With the IPL 2010 coming to a close with a stunning finale at DY Patil where Chennai Super Kings emerge winners, downing the league topping Mumbai Indians. Many would feel Mumbai Indians were deserving winners; I do too, only had the championship been an all League one. Chennai Super Kings displayed enormous courage and self belief to defend a modest total in the semi-finals against the big hitting Deccan Chargers. Mumbai too overcame Bangalore with relative ease in the other semi finals. At the end of the day it was the team which kept its nerve had the last laugh.
All teams except Kings XI Punjab seemed to be in contention for a semi final spot till almost the last leg of the league which is a healthy for a competition. Let’s look at how the teams fared, their plusses and their letdowns which halted their semi finals charge.
Chennai Super Kings: The two time semi-finalist, one time finalist, under Dhoni’s capable leadership made it to the finals with a lot of hiccups. Their three match losing streak mid way in the tournament dented their chances but the coming of Aussie sensation Doug Bollinger and coming good of Murali Vijay, Suresh Raina’s consistency and their skipper Dhoni’s tactics took them all the way. Chennai’s spin attack; Murali, Ashwin & Jakati deserve credit for coming good at the right time and spelling doom with some accurate tweaking. In Bollinger’s absence; Balaji, Gony, Tyagi & Joginder came a cropper. Makhaya Ntini not getting a single game was surprising though.
Best Moment: Other the winning the finals, their best moment was Dhoni bludgeoning 16 of the last over and defeating KXIP at Dharamsala.
Forgettable Moment: They would soon want to forget their Tied match against KXIP at Chennai which they eventually lost in the Super Over. It was a game they should have won.
Players for the future: R.Ashwin, Suresh Raina, Doug Bollinger, Shadab Jakati
Mumbai Indians: The first time semi finalist & finalist, Mumbai did almost everything right in the league stages of the tournament aided by their captain Sachin Tendulkar’s supreme touch, coming good of youngsters like Tiwary, Rayudu, Pollard and of course a very powerful bowling attack comprising of Zaheer, Malinga & Harbhajan. Tendulkar’s 618 runs fetched him the Orange cap. Their worst spell was the two match losing streak towards the end of the league stage. Even that didn’t jolt their powerful surge to the last. Bravo & Duminy failed to impress in the chances they got. Jayasuriya looked way past his prime. R.Sathish fulfilled his role as a utility player and will be remembered for his run out effort to conclude Yusuf Pathan’s carnage.
Best Moment: Defeating Delhi Daredevils in Delhi by 98 runs was huge. Kieron Pollard’s coming good in the later stages of the tournament after some initial failures bolstered Mumbai.
Forgettable Moment: Losing the finals in home territory must’ve been hard on them.
Players for the future: Saurabh Tiwary, Ambati Rayudu, Kieron Pollard, Shikhar Dhawan
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Four consecutive wins after a dull defeat to begin the tournament with, RCB looked sure for a semi final spot until they hit a road block losing 4 out of 5 games in the middle stages of the league. Kallis made strong statements with the bat ending as the 2nd highest scorer with 572 runs. Kumble lead the team inspiringly. Uthappa’s match winning capabilities came to the fore, Steyn was accurate and unfriendly & Vinay Kumar was a revelation. Ross Taylor, Manish Pandey & Virat Kohli’s indifferent form affected Bangalore’s chances. Nevertheless they made it to the Champions League by defeating Deccan Chargers most convincingly. Praveen Kumar’s moment of glory was his hat trick against Rajasthan Royals. He never shone after that.
Best Moment: My favourite RCB performance was their win over KXIP chasing 204. Kallis’ blistering innings of 89* and Uthappa’s sparkling 51 scripted a perfect chase and announced the RCB arrival in IPL 2010.
Forgettable Moment: Their two defeats each to Deccan & Delhi in the league stages hurt them and so did the big loss to Mumbai in their last league match. That set their semifinal date with Mumbai again.
Players for the future: Manish Pandey, Nayan Doshi, Robin Uthappa, Eion Morgan
Deccan Chargers: Once at number 7 on the points table with 5 consecutive losses, Deccan seemed to have lost the plot they scripted last year. Unfortunate to not get to play in their home; Hyderabad, Deccan’s surge to the last four was superb. Their rejuvenation is much credited to the likes of Pragyan Ojha; the Purple cap holder with 21 wickets, Rohit Sharma, Suman, Symonds & Harmeet Singh. Gilchrist’s poorest IPL hurt Deccan Chargers’ chances as they never could get fiery starts from him like before. Kemar Roach’s selection and his eventual participation in two games baffled me. Keeping the experienced Vaas out of the team for most of the tournament looked questionable.
