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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The True King of Comebacks

The return of Sourav Ganguly to the IPL …

Let me tell you one thing…

Sourav Ganguly is the KING of comebacks!

You have someone like Ajit Agarkar, who has made so many damn comebacks to competitive cricket that everyone keeps calling him the King of comebacks.

But this guy, Sourav Chandidas Ganguly, when he makes a comeback, he makes it count! (go back to December 2006 and IPL 2010)

His recall in December 2006 to international cricket coincided with one of India’s greatest moments in test cricket (India winning their first ever test match in South Africa) and his recall as captain of Kolkata in IPL 2010 saw him become the 4th highest run-scorer with 493 runs in 14 matches and saw the team missing qualification to the semi-finals due to net-run rate.

However, his reputation was tarnished big-time earlier this year when he went unselected in the auction (despite fellow old-timers like Dravid, Gilchrist and Laxman being selected). To rub salt into his wounds, this was after he had jacked up his starting price to $400,000 (from $200,000) after having been promised by a certain franchise owner that he would be picked up by them.

It all descended into a farce when someone wanted his name to be put up for a second round of auctions but no-one bid for him then as well. Subsequent attempts by Kochi to rope him in was also dashed by the other franchises.

However, he’s now back in the IPL, albeit with the man that ‘disgraced’ him, Subrata Roy. Funnily enough, as one article on Yahoo! Cricket mentioned, he’s back in the team which is being captained by a player who was brought into the Indian team by him!

Bengal’s love for Ganguly

I had the good fortune of working with a person from Kolkata on a project. When I asked him whether the public disappointment and outrage over Sourav Ganguly’s non-selection by any franchises was real or whether it was just over-hyped by the Indian news-channels.

He said that it was very real and that there were actually protests against Ganguly’s non-selection by the franchises.

He then told me of a match he had attended in the currently ongoing IPL. When I asked him whether it was easy to get tickets, he said that it wasn’t a problem at all. I was surprised at this. He then mentioned a line which showed how much Bengalis really loved him.

For every empty seat at Eden Gardens, there is a Ganguly fan out there who can’t accept a Kolkata team without Ganguly.

WTF happened in Guyana?

Man, that was so bad! It’s taken me some time to recover, which is the reason for the 2 day delay.

I mean, was Mahela Jayawardene playing on one strip and the other Lankan batsmen on another?

Mahela, the purist, plays an aggressive knock of 81 off 51 (SR 158), while Dilshan, the flamboyant and inventive batsman, makes 3 off 19 (SR 15).

I had to admit, after the raining fours and sixes in the IPL, the slowness of the pitch was hard to absorb as runs were hard to come by.

After crying hoarse (to myself, not on the blog 😛 ) that bowlers are being unfairly dealt with in the IPL, it took some getting used to when the bowlers finally did get something going their way.

Mathews gave an absolutely fab start like how he did last year in the semi-final against West Indies. A wicket-maiden was the best possible way to start the innings. Though Chanaka did give it away a bit with 10 runs off the next over, it was still game.

However, New Zealand were getting into a similar position like SL when Jesse Ryder was seeing the ball clearly while the others seemed more like they needed a cataract operation.

His dismissal triggered a period where only 16 runs were scored in the next 6 overs.

Mendis bowls his last over, the 17th over. This, IMO, was the turning point of the match.

At 16.4 overs, the situation was 38 runs from 20 balls.

At this point, I was feeling preeeety smug. Jacob Oram, who is a member of the club, “Most Overhyped Cricket Players”, was on strike. After him, there were only Hopkins, McNullum, Southee and Bond.

However, the 2 sixes that he struck in the last two balls (the second of which was one-handed), made the situation much more easier for the Kiwis. 26 from 18 is much more gettable.

The rest, as they say, is history, as Dan the Man sacrificed his wicket to ensure that McNullum (member of the club, “Most Underhyped Cricket Players”) took them home.

Now, TBH, I’m pretty worried.

Why?

We play the Zimbos tomorrow.

They have 3 spinners (4, if you include Greg Lamb) in their line-up. All of them are preeety good….

