Cricket Post: Bangalore v Mumbai

Bangalore has had a recent resurgence with two consecutive wins, first against Kolkata and then against Punjab. With six points, they had the opportunity to win and jump to the top four on the table. Mumbai on the other hand already had 8 points and would have gone to the top of the table. I live tweeted the entire match and I am putting it here as a full report of the match.

Exciting stuff here, Ravi says. First thing I hear as I switch on the telly. South africans take over RCB, get JPD. Exit of KP significant?

Note: Had a conversation with Dibyo on this. Dibyo said KP may not have known about Du Preez and Van der Merwe. Also, KP as a bat did not really shine. A shame because “it would have been a treat, Bangalorean or not“

Dravid back in the team. Am not sure if Uthappa still makes the grade. But possibly no Indian alternative available

SMG says Du Preez is a ’surprise package’ cos he took wkts of SRT & Rahane, etc. ‘inspired selection’. bcos SMG has no idea who this guy is

Jaya – 39, SRT – 36, Jumbo – 38, RSD – 36, Kallis – 35, that’s the line up today. Young man’s game, anyone?

Note: Got it wrong, he is 33. Doesn’t change the purport of my tweet anyway

Jaya has just started scoring freely. But has to stop because of the tactical time out. Likely we will see AK 1st over after the break

8 off AK’s 1st over, all run. SMG feels 39 year old Jaya’s legs will cave in with all the running. What all does he get away with, does SMG.

Note: In Twitterland, we have had major things to say about Sunny Gavaskar’s commentary, not all of it is fit for publishing.

120 – 130 target likely. RCB will have to watch out for their first over wicket blues. No Ryder mind you, that should help I suppose

MI did very well in part 2 of their innings. Nayar seems hot candidate for Indian team for the World T20 team.

Note: In the last five overs, MI (Bravo and Nayar) put up 63 runs. Tremendous stuff. MI were 53/3 at the end of 10 overs. They finished with 149/4.

MI 149. Think it is going to be really tough for RCB. Their batting has been much under par. And today they have Wasim Jaffar to open.

Jaffar, a solid opng bat, says SMG, opportunity to show he relishes the game. What a contrast to his talk re M Vijay y’day

Note: Sanjeev and me had a banter about the propensity of the “crawl” when Jaffar and RSD come together. Sanjeev suggested that RSD and Jaffar would not complete 150 runs even in 50 overs, leave alone 20 overs. But Sanjeev then disproves himself by pulling out stats where Jaffar scored 178 of 132 balls. And argument about RSD is non starter anyway.

camera pans the crowd and shows all posters which sya inane things like Thank You IPL etc. Think they are planted by LM pr team

Note: Really, in all the cricket across the world, where have we actually seen posters thanking the tournament, board, board members, organising committee members, administrators, etc. You think an average Indian cricket fan is going to make a poster saying “Thank You Niranjan Shah”?

Lots of chikni chicks in the Mallya box waving RCB flags. My guess, Mallya has got his F1 pit babes over for the weekend.

Jaffar really wasted that over. Five dots including the ball that he got out to. Upset the rhythm they had first 2 overs.

Kallis takes 2 sixes of Malinga’s 1st over. Makes up for the previous over depression. Kallis going at 200 SR

Kallis timing and placement is outstanding tonight. He has been shining infrequently this #ipl . Hope he carries on for a big one

Danny Morrison reports that there are 35 cameras covering one match. That’s more than the number of players in the KKR team.

Note: This KKR team is a joke and hence making more jokes referring to them is perfectly okay.

Malinga bowls a maiden. Uthappa kept swinging his bat and hit nothing. Will have to be made up in this Nayar over.

Just 3 runs in the last 2 overs. RR has nosedived.

KP may have gone but seems to have left his scratchy play with Uthappa, including the stupid switch hit shot

Time out break > time required to smoke a kingsize cigarette

Nayar’s bowling run up and bowling in gen is reminiscent of Chris Harris and Gavin Larsen

+15 (Prem’s system), 9 wkts in hand. This is RCB’s game as of now. If they win, the ipl is wide open. Only KKR are assured of 8th spot

Zak’s going off. Won’t be avail to bowl a few overs at least. This will be crucial for MI.

This one is definitely planted “Lalit Modi, we Indians are proud of you”. They prbbly hand out these posters saying u’ll be on tv

Note: See above. LM has definitely done a good job, he has made a big business killing. He’s a successful fellow. Right. Poster in the stadium? Why not for Ratan Tata? For Dhirubhai Ambani?

