Random thoughts on the IPL so far…

1. Pulse questions

The IPL website guys keep coming up with some hilarious questions to ask on their website.

As an example, for some reason, Robin Jackman seems to have accumulated a cult following during this year’s IPL. It might be because of his genial way of commentating.

One of the questions asked during a match, when he was commentating, was “Would Jackers have been a force in the IPL?”, to which an overwhelming majority answered yes. In another match, to the question “Is Jackers prophetic?”, there was a huge majority saying yes!

Yesterday, during one of the matches, Harsha Bhogle asked Simon Doull whether New Zealand players were nicer than Australians, to which the obvious answer came “yes”! Later in the match, when Brad Hogg was commentating with Simon Doull, the IPL Pulse question was “Are New Zealand players nicer than Australian players?”, to which 88% answered Yes (I’m able to remember the figure since it was such a hilarious question). Doull fell into fits of laughter, while poor Hogg was speechless….all he could say was “I love Indian people”!

 

2. Brad Hogg

For some reason, the commentating team for this year’s IPL seems more tolerable than previous years…

Actually, let me rephrase that : the IPL commentators this year aren’t the type who talk for the sake of talking.

However, there are still a few of those type remaining.

Most notably, Brad Hogg has been absolutely unbearable. He seems to be in a permanent state of excitement (looks like someone’s been put just adrenaline in his water glass instead of water itself) and has a really unbearable accent which makes him sound like an NFL commentator (I have no idea how that comparison came about, that’s the first thing that came to my mind).

Yes, there’s Danny Morrison as well, who has been in a permanent state of excitement since IPL 2008. However, he doesn’t always resort to stating the bleeding obvious all the time. Instead, his excitement does provide for some good entertainment.

It really IS difficult to describe why, but I just can’t seem to stand Hogg’s commentary…maybe it’s because of the combination of ‘stating the bleeding obvious’ and ‘hyper-excitement’ that makes him terribly unbearable.

 

3. Lack of crass commercialism

This IPL has been much more entertaining than the previous year. A number of reasons for this:

–          No ads in between overs

–          No flying balloon

–          No sight of Lalit Modi on TV

–          Lack of crass commercialism in general.

Also, the introduction of the ultra slow-mo camera has made the whole viewing experience much more enjoyable. I’ve always been fascinated by the whole ultra slow-mo technology and the IPL has fed me an overdose of it!

Also, the hiring of Archana Vijaya to the IPL panel has made the viewing experience much more ‘enjoyable’! 😉

However, I do find one of the presenters extremely annoying. There is one called Shabnam, who comes on with an extremely fake accent and asks pretty lame questions. Knock off the accent, ‘gal!

4. Chris Gayle

How does he do it?

This guy is so laid back, he doesn’t have to take any effort when hitting sixes. Even I find it difficult to hit sixes when playing with a heavy wooden bat in softball cricket!

I like watching sixes where there is a genuine effort made (see Paul Valthaty).

I don’t enjoy watching sixes made by guys like Yuvraj Singh, Yusuf Pathan, Kieron Pollard because they all seem to be what we call in Sinhala, “kanaa shots” (lucky shots).

However, there is an altogetherly different pleasure in watching Gayle hitting sixes.

Perhaps it’s the lack of emotion he displays when hitting sixes. From his reaction after hitting a six, you’d think that he’s just played off a dot-ball.

Leave all the poetry aside, I want many more Gayle-storms!

 

5. Kumar Sangakkara

Some ( I suppose, many) will curse me for life for saying this, but I’m secretly happy that Sanga is failing as a captain for the Deccan Chargers.

This hate might seem a bit surprising, considering the fact that he led us to 2 ICC event finals during his captaincy.

However, what really irked me was when people started ‘mourning’ the loss of ‘one of the best leaders we ever had’ when Sangakkara resigned as captain of Sri Lanka.

Come on, anyone who properly observed his fielding tactics and team selections would realize that he doesn’t really have the tactical nous and the likes, which are pre-requisites for captaincy. Yes, he was a good speaker and all, but being able to speak nice and diplomatically doesn’t qualify you in any way as a captain.

Most of the tactical nous that he displayed as Sri Lankan captain was the input obtained from Mahela Jayawardene, so Mahela was actually the captain from 2006-2011, albeit the unofficial one for the last 2 years.