Back from my “Filhaal” retirement!

Well, it wasn’t really a retirement in the Mohd. Yousuf style. Nevertheless, the main reason for my not posting, as I mentioned in my last post, was because the IPL was too congested to actually dedicate seperate blog posts to it. Instead, I went for tweeting for the course of the tournament.

So, what happened between that post and today?

1. Lalit Modi is suspended/fired/(you name it)

Well, after my short campaign to get rid of Lalit Modi, it seems to have bore fruit. Lalit Modi has, according to the BCCI, been suspended.

But let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that he will actually be back. The charges laid out against Lalit Modi sound serious and, even if one of those charges are proved to be true, you can be rest assured that cricket won’t be infected by Lalitmoditus again. Heck, he might even migrate to the US and try to take over cricket there!

However, anyone reading this (yes, even the current cricketers and administrators) should realize that I have a power.

We all know that Purna, of Cricket Minded fame, has the power to get cricketers back into the team.

However, with my power, I can screw the person concerned in a big way.

Look at LKM. He was going “Wow” to a Pollard six in the IPL final and, now, there’s a decent chance he might be going into jail.

So, the moral for the day?

Don’t mess with Thiru Cumaran!

2. Chennai SuperKings win the title

Most consider this a big anti-climax since there was a chance that CSK would not even reach the semis after just 2 wins in the first 7 games.

However, with 7 wins in the last 9 games (including the finals), MSD taught us all one thing.

Make sure you win the games that matter.

I’ve always been a firm believer of this concept. It’s no point winning all the league games, only to stumble when it really matters.

A case in point is India. India started off fairly scratchily in the first couple of matches in the 2003 World Cup. However, since they had 7 matches in the group stages, they managed to rediscover their mojo and reached the finals.

Come 2007, the same thing happens, but, TBH, it’s worse. They lose to Bangladesh and find themselves on a sticky-wicket. They have to beat SL to advance to the next round. However, SL was in really good form and knocked them out before the Super 8s.

The point I’m trying to make is, if the 2003 World Cup had a format similar to the 2007 WC, India may not have made it to the Super 6s.

It’s all a matter of who turns up on the particular day. I just had a gut feeling that Mumbai, having not experienced any pressure whatsoever during the tournament, may not be able to withstand the heat.

On the other hand, Chennai had already been through plenty, having had to make 52 runs in 4 overs to get to the semi-finals. Therefore, there was no question of Chennai not being able to soak the pressure. Heck, even S. Badrinath managed to let off a whole load of pressure by sweating a lot! XD

Pollard, IMO, is over-hyped. Yes, he’s changed games, but look what happened when the team really needed him.

Tendlya deserved better. Yes, I am a Chennai fan, but who couldn’t feel sympathy for the only ODI double-centurion, the only 600+ run scorer this year?

3. Zimbabwe beat Australia, again

In case you were polishing your specs and looking at this post again don’t be too worried. It’s true. The Zimbos beat Australia again. After beating them in the T20WC 2007, they’ve beat them again in the Caribbean.

Yes, it was a 15-a-side game, but, still.

Despite Australia being really mediocre when compared to the class of, say, 2005, why do I still get a smug smile on my face when I see the words “Australia” and “defeated” in the same sentence?

4. The T20 World Cup starts tomorrow

Well, this isn’t exactly something that already happened. However, I am genuinely happy to see international teams taking on each other.

Yes, most people are complaining of T20 overburn after having watched a mind-boggling 60 games between 8 “domestic” Indian teams.

However, it isn’t the domesticness of the tournament which has left a sour taste in the mouth for me. It’s the crass commercialisation. I mean, the finals was as crass as it could get, with 2 ads within an over.

That’s right, 2 ADS! The collection of logos on the uniforms also makes it sickening to watch.

However, ICC-sponsored tournaments provide a rare spectacle in that there are no sponsor logos on the tees. Barring a max of one, there is barely anything (some regulations by them which stipulates that teams can’t put the name of their sponsors on their tees).

