The Level Playing XI

You’ve been a spectator

You’ve been a cheerleader

You’ve been a critic

You’ve been a commentator .Now..

Feel what it is to be an owner !!!

Yes,i have been all these and now I had also  experienced what it is to be an owner. The Level Playing XI was the team which I had owned in this IPL(obviously the virtual team) and it was indeed a new way of looking at the game. Selecting the playing eleven , making suitable changes –some risky ,some assured while keeping an eye on budget and the franchise and overseas limit so as to make a balanced team use to be my pre match activities .For the first time I had watched cricket from a different perspective of taking care of who is going to earn more points for me irrespective of the quality of their cricket. Analyzing players statistics and guessing game were part of my team making strategies. However the real fun use to be once the match get started .The entire process was just like you are having full course with you and you are sorting out the important topics which can come in exam and what marks they can fetch for you .Just like when paper get handed over to you in exam hall you first scan for question you have prepared ,I use to look for the players which I had selected in the team ,whether they are actually playing or not and yes we do have surprises as we use to have in actual papers some unexpected or some may call out of syllabus question .Well nothing can be done at run time and the best we can do is look for what marks we get in this paper after attempting , including the maximum marks for the question which we had written best .In my case this task use to be of power player i.e. the player which you think will perform best on that day from the two or four teams playing on that day.            

It was tough ,but I am happy that I had almost selected the right set of players on many occasions. But the difference between almost winning and actually winning is that the former doesn’t count . So that’s how my team campaign ended performed and played well but could not quite win the title just like all other eight teams in the actual IPL .

All in all that was a great way of knowing players and teams much better and a all new way of following and watching cricket for me but I doubt I will give a second chance to it because I actually enjoy the spectator , critic and commentator part more than getting stressed by owing a team.

IPL - The Juggernaut Of Entertainment

Ever heard of a stress –buster loaded with stress ? Of course  yes !! In fact you have been experiencing it for past five years. The Indian premier league has entered in its 6^th edition and for the next two months you will not have to look for movies to watch ,for rather you have to manage how to watch the three and a half hour show of complete entertainment  each day.

This holiday season of the year is meant for only entertainment by the bollywood flavored cricket .No matter how much cricket is being played round the year ,this form of cricket has  always been successful to catch the attention of whole cricket loving world .

9 teams ,  76 matches and 1 destination but this journey to destination is  packed with unpredictability and photo –finishes that are bound to keep you on the edges of you seats .From its first season itself the thought of watching the favorite stars of world cricket sharing the same team thrilled every one towards Indian premier league . There is something special about this T20 format that the winner in its tournaments donot have  experienced captain to lead say T20 world cup winners - India (2007 captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni ) ,Pakistan (2009 captain Shahid Afridi) , England (2010 captain Paul Collingwood ) , West Indies (2012 captain Darren Sammy) . IPl also share the same legacy as it has proven to be an event where assertive leaders set the tone in winning sides-from Shane Warne (Rajasthan Royals ) , Adam Gilchrist (Deccan Chargers) , Mahendra Singh Dhoni ( Chennai Super Kings) to Gautam Gambhir ( Kolkata Knight Riders ).

Although there is a lot of money involved in this tournament but it actually does not matter if you had flaunted the heavy purse to own a IPL franchise for ten years and always remain in news only for showing money power at player auctions than any spectacular team performance like the RIL owned Mumbai Indians. Every year IPL remain in news for some or the other reason and this year it seems that Delhi Daredevils is facing plenty of pre-tournament blues much before donning their newly designed blues. Of course lot more actions and twists are lined for you to keep you involved in the event.

So get ready to stop your clock on the juggernaut of entertainment !!

No More Tail-Enders

India whitewashed Australia 4-0  ,followed with which many interesting conclusion were drawn after digging numbers like- it was Australia’s 7th loss in a row in India and their worst performance in an away country , its India’s biggest Test series victory(4-0 beat Aus 2013, 3-0 beat Eng 1993, 3-0 beat SL 1994)  , MS Dhoni became first Test captain to win a Test series 4-0 despite losing all the tosses , it was only the 2nd time India beat Australia in three days in a Test . The only other instance was at Mumbai in Nov 2004 , only once before Australia has lost a Test series 4-0 (It was against Ali Bacher's South Africans in 1970) , , India's target at Chennai in 2001 against Australia was also 155 runs. India won by 2 wickets , Peter Siddle became first batsman in Test cricket to score 50+ in each innings at number nine !!!

Statistics hardly matters in cricket so are your past performances , what matters is how you  perform on that particular day .The top-order may have been brittle and the middle-order ready to collapse, but the sting of this Australian team was firmly in the tail .In all the eight innings Australia has managed to stitch together inspiring partnerships for eight , ninth and tenth wicket. The inability of the Indian bowlers to mop up the tail has been as startling as its newly discovered confidence to deal with the cream of this Australian batting line-up.