Ok Robin Uthappa has just pressed a button and found his form. That six makes it +2 now. Are we done here?

1st fifty for Robin in all the #ipl matches he has played over two years. Underperformance to the hilt. Anyway, makes RCB much stronger.

16 off 18, that’s -2. This has been the best batting performance of the #ipl so far. Just good intelligent stuff runs all over the park, etc

9 wkts, 11 balls to spare. That’s 2 out of 2 for AK as captain. This Indo-RSA combo for RCB seems to be a sound strat.

DC, DD, MI and RCB all 8 points. CSK, RR, KxiP on 7 points. This would be good fun.

Bangalore thus move to the fourth spot. Lots of matches still to be played. But, the general thinking is that 7-8 wins should see one through to the semis. So RCB have three more matches to win at least (and one of them is against KKR). But of course, KKR is not so much significant as all teams have matches against KKR. Delhi infact has yet to play KKR, so they have two potential wins there.

As of now, from the consistent form on display – Hyderabad and Delhi look solid; Mumbai & Punjab are slightly more consistent than Bangalore, Rajasthan and Chennai.

But, to borrow from Ravi Shastri’s cliche list, the tournament is going to the wire.

All about Ganguly’s fans

Gulu Ezikiel, to use a cliche, let the cats out of the bag with his unnaming of the identity of the Fake IPL Player. Essentially, he implicates two people, a Bengal Ranji opening bowler and if you have read the blog & figured out Lordie, then a former India captain (of Kolkata).

For those who do not believe in subtleties, not that there is anything left, this is Ranadeb Bose and Sourav Ganguly. For those of you who follow Ranji Trophy cricket, Ranadeb is the opening bowler of Bengal. Couple of seasons back, he was the most successful bowler in the entire season. He was picked in the 2007 England but did not get to play in any match (a couple of tour games maybe). It is very unlikely he will ever play for India given that India is well served by Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma, Munaf  Patel, RP Singh, etc.

Sourav Ganguly on the other hand we know of very well. A person who triggers extreme emotions – either you like him or you don’t. As a Ganguly fan, one should not be under any illusion of his “holiness”. I may not expand further on this as I would not be able substantiate with any evidences.

Fans of Ganguly generally believe that Ganguly is always “targeted” by the media as a bad boy. It is not fully correct. The media has written as many positive and encouraging stories about Ganguly as critical.

1. As a player, there is no doubt he is one of the best batsman ever to play for India
2. He is the most successful captains
3. He built a team
4. He has tremendous mental strength (which I find most endearing for me)

So if you see any article saying something about Ganguly, do not jump to his ‘defence’ because many times none may be required. Just hush and move along.

Cricket Redux

A very insightful article in the London Times on the impact of T20 cricket. What is even more interesting is the spate of comments this article has generated.

“We want sixes and we want them now” read one banner at one of the games. William Rees-Mogg writes, “…Sixes can become a bore, like the battues of pheasants by the thousand at Sandringham in the days of King Edward VII. Sixes laid on in Twenty20 matches can be mere satiation.“

I personally feel that this was coming because of the lack of competitiveness in test cricket – with Australia driving ahead in one direction and teams like West Indies and even Sri Lanka just falling away in in test cricket standards. In the last ten years, there have been only 3 or 4 competitive test series of note – India-Australia (2001, 2004), the Ashes of 2005, are ones I remember.

In T20, everyone, even Zimbabwe has a chance, (well, they beat a jet lagged sleepy Australian side at the World T20).

Unless all the test teams significantly raise their standards make every test match more and more competitive (with good pitches, etc.), T20 will take the headlines

Some interesting comments,

“Yes, I have many sympathies with the way the classical off-drive has been replaced with the slog-sweep as the shot de jour and the various tactical battles fought over the course of a 1st class match are being lost.” – Stephen, Northampton, England

“I’d rather see a condensed version of the matchups and strategies employed in a T20 game, in an evening of fun filled with beer, friends and T20.” -Ravi, Chicago, USA

“This is not cricket – it is a seditious subversion of a fine game to suit the cantankerous whims of film stars and liquor barons.” – Shishir Baxi, Dubai,

I saw my first match yesterday. Virender Sehwag in Andrew Symonds over hit three sixes and equal number of fours and took an evenly poised match to a match that became a virtual walkover. One just realised that it can be over in a blink. Whoever paid Symonds $700,000 lost their money before he could even start counting the notes.