Therefore, I wanted Deccan to lose as badly as possible so that people can realize that, even with a pretty good team, he’s not really all that good unless he has Mahela by his side.

However, Mahela is just unfortunate to be captaining a side which was selected without consideration to the possible team combination. The players whom the team management selected during the auction were mostly the rubbish ones. For some reason, they let most of the good guys go.

Despite the fairly rubbish side that Kochi has, Mahela’s still managed to get them to 5^th place, which is 2 places above the Deccan Chargers. I shudder to think how dominant the Chargers would have been if Mahela was put in charge of them!

Personally, I would have had Cameron White captaining the side since he’s been an extremely successful captain with Victoria, leading them to the final every year in the Australian T20 competition ever since it started. Yes, he’s been pretty scratchy with the bat, but a super captain for a shit batsman is a damn fine trade, I say!

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Ga(y)le stopped in its way by lightning Bolt

Ah, the delights of punning!

BBC Sport reports that, in a charity match in Jamaica, Usain Bolt, the fastest man on earth (winner of the Olympic 100m and 200m gold medal), smashed Chris Gayle for a six and then bowled him later in the match

Apparently, he had initially bowled a bouncer to Gayle! Curtly Ambrose says that he was impressed with Bolt’s bowling.

With news of Gavin Fingelson, a former Olympic baseball player, recruited by SL as their fielding coach, looks like someone out there is conspiring to get the Olympics to infiltrate into cricket!

Any comment, Mr. Jamshed Dasti?

Chris Gayle…..

Well, it took me by surprise when Gayle suddenly decided that he’s had enough of captaincy..

I’m totally cool with that because every captain has a certain shelf life, for some its 2 years, others 3 years (Mahela Jayawardene) and for some, it’s around 10 years (like Stephen Fleming).

It’s good that he wants to resign when he doesn’t like it because the most destructive thing that could happen to a team is when the captain doesn’t really like his job.

However, the fact that he decided to reveal it during a tour is, by no means, a very smart thing to do, considering that there isn’t really someone in the team who can stand out and say “Hey, I’m good to captain”. Also, the fact that he hasn’t told it to his team, but to a newspaper, just smacks of immaturity and stupidity!

Denesh Ramdin is just starting to establish his place in the team and to give him the captaincy might just burden him further. However, you never know, he might just go up and above his capabilities, like Mahela did when he was captain (barring his recent rut in limited over games).

Also, the fact that he is so nice enough to say that he wouldn’t be sad if test matches were gone…

Now, I’m all for a person speaking out his mind…I had recently commented on Brian Carpenter’s blog (can’t remember the name of his blog) that I totally support the fact that he is speaking his mind and the long duration of tours sicken everyone, not only KP.

However, though I do feel quite pissed that he says so, I think it would be best if we all (including the administrators) sit down and think deeply about what he said.

Yes, money does rule the game. I think the whole shit of ‘I love playing for my country, it’s such an honour’ is generally said by people who actually love the dosh. The game’s commercialised, people do start playing cricket because of a love for the game, but realise that it’s a good way of making a living and decide that that’s what matters, regardless of whether it involves giving up country for club.

Rather than trying to hunt Gayle down and point an AK-47 at his temple and ask him to scream “Test Cricket is God”, I think we should do that to Julian Hunte, the WICB president.

You have your mind set on making $900,000 for 6 weeks of work, and when some other idiots ruin that for their monetary benefit, it is truly pissifying! I totally feel for him, though it shouldn’t be miscontrued as me hating test cricket. In fact, I generally switch over to a test match over the IPL because there is something soothing about test cricket which the IPL (or even the EPL, or any other damn PL) can’t match.

Perhaps this could be a blessing in disguise. Maybe this could be a rude wake-up signal for the administrators to create a window for the IPL and the Champions Leagues so that players can make their money and don’t have to rue playing for their country.

Bravo, Chris Gayle! I applaud you for speaking your mind! (Just loved your jibe about Strauss! Stuff of the Legends! 🙂

I’d like to wind up this post with what Gayle said about the scheduling of games, something which we should make administrators read out loud with a gun to their head..

There’s a lot of cricket being played and I’ve started to develop a lot of injuries. It takes a toll on your body and your mental strength so at some stage you aren’t going to go on forever. You have to choose what you are going to do as a person.