At different points of time , different teams have done this and if they do it pretty well , you have to give respect to them and not say they are tail-enders .There are players who come after number seven-the  traditional threshold of being considered as a batsman and still averages over 30 , you cant call them tail-enders.  In fact there are no more tail-enders in international cricket who come in , slog and get out , the players now believes in putting a price on their wicket. The modern day cricket demand bowlers who can contribute through bat as well .Thats why we are having more cliffhangers now a days which goes down to the wire hence making the game more unpredictable .

Indeed Cricket is a batsman’s game !!!

   

Kai Po Che

India a nation where it is compulsion to watch cricket but it is prohibited to choose it as a career .Cricket is the first game which every child play in India but with time he realize that he cannot choose it as a career but in his heart of hearts he wants to be a cricketer .The reason for denial is understanding the fact that it demands a lot from you and the outcome is not guaranteed so they convince themselves by watching it ,keeping a close eye on every moment from which ever way possible (even at their work place) whether its television , internet or mobile and by providing expert comments on the play .But there are some who get carried away by their emotions and take a step forward to live their dream of becoming a cricketer .

The reason why I have written such a great philosophical opening paragraph is that today I have watched the movie “Kai Po Che” and the first paragraph is the after effect of that .Well I am not going to discuss the story of movie here but in simple words it is a movie about three friends , in fact a short life span of their life and most importantly it revolve around the second most popular topic of our film industry i.e cricket which is the only thing which most people have enjoyed in this movie without having any contradictory views over it .Most importantly it covered that historic India Vs Australia test match at Kolkata when India dominated the world cricket and beaten Australians in their way. ‘Kai Po Che’ I think this is what is being done to the talent of this country those who want to play cricket and the movie had depicted it clearly .

There are some common element behind any successful coach - a desire , immense talent , some unfulfilled dreams which he fulfills by recognizing the talent in his students and making them realize  what their  innate abilities are and  gets happiness by making them living their dreams .The movie had beautifully captured all the aspect of game that they teaches us a lot (as I always say) about how to be in a team , how to take decisions and how to actually live life and how important it is to have a good mentor in our life .

Many times our film industry had tried to show different aspects of cricket and I am sure many new dimensions will get revealed in future which actually are known to everyone but still we enjoys them as after all our first religion is cricket and we love following it .     

Team India Thrashes Australia

He keeps that unorthodox element in his batting as well ,bat -speed combined with strong wrists as the sphere was sent rocketing to distant corners was the ‘power play ‘ by  Mahendra Singh Dhoni at MA Chidambaram Stadium ,Chennai. Many batsman might also thinks to do the same but there is difference between only thinking and actually implementing it , he takes care of later part too ,probably that’s why he is termed as great finisher of modern days and a captain who leads from front . 

Many players were under radar before the start of Border- Gavaskar trophy and eventually maximum of them have performed in the first test match .After the retirement of Dravid and Laxman ,Sachin Tendulkar had superbly played the role of sheet anchor after not so good start from openers and soaked the pressure and made the things look simple again with his experience in willow wielding craft .He guided young Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli in consolidating their innings  ,before getting dismissed by an off-spin that turned sharply from the edge of the rough just beyond the good length area (bowled again !!! ).

The Australian close-in cordon was in and the host was under stress. But Dhoni had disrupted Lyon’s length by getting forward and clouting the spinner to leg without allowing the ball to spin or jump .Then comes the adventurous final session which was the replica of shorter formats of the game where Mahendra Singh Dhoni always fell short of partners but he always keeps his cool and respond to the pressure .Dhoni showed no mercy to the bowlers as he smashed 109 runs in the final sessions and completes his first double century in test cricket.

Both Indian bowlers and batsmen performed in the way they were expected . Ravichandran Ashwin took two 5 wicket hauls , Mahendra Singh Dhoni hits double ton , Virat Kohli scored a ton and Sachin Tendulkar scored valuable  81 , but slight concern still remain about the openers which was compensated though by Tendulkar's message to Lyon by hitting two sixes of the first two balls he has faced in his second innings !! However we should not get carried away by this as England was also smashed in their first test match but came back ! Panesar was not rated much by anyone and he surprised a few , but India seems to be aware of this factor as they were a bit surprised as Xavier Doherty was not included in the team as second spinner for the first test.

The best part is team India won the test match and this time they were not tired and have actually prepared for this important series .The pitch responded the way it was meant to be and ball turned for Indian spinners and favored Indian batsmen more than the visiting players. Hopefully pitch respond in the same way at other venues as well and  India continue to perform well throughout the series.

India Team Lacked Specialist Openers

You might wonder that I am going to discuss the present scenario of Indian team ,than my answer would be a no rather than a expected yes .

