright. I remember how I fumed and cursed and vented my frustration at a time when we played as a broken team. I was a detractor, blaming Sachin and Saurav and Irfan and the many youngsters who walked in and out of the squad in that period.

This sustained burst of artistic expression ever since a big soul crushing, back biting constraint was lifted off him is frightening. I think of how close we came to losing faith in Sachin in the aftermath of the 2007 World Cup wreckage when there were severe doubts cast on his commitment, interests and abilities.

But that’s where I was wrong. The longevity everyone marvels at doesn’t come without all those qualities. It doesn’t come without the mental strength, the discipline and the self belief. He did his part.

Let’s do ours. Here’s to keeping the faith.

There can be only one

PS: He wasn’t in my team because I found him too expensive. Stupid me. He scored 242 points that day.

While the rest of the world kids itself fawning over one good performance from inconsistent pricks in one match out of four, Australia is busy building up a bench strength with skill and the experience to more than hold their own against the best at the tournament that matters: the 2011 ODI World Cup.

They’ve rested two big time MVPs Shane Watson and Brad Haddin and replaced them with Tim Paine and Adam Voges for the 3rd and 4th ODIs against West Indies.

Tim Paine has been excellent as an opening batsman/wicketkeeper in his short run in international cricket. The dude scored a load of fluent 50’s and a century in England and in the Champions Trophy in South Africa in the time he replaced an injured Brad Haddin.

Voges has had a decent run but no really memorable performances which would make you want him in your team. He’s a under bowled all rounder who bats too low and that makes and whether he will make it to the playing eleven is also a doubt. James Hopes is the guy more likely to replace Shane Watson over Adam Voges being a regular, experienced ODI bowler.

Ponting had a less than mediocre series against Pakistan while McKay, Hauritz and Ryan Harris stole the limelight from Bollinger; both had a good outing at Adelaide to help Australia gain a 2-0 lead.

Mitchell Johnson too could be rested and Australia could try out a purely second choice pace selection of Bollinger, McKay and Harris. The trio did well against Pakistan and look good to run through the Windies.

That they are confident enough to rest their key players before securing the series shows how well the reserves have performed.

Dwayne Smith has been among the better of the West Indian players along with Kieron Pollard on this tour. It would be better for the West Indies if these two start bowling as well as they are batting. Rampaul, Roach and company haven’t had much success and the batting is not exactly helping.

The top order has been pathetic; Runako Morton’s continued failure should see him make way for Wavell Hinds. Chris Gayle has admitted that Doug Bollinger has figured out a weakness; having discovered the problem he has no time to sort it out or West Indies will be out of the series.

He also needs to find a place for Brendan Nash in the line up after the repeated failures of both Travis Dowlin and Lendl Simmons saw the Windies 4 down with barely any runs on the board in the first two ODIs.

On another note, they both chomp stuff, they’re both likeable, both have fcking ghosts on their asses all the time and have a similar pose to celebrate their respective achievements. Co-incidence? I don’t think so.

See stuff, eat stuff

Whatever that means. I can’t make sense of it just like I can’t make sense of why we folded twice in two days to Steyn, Morne on-the-up Morkel and Paul mo@~*f)&^%#g Harris.

I thought they were awesome and unplayable but I’m not a test player. The best cricketers from one country are supposed to compete with the best cricketers from another, not sit back and be glad that one of the two debutants will take the fall.

Saha, Tyagi and Mithun with .33% of test match experience each have been dumped from the squad for the second test. Dinesh Karthik, Sreesanth and Suresh Raina come in.

Karthik/Raina can come in the place of Saha, I don’t know where Sreesanth comes in. He should definitely not come in at the cost of Mishra because the bigger problem no one is talking about is the Harbhajelephant in the room. Bring in Ojha, bring in Sreesanth and stick with Zak and Ishant.

Graeme Smith will be prepared for a repeat of Kanpur ‘08. It’ll be pretty funny to see Johann Botha and Paul Harris running through us. Hopefully the inner Hulk in Gambhir has been angered enough for him to churn out a series saver.

Sometime this afternoon, when we had just lost Dhoni, I very wisely said that it had all happened before. That India had been in this situation a few times before this in the past two seasons. That they would scrape through to reduce the deficit to less than 200. If asked to follow on Sehwag would come out a quick fire fifty while Gambhir would set up base and not get out till noon on Day 5. Sachin, Vijay, Badri and Dhoni would help themselves to a ton or at least a 50 each. Badri and Dhoni seeing us out at the end of the 5th day.