Best Moment: Chaminda Vaas’ brilliant last over in Deccan’s win against Delhi in Delhi which cemented Deccan’s position in the last four was delightful.
Forgettable Moment: Complete surrender against Mumbai in both their games & their abysmal 82 all out against RCB in the 3rd place play off.
Players for the future: Pragyan Ojha, Rohit Sharma, Harmeet Singh, Mitchell Marsh
Delhi Daredevils: A pre tournament favourite, Delhi was inconsistent to say the least. With the most explosive batting line up, Delhi were the best on paper. Sehwag & Warner’s inconsistency; Dilshan & de Villiers’ indifferent form, Gambhir, Nannes & Nehra’s injury were all contributors to Delhi’s dismal show in IPL 2010. Gambhir’s captaincy showed varied shades ranging from tactical brilliance to sheer lack of common sense. Amit Mishra’s bowling was a huge boost to Delhi. He bowled bravely and brilliantly. Fielding was one area Delhi shone in. They had the best fielding team at their disposal. Warner, de Villiers & Collingwood showed why they are amongst the best fielders around. A team full of stars didn’t live up to the expectations. They were not aided by the pitch at home in Feroze Shah Kotla either. Gambhir made his annoyance with the surface in Delhi quite vocal. Dinesh Karthik was brilliant as a wicket-keeper and a middle order batsman.
Best Moment: David Warner’s superb 100 and his 120 run partnership with Collingwood against KKR in Delhi scripted a fine win for Delhi Daredevils. Few brilliant catches by AB de Villiers and David Warner are amongst the competitions’ best.
Forgettable Moment: 98 run loss to Mumbai Indians in Delhi. Heart breaking 11 run loss to Deccan Chargers in Delhi which halted their title dreams.
Players for the future: David Warner, Pradeep Sangwan, Umesh Yadav, Sarabjit Ladda, Moises Henriques
Kolkata Knight Riders: An improved performance in comparison to 2009, Kolkata still lacked many aspects of playing as a team. A mystery surrounds this team’s underperformance. Sourav Ganguly was by far the best player in the team which lacks no talent or support staff. Their much hyped purchase Shane Bond was average and failed to rattle batsmen. Angelo Matthews, Owais Shah, David Hussey were effective but not match winning. The real explosive Chris Gayle was mostly missing expect for the game against KXIP. The team missed Brendon McCullum who joined late. Agarkar & Dinda’s performances were good news for the team in the absence of zing in Bond’s bowling.
Best Moment: Ashok Dinda’s fantastic opening spell which sent back Warner & Sehwag to set up a Kolkata win against Delhi in Kolkata. Ganguly’s brilliant ground fielding and catching. David Hussey’s catch of Collingwood is touted to be the best in the competition.
Forgettable Moment: Their loss to KXIP after setting a target of 201 was the low point of their campaign.
Players for the future: Ashok Dinda, Manoj Tiwary, Angelo Matthews, Iqbal Abdulla, Ajantha Mendis
Rajasthan Royals: Started with the reputation of being the most unpredictable side. Low on big names; Rajasthan Royals started their campaign with an almost fantastic win against Mumbai Indians in Mumbai chasing an uphill 212; with Yusuf Pathan scoring a brilliant hundered. After losing their first three games they turned around to win the next four and looked to script another dream run. Losing players like Mascarenhas & Graeme Smith, their progress was halted and became inconsistent. Nonetheless, Rajasthan found a matchwinners in Naman Ojha & Micheal Lumb and good supporting players in Jhunjhunwala, Fazal & Voges. Shane Watson’s late joining hurt Rajasthan which missed an all rounder in Ravindra Jadeja. Their semifinal charge was halted by three defeats at the fag end of the league.
Best Moment: Yusuf Pathan’s superb 100 off 37 balls against Mumbai. Rajasthan Royals clinching a win against Deccan at Nagpur, a game which Rohit Sharma almost took away from them.