It is truly refreshing. There’s less nonsense from the likes of Ravi Shastri & Sunny Gavaskar. Instead, we have more of Anil Kumble, Shane Warne (hopefully), Ian Chappell and David “Bumble” Lloyd.

I’d like to raise an issue. Could we not have any more ICC-sponsored events in the Carribean?

Tomorrow’s curtain raiser between Sri Lanka and New Zealand starts at 10.30 in the night! The next match is at 2 in the morning the next day!

!#$***$!#%%^

Blocked from Lalit Modi’s Tweets!

I have been blocked by @LalitKModi.

Don’t believe me?

Then have a look at this

#lalitmodiblocks

Why?

Because I mentioned him when posting some tweets.

I’ve retrieved some of them. Have a look at them. (From most recent to oldest)

Gambir PWNS @LalitKModi “I cnt b xpctd 2gt all worked up abt comments made by ppl who hv nvr pickd up a bat in dere life” bit.ly/bu5V1u #ipl

@kunaljanu Don’t be 2 surprised if it’s just 4 a limited tym…u really think dat @LalitKModi will let an earnin opportunity pass by? #ipl

@LalitKModi YOUTUBE YOUTUBE YOUTUBE! It’s already on the web!

Live streaming sucks. So shit slow and @LalitKModi sounds like he’s constipating! :@ #IPL

@LalitKModi It’s the deal with youtube, right? How much did they buy the rights for? Just curious! 🙂 #cricket #ipl

@paddlesweep I’d say double ouch, TBH! Lalit Modi finds more and more ways 2 make the IPL even richer! :O

@LalitKModi do you mean da one abt da threats frm Shiv Sena?

As you can see, none of ’em are all too offensive. However, just like how Gambhir got warned for calling the Rajasthan team ordinary, I, too, have been censured for, admittedly, being a bit of a twat, but a reasonable one!

I was, actually, determined not to post anything on my blog for the duration of the IPL. It was because the IPL is so shallow that it is worthy only of tweets.

However, it was actually this article by Samanth Subramaniam on the Huffington Post which gave me the jolt for this post.

So why, when I watch the tournament now, do I watch it with equal measures of fascination and repugnance? Not because the IPL is a symbol of capitalism – far be it for me, a willing beneficiary of India’s adventures in money-making, to complain about that – but because it’s a symbol of capitalism gone horrifically wrong.

The IPL purports to be a free market but is in fact controlled by one man: Lalit Modi, whose power and stature have grown so Rabelaisian in merely three years that Bollywood has already asked to mine his life for subject material. (One player, Ravindra Jadeja, dared to try negotiating a new contract for himself this year. He was promptly banned for the remainder of the season.)

The IPL pursues revenues at the expense of other valuable resources: Test cricket, but also domestic cricket, the inevitable breeding grounds for young talent. In its grubbing for money, in fact, the IPL is dismissive of anything old-fashioned, anything aesthetic; even the four seconds between one ball and the next, held sacrosanct through more than a century of cricket, have been sold for inconsequential advertisements.

Meanwhile, owners buy teams for staggering quantities of money and with the fuzziest possibilities of recovering their investment; they desire only to dice up the risk and sell it in parts to sponsors and other companies, a practice that should surely sound familiar to us today.

Though Lalit Modi talks of a free market, what he does is the very antithesis of a free market.

There are also rumours doing the rounds that Lalit Modi has rejected the franchise agreement sent in by Kochi.

Why?

Because they have some ‘secret partners’.

Apparently, the owners have given away 25% for free to someone.

Who cares?

That’s their business. Why does Lalit Modi always want to butt in to everyone’s business?

To be very honest, he seems like one of those needy children.

He wants to be on the know with regard to every damn thing that goes on in the IPL (even if it isn’t necessary that he knows about it) and can’t tolerate any criticism of himself or his product!

What a prat!

I hadn’t tweeted much about Lalit Modi in recent times. However, because I realized that he blocked me, I’ve decided to go on a rampage with the hashtag #lalitmodiblocks.

Therefore, please bear with me!

XD