It had happened in Napier, it happened at Ahmedabad, it happened at Chittagong and surely it could happen again in Nagpur.

Nagpur, the venue of one of our most shameful defeats of the past decade. Nagpur, where Dale Steyn peed all over my hopes and gunned the friggin Indian batting down. (It’s even more painful to follow it now thanks to the Hawkeye that Cricinfo has introduced)

7/51 and 1/14 with 8 to go. You go Dale Steyn!

That is what the next two weeks could be.

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India’s ascension to the top of the test rankings, their apparently bare Test calendar for 2010 and the media’s newfound love for our best interests saved this series from being shelved altogether.

It’s a good one, against our closest competitors according to rankings, Test matches, ODIs, no T20s but also, very importantly, NO Sri Lanka.

India (first Test): MS Dhoni (capt/wk), Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, S Badrinath, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Amit Mishra, Pragyan Ojha, Ishant Sharma, M Vijay, Sudeep Tyagi, Abhimanyu Mithun, Wriddhiman Saha.

South Africa: Graeme Smith (capt), Hashim Amla, Johan Botha, Mark Boucher (wk), AB de Villiers, JP Duminy, Paul Harris, Jacques Kallis, Ryan McLaren, Morne Morkel, Wayne Parnell, Alviro Petersen, Ashwell Prince, Dale Steyn, Lonwabo Tsotsobe

Dravid scored against SL with a vengeance and carried on in the same vein against Bangladesh but he forgot to hop when on Nelson in the second test only to find his jaw broken.

The very little amount of tests they play gives teams like India no chance to try out their youngsters and now they have no option but to just throw their bench strength in the deep end against South Africa to see if they sink or swim.

Sehwag, Gambhir, Tendulkar, Dhoni and Laxman are all in great touch but the uncertainty over Laxman is another reason for bother. I can’t imagine Rohit Sharma making a big impact if he were to play, an uncertain 15 maybe but it’s easy to imagine Steyn, Morkel and Parnell exploiting his patience with short balls.

Vijay has shown that he belongs and it’s now up to him to demand inclusion in the strongest middle order in the world should the rotation policy ever come back. Yuvraj’s contributions against Sri Lanka may not look impressive in scorecards but his runs mattered, especially on the first morning at Ahmedabad when he started the rebuilding with Dravid. He wasn’t fluent against Bangladesh but he will be missed unless Vijay delivers.

Badrinath has very big boots to fill but that just makes him the wild card, doesn’t it? Let’s hope he doesn’t blow his chance after having waited all these years for it.

Ishant has been Zaheer’s most constant partner in India’s pace attack and is in excellent form in tests. The duo have been impeccable, they know how to take 20 wickets bowling on the roads of India and they’re the ones it all comes down to in case there’s a Centurion/Newlands repeat.

Harbhajan’s place as a spinner is locked in while Mishra and Ojha are being rotated regardless of performance. Johann Botha, who modelled his action after Bhajji will hope to out perform his counterparts. Paul Harris’s recent form in the series against England in which  he took a beating while Graeme Swann dominated the South African batsmen casts a doubt over his inclusion.

Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel bowled their hearts, guts, backs and pants off against England and got their due at the Wanderers with a little help from Wayne Parnell. Here they will however encounter confident batsmen on pitches less punishing than the ones in South Africa.

Gambhir has perfected the art of hitting attritional, time consuming centuries and he is currently the most in form batsman in the Indian line up. Sehwag, Sachin, Laxman and Dhoni, everyone’s spanked the inexperienced Lankan and Bangladesh pace attacks of late but have the game to counter the Saffers.

Steyn has already targeted Badri, Vijay and Rohit in his pre-match comments citing their relative n00bness in international test cricket as a reason why they should be easy to crack. But that’s where Mickey Arthur helped them out so much. Steynje’s good for a plan A but it was Mickey’s help on the extensive analysis of each opposition batsman which helped them a lot over their past few seasons.

All the batsmen but for Ashwell Prince have been in good form of late. Duminy showed grit to get starts and a fifty against England despite his poor form so some more tenacity will help him out. Smith, Amla, Kallis, de Villiers and Boucher had a good series against England bar a few untoward sessions and they can match the Indian batting line up.

How they play out Bhajji, Mishra and Ojha, especially after their floundering against Swann will decide South Africa’s campaign.

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Paul is quiet, on New Year’s Day.

Collingwood may sit out of the Newlands Test and Michael Carberry, a left handed batsman from Hampshire is being talked up as his replacement. Why not simply give Luke Wright a look in when he’s available and served time playing ODI’s?