Forgettable Moment: Lack luster performances in the last three games of the league. Not even crossing 140 in them hurt Rajasthan. Aditya Dole’s drop catch of Sachin Tendulkar at Jaipur will be remembered.
Players for the future: Naman Ojha, Abhishek Jhunjhunwala, Aditya Dole, Kamran Khan
Kings XI Punjab: Internal conflicts or no; Sangakkara’s team the biggest disappointment of IPL 2010. Their campaign received serious setbacks very early in the tournament. Yuvraj’s indifferent form and attitude was disturbing. His interest seemed to be diminishing as the tournament progressed. The team’s batting relied heavily on Jayawardena, Sangakkara & Irfan Pathan in Yuvraj’s absent performances. Brett Lee’s form too was poor. Giving away 10 runs per over without taking a wicket was truly below par for the Australian spearhead. Bowling relief on Pathan, Chawla & Juan Theron as Sreesanth performance and behavior were both annoying. They never really had a shot at a semifinal spot but their face saving wins at the end might have helped the players in restoring some morale.
Best Moment: The Super Over win against Chennai Super Kings at Chennai was Punjab’s first win and was a nail biter. Their win against Kolkata chasing 200 with Jayawardene scoring a masterly 100 was fabulous.
Forgettable Moment: Sreesanth applauding Micheal Lumb sarcastically after being hit for a four and applauding the umpire for being no balled was poor in taste and totally lacked any sportsmanship. Losing the match after conceding 16 runs from the last over bowled by Pathan to Dhoni against Chennai at Dharamsala must’ve been quite tough.
Players for the future: Piyush Chawla, Adrian Barath, Ravi Bopara
With Mumbai also making it to the semifinals and to the finals eventually, Kolkata remains to be the only team to have not made a semifinal appearance in IPL. Not all’s lost though. Indian Premier League 2011 will begin with 2 new franchises; Kochi & Pune. Players might not remain in the same teams. Another massive round of bidding will be undertaken. But the intensity and fervor will remain the same for this format of the game in India. This might just be the last IPL for legends of the game like Anil Kumble, Sanath Jayasuriya, Shane Warne, and Matthew Hayden. New upcoming talented players will make sure there is no less fun in future IPLs but these legends will be missed for their contribution to the game and the ambassadors they have been of it.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Mysterious Case of The Indian Spinner
Indian cricket team has never been bereft of spinners. Be it the famous spin quartet on the 1970s; Venkat, Bedi, Prasanna & Chandra. 1980s were dominated by Shivlal Yadav, Maninder Singh, Laxman Sivaramakrishnan and the mercurial Narendra Hirwani. 1990s saw emergence of Anil Kumble and he was partnered by Venkatapathy Raju, Rajesh Chauhan & Sunil Joshi. Then began in the previous decade a spin partnership every visiting team to India were vary of; Anil Kumble & Harbhajan Singh. No other spinner could imagine a look in during their reign.
But since Kumble's retirement, India has tried many a leg spinner who would partner Harbhajan and even be the lead spinner in the Turbanator's absence; Pragyan Ojha, Piyush Chawla, Ramesh Powar, Amit Mishra, R.Ashwin & Ravindra Jadeja.
Ramesh Powar has fallen out of favour with the selectors as neither his bowling nor his batting are penetrative enough and his fielding too has been a bother. Ravindra Jadeja has made an impression in ODIs with his miserly, effective bowling and hard working batting, but he cant be mistaken for a strike bowler. Piyush Chawla has played two test matches but has been far from convincing and he has lacked variety. Pragyan Ojha was quite impressive in the chances he has got in both ODIs and Tests. His performances till date in T20Is too are encouraging. But most impressive has been Amit Mishra. He has a big heart, doesnt mind tossing it up to the batsman inviting them for the drives and the big shots and most importantly he has been amongst the wickets too. His performances in the ongoing IPL are a testament to that.
But the juggle by the national selectors and the team management in handling these three spinners have been far from impressive. Amit Mishra, after an uninspiring performance against Sri Lanka on a placid wicket at Ahmedabad, where even the legend Muralitharan suffered, was dropped in favour of Ojha who came good in the next two tests. In Bangladesh, Mishra yet again played the first test with a decent outing with the ball and a half century as a nightwatchman with the bat. But he was dropped for the next test in favour of Ojha. And out of the blue he was selected for both the home tests against South Africa. The most baffling bit of selection surely has been Chawla's inclusion in the World Twenty 20 at the cost of in form Mishra who holds the Purple Cap till now in the IPL and Ojha who again has been in top form. The reasoning that Chawla is the better batsman out of the three is a weak one. A bowler needs to be very good at what he does other than the contribution he makes with the bat; Chawla has been extremely ineffective this IPL and hasnt shown any match winning capabilities with the bat either.
