CSK’s day…

Third day of IPL 2.0. Match between CSK and BRC. CSK beaten by Mumbai Indians in the previous match were under pressure to prove themselves and Bangalore Royal Challengers after beating Rajasthan Royals were on a high, but willing to maintain the winning streak. But the day was marked for something else.

 

With some clouds hovering above the ground indicating some rain later in the match. Dhoni after winning the toss elected to bat first. Parthiv Patel and Matthew Hayden proved Dhoni’s decision correct and gave a rollicking start to CSK. Till 10th over they were butchering RC’s bowlers like anything. But in 11th over Kevin Pietersen brought some relief to the Bangalore camp. But till then the time was gone. CSK had got the start they would have expected. CSK got a respectable score on the board at the end of the innings. CSK were 179 at the end of the innings.

 

In the second innings, RC came with a positive approach. But nothing worked for them. No pair could build any substantial partnership. With asking rate climbing up every batsman failed to put something good on the score board. Muttiah Muralidharan in his first game grabbed some wickets and was amazing. CSK was having great commitments on the field while bowling. M. Goni, Muralidharan, Morkel and Freddie showed some excellent bowling art. Kevin Pietersen, Praveen Kumar, Ross Taylor were not able to impress the crowd. They never seemed in the nick of the game. Kallis, Dravid and Uthapa showed some resistance but was not enough to take them to a convincing win.

 

Overall, the day showed some positive and rolling play of CSK. They showed some mettle in batting and bowling area. And that what was sufficient for them. The pitch was very much on the side of a batsman, but Bangalore Challengers failed to show some resistance and fell like a house of cards. Both the teams now have 1 win and 1 loss each. The coming matches will show who will dominate this season. So stay tuned and keep watching DLF IPL 2009 on Set Max.

 

 

Prasad B. Kulkarni

Aurangabad.

First day rocked by supposedly minnows…

Halloa…..what an amazing day of IPL 2.0. Rocking performances by two supposedly minnow teams. Bangalore Challengers and Mumbai Indians were the minnows in the first season of IPL. They were the bottom two teams and Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals were the top two teams. But time and again we have seen that in the game of cricket there is no certainty and no thing like minnow teams. We have seen even Holland upsetting the bigwigs. Probabilities don’t work at the game of cricket.

 

Talking about Mumbai Indians first. Mumbai Indians were in firm grip of the game right from the moment when they took wicket of Parthiv Patel in the very first over. But Hayden and Freddie seemed to take the game away. Thanks to bhajji and Jayasuriya for their wonderful bowling efforts and the fielders for their amazing fielding efforts. Remember the catch Raje took in the deep which dismissed Raina. That was wonderful. Taking the catch in the very yard of boundary line and maintaining the distance from it. That was wonderful. Also the catch Sachin took at the slips. With bowling line up having Lasith Malinga, Dwayne Bravo and Zaheer Khan. Sachin also showed the spark in batting which came directly from the New Zealand soil. He came for opening and stayed there till the proceedings end. With Abhishek also chipped in and came handy as he scored 32 of just 14 balls. So it was in all great team play by Mumbai Indians. Chennai Super Kings were also not bad. They were also equally good, not that they were not. But the day was not theirs. But this was victory of Sachin over Dhoni, clearly. Both had some issues in their team line up, as talked by the experts, but Sachin was more successful than Dhoni. In all, it was a day of Mumbai Indians.

 

Now coming to the second match of the day. Bangalore Challengers started the proceedings with great shiver. They lost the two top batsmen in a zippy. Dimitri was wonderful in balling. But Bangalore Challengers gathered courage and showed some resistance to the Rajasthan Royals, who were the top team in first season. Rahul Dravid once again showed his CLASS. What a wonderful innings he played out there. Poise and class were the highlights of his batting. Once he got past his fifty he stroked some sixes and fours. With his efforts and others also coming handy they reached to some commendable score, which they could have thought of defending. Shane Warne once again showed his class in bowling. He with his historical turns and twists in bowling, he got two wickets without letting runs flow. 134 was not that hard target to achieve, but with great efforts in bowling and fielding they bagged the victory. Anil Kumble again showing his class in bowling got 5 wickets and didn’t allow the bottom line players to play. Rajasthan Royals who were in top previous season have registered lowest score in IPL, which is 58/10.

 

All in all, the day was amazing for the start of IPL 2.0, with some shocks and some great efforts. Kudos to IPL, that we are enjoying such a great game. But had this been in India, we could have enjoyed it better than this. Anyways, it was great starting day.

 

 

Prasad B. Kulkarni

Aurangabad.

Saurav Ganguly…Indian Cricket and Indian People…

Hats off to DADA.

He really played well and got off the cricket pitch with grace and pride. “He could have played some more matches”, thats the sentence which came out of my mouth the day he took retirement. That day I was really overwhelmed to know that DADA will no more be playing in the squad. And then came some incidents into my mind and that lit my mind.

I was really sorry for DADA. The way he built the team from scratch was really applaudable and appriciable. But as a general mentality we all always salute the RISING SUN and forget about SETING SUN. The same happened with Saurav Ganguly. Lately he was not playing as he played in his early days. But that should not have been the issue. He has contributed a lot when he was Captain. In some of the recent matches also he played like real BENGAL TIGER. But we should really think that there are bad patches in a players career. No player is a robot, everybody is human being. So characteristics of human beings is bound to be there in everybody.

Sachin Tendulkar may not perform well after he has crossed some years henceforth, but he will always remain GOD OF INDIAN CRICKET or rather GOD OF CRICKET as a whole. Because he has contributed almost 20 years of his life in cricket as of now. And he has shown some GOLDEN DAYS to Indian Cricket. Plus, he has uplifted the barrier and restrictions of Indian Cricket as nobody has done.

Similarly, Ussain Bolt, the fastest man on the earth might not retain his record in coming years. He might not complete the same distance within same time period. That is because he is human and not machine. Even machines too can not perform with the same vigour in their lifetime.

We have not payed a good tribute to Saurav DADA. We never considered that he too made some mistakes and he need to be forgiven for some things. He is human too.

Now coming to what Times of India, dated 25th Nov. 2008, article on SELECT PRAISE FOR DHONI.

I think TOI has made some mistake while putting in the column and specifically the table which gives detail about the captaincy records. It states that Ganguly has played 147 matches, won 76, lost 5 and nothing else. So does that mean Ganguly has only played 81 matches??? or is that some mistake??? So the CAPTAINCY AVERAGE is also wrong and false.

Actually speaking Ganguly has created very sound and concrete basement for Dhoni to work on. I am not denying DHONI is good captain. Infact I praise him about his commitment, brainy decisions and quick analysis power. Also how he gave captaincy to Ganguly in his last match to pay tribute to DADA. and similarly he asked Anil Kumble to come and share the trophy with him in concluding moments of the series with Australia. But I think DADA need more praise than anybody else as he has done so much to Indian Cricket and then come all other players.

This is what I think of this. There are other thoughts also in my mind. But i will elaborate them in my next blog.

But just give it a thought. DADA you were “BEST CAPTAIN EVER INDIA HAD”.

Prasad Kulkarni

Navi Mumbai.