Opening position is the only slot with which India had experimented much and the truth is that team India had never found a specialist opener till date. The recent experiment at this position by the India’s most luckiest captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni is with Rohit Sharma who is known to  get far more chances than what a player with a history of failures usually deserves got a chance to open as well but the experiment has only complicated the problem .

The point which should be  noted here is that ,in a country with 27 first-class teams with at least two specialist openers in each squad , the  national team is made to experiment middle order batsmen turning out to open the innings .Sachin Tendulkar , Sourav Ganguly , Rahul Dravid ,VVS Laxman , Virender Sehwag and more recently Virat Kohli ,who staked their claims as middle-order batsmen ,have all opened for the country in one format or the other. It is indeed  surprising why a country , with such a settled domestic structure , struggles to find a specialists to do a specialized jobs. Some of the better teams in the world , except India , are looking for specialist in every format of the game. How can you expect team to excel if they don’t have openers , it actually affect the performance of other players .

Team India usually experiments to achieve short-term goals and the team is usually bound to suffer in long term . Dhoni’s trial and error method need not bring in the desirable results with consistency. However looking at his recent tactics , it looks like India is strengthening its bench strength in bowling for 2015 world cup , as I am pretty much sure that our experienced pace attack is going to take charge for team .But how can we don’t have ‘horses for courses’ in batting department when it’s the batting for which Indian team is known for !!

2012 - The Year Of Goodbyes

Ricky Ponting Announces Retirement - And, From This Moment On, There Will Be Only Nice Things Said About Ponting .Thats the only best thing about retirement !!

Herschelle Gibbs ‏

What a player,entertainer of note and an all time great ricky ponting! Always loved his approach to batting... legend

Sanjay Manjrekar ‏

Ricky Ponting came out of that very typical Australian mould of batsmen. He was the quintessential Aussie batsman in style & approach.

Ricky Ponting - a great driver & a great puller ! Thats one thing that really stood out for me. Enriched the game by his feats.

Michael Vaughan

The best batsman I had the privilege to play against ... Ricky Ponting... #Punter Australia cricket will not be the same without him...

Matthew Hayden ‏

Punter, congratulations on a fantastic career. Your departure will be a massive hole in the Australian Cricket team #RickyPonting #Legend

Ajinkya Rahane

A legend announced retirement . The cricket world will miss Ricky Ponting on the field.

Tom Moody ‏

Congratulations Punter on an astonishing career been a privilege to play alongside you & watch from afar, you are truly a great Australian.

Virat Kohli ‏

Ricky ponting what an absolute legend. I am glad I had the honour of playing against him. Take a bow legend respect

Kevin Pietersen ‏

Ricky Ponting RETIRES.... ONE OF THE GREATS! I always got excited playing AUS, so I could watch him bat up close. Well done Punter! Legend

Scott Styris ‏

The best batsman I played against has decided he has had enough. I'm sure there will be some happy bowlers around!

The year 2012 seems to be the year of goodbyes ,first Dravid, then Laxman and now Ponting ,all three carry numbers next to their names ,which eventually are not enough to define the class of these players.

As per expectations Ricky Ponting who has second highest ( 27,471) runs in all international cricket announced his retirement .A aggressive captain , a perfect number three batsman , a great fielder   under whose captaincy Australia touched new heights and dominated the world cricket .Ponting's retirement has signalled another movement in the slow descending of the curtains on an era of batting giants ,as now only Sachin Tendulkar and Jacques Kallies remain the last two of a VANISHING TRIBE of monumental runs and awe-inspiring career longevity !!!!

Sachin Tendulkar had  38 Matches, 55 innings, 2483 (ave 51.72), 8 100s in his belt before Ponting's debut on 8 Dec 1995 ,and since than the debate of who is the better among them is going on . If we consider stats as the parameter than Ponting is ranked after Sachin in maximum records but their are many records which are unique to him. Ricky Ponting is the only man to have participated in more than 100 Test Match victories for his side  , Ponting has hit the winning run in a Test nine times ,which is more than anyone else in Test history.'This is where it started, and will finish'- yes Perth it is , had started his career on that ground and will end it on the same ,seems like a perfect script for a motivational story !

Well , the reason for the retirements of these legends was that they were not getting runs under their belt, in fact ,to be very precise they were actually missing the ball and getting bowled consistently ,which is so unlikely their way .The cricket fans have always praised the growing number of runs of these players but have always criticized the increase of number in their ages for their failure !

The irony is that the man who is playing before the debut of all these players is still playing at the age of 39 and with every retirement , and with his every failure , the question is raised that when is Sachin Tendulkar retiring .The reason for such questions is the expectations and their past performances .They have created so many historic events that people want a long inning from them in every match . I don’t know how Sachin deal with such question ,but i am expecting he will not hang his boot in a bad patch !