Non-exclusion of Amit Mishra at a time when he bowling like a dream could be very disheartening and discouraging. Piyush Chawla on the other hand must make sure he cashes in on this huge oppurtunity. He has been out of contention from the Indian team for almost tow years now. The last he played was in 2008 against Pakistan. His selection has to be justified by strong performances by him for his team Kings XI Punjab, but that too hasnt happened. He has snapped 5 wickets in 10 matches at an average of 60 runs per wicket. His batting, which is apparently the prime reason for his inclusion in the side over Mishra and Ojha too hasnt shored up KXIP when required.
Hoping the Chawla surprises all of us by putting together a string of good performances to justify his selection in the World T20 squad and puts up a good show if he gets a chance at the mega event.
At a time when the art of spin bowling in on the wane from international cricket, India has a problem of plenty in there. Hauritz, Swann, Mendis, Ajmal are expected to be the flag bearers of spin bowling in the coming years. Managing the practitioners of this art is very crucial in upholding the tradition of Indian being amongst the teams with the best spin attack.
But since Kumble's retirement, India has tried many a leg spinner who would partner Harbhajan and even be the lead spinner in the Turbanator's absence; Pragyan Ojha, Piyush Chawla, Ramesh Powar, Amit Mishra, R.Ashwin & Ravindra Jadeja.
Ramesh Powar has fallen out of favour with the selectors as neither his bowling nor his batting are penetrative enough and his fielding too has been a bother. Ravindra Jadeja has made an impression in ODIs with his miserly, effective bowling and hard working batting, but he cant be mistaken for a strike bowler. Piyush Chawla has played two test matches but has been far from convincing and he has lacked variety. Pragyan Ojha was quite impressive in the chances he has got in both ODIs and Tests. His performances till date in T20Is too are encouraging. But most impressive has been Amit Mishra. He has a big heart, doesnt mind tossing it up to the batsman inviting them for the drives and the big shots and most importantly he has been amongst the wickets too. His performances in the ongoing IPL are a testament to that.
But the juggle by the national selectors and the team management in handling these three spinners have been far from impressive. Amit Mishra, after an uninspiring performance against Sri Lanka on a placid wicket at Ahmedabad, where even the legend Muralitharan suffered, was dropped in favour of Ojha who came good in the next two tests. In Bangladesh, Mishra yet again played the first test with a decent outing with the ball and a half century as a nightwatchman with the bat. But he was dropped for the next test in favour of Ojha. And out of the blue he was selected for both the home tests against South Africa. The most baffling bit of selection surely has been Chawla's inclusion in the World Twenty 20 at the cost of in form Mishra who holds the Purple Cap till now in the IPL and Ojha who again has been in top form. The reasoning that Chawla is the better batsman out of the three is a weak one. A bowler needs to be very good at what he does other than the contribution he makes with the bat; Chawla has been extremely ineffective this IPL and hasnt shown any match winning capabilities with the bat either.
Non-exclusion of Amit Mishra at a time when he bowling like a dream could be very disheartening and discouraging. Piyush Chawla on the other hand must make sure he cashes in on this huge oppurtunity. He has been out of contention from the Indian team for almost tow years now. The last he played was in 2008 against Pakistan. His selection has to be justified by strong performances by him for his team Kings XI Punjab, but that too hasnt happened. He has snapped 5 wickets in 10 matches at an average of 60 runs per wicket. His batting, which is apparently the prime reason for his inclusion in the side over Mishra and Ojha too hasnt shored up KXIP when required.
Hoping the Chawla surprises all of us by putting together a string of good performances to justify his selection in the World T20 squad and puts up a good show if he gets a chance at the mega event.
At a time when the art of spin bowling in on the wane from international cricket, India has a problem of plenty in there. Hauritz, Swann, Mendis, Ajmal are expected to be the flag bearers of spin bowling in the coming years. Managing the practitioners of this art is very crucial in upholding the tradition of Indian being amongst the teams with the best spin attack.
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