Graeme Smith has said that “the right selections need to be made” for the third test and one can only assume that this means Ntini will be dropped and Friedel de Wet brought in for the third test against England to be played at Cape Town although the spinners are expected to be the main men here.

Paul Harris and Graeme Swann have both been crucial in the campaigns of their respective sides; Swann played a crucial role even with the bat in the first test and rightfully deserved the two ‘Man of the Match’ awards he won. Stuart Broad bowled brilliantly alongside as England ambushed South Africa in the second innings.

Strauss will be relieved that his two biggest worries in the batting department, Cook and Bell came good and scored centuries. Smith will find a hard time deciding the fate of Ashwell Prince who has been terribly out of sorts in the opening slot and bringing Herschelle Gibbs back into the squad would be a huge risk. Morne Morkel has bowled well alongside Dale Steyn while Ntini has been ineffective and needs to be dropped if Smith wishes to remain in contention for this series.

In the other new year’s test, Pakistan’s batting is as precarious as it can be and yet the selectors have not taken a call on whether Younis Khan should be flown in to join the squad. Mohammed Yousuf, Umar Akmal, Salman Butt and Misbah got runs but failed to build on their starts as Australia cruised to a 170 run win. Their inconsistency made Ponting’s declarations look good. Mohammed Aamer and Asif worked hard but were let down by their batsmen and were left playing catch up. Farhat is expected to retain his place for the second test while Gul and Kaneria will replace Rauf and Ajmal respectively if they are fit in time. Sami will get a game thanks to the injury to Aamer.

Shane Watson had a brilliant test overall with scores of 93, 120*, two catches and a wicket as he took home the man of the match award. Watson improves as a series goes on so this could be a blockbuster series for him. Nathan Hauritz and Mitchell Johnson bowled brilliantly and they were well aided by Doug Bollinger. Peter Siddle returning to form can only be better news for them. The only batsman Ponting will be worried about is Marcus North who has generally struggled since his match winning century in the fourth Ashes Test at Headingley, Leeds.

The third pacer and the replacement for Sachin are the men that Dhoni has to worry about. Kohli and Rohit Sharma have been included as replacements for Yuvraj and Sachin respectively. Karthik ought to make it ahead of  Rohit simply as a better player of the short ball should an opening present itself but it won’t be a surprise if Dhoni goes in with the former.

Tyagi made his ODI debut gleefully on the Kotla pitch and bowled well enough to earn himself another match in Dhaka. Whether Sreesanth was given more time to recover fully from his illness or whether Tyagi figures higher in the scheme of things for LOIs remains to be seen. We can’t afford to lose pacers quicker than we can replace them but it’s truly criminal if we dump them before they get a chance to prove themselves/ lose form.

Kohli is the budget pick to watch out for this series, I expect him to add to his tally of fifties and a hundred.

Thilana Thushara returns to replace Malinga, Bandara came back to replace Mendis, Chamara Silva to replace Kapu and newcomer Lahiru Thirimanne to replace Jayasuriya.

The replacements on the India tour Lakmal, Randiv and Welegedera did better than hold fort and brilliantly supported the set players Dilshan, Tharanga, Sangakkara. They will be expected to do similarly well in Bangladesh and deserve to be ahead in the pecking order for a chance to play.

Sri Lanka squad: Kumar Sangakkara (capt & wk), Tillakaratne Dilshan (vice-captain), Upul Tharanga, Thilan Samaraweera, Thilina Kandamby, Chamara Silva, Lahiru Thirimanne, Thissara Perera, Muthumudalige Pushpakumara, Malinga Bandara, Suraj Randiv, Thilan Thushara, Suranga Lakmal, Nuwan Kulasekara and Chanaka Welegedera

With or without Mortaza in the picture, Bangladesh’s main man in this tri series was always gonna be all rounder Shakib Al Hasan. I was surprised that he didn’t land an IPL contract last year itself when he topped the ICC charts for leading All Rounders.

With support from a few key players like Tamim Iqbal, Abdur Razzak, Raqibul Hasan and Enamul Haque jr, he led Bangladesh admirably in against the West Indies and Zimbabwe.

Mohammed Ashraful can be a destructive player on his day, just that those days are too few and never did have any sort of frequency.

Some of the teams that were affected from the ICL defections embraced their returning players, some even returned with a big bang  but it remains to be seen how Bangladesh treats it’s ICL returnees Shahriar Nafees and Alok Kapali and whether they can find a place in this new self assured team.