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.

IPL outsourced…

The most awaited, talked about, seen round the world and involving almost every bully in the world of cricket, in short IPL (Indian Premier League) is being outsourced. Yes. “Outsourced” is the only fitting word I know for. Generally India was the destination and receiver of the outsourced activities from other countries. But for the first time, and that too the Godly game “Cricket” is being outsourced to either South Africa or England. Its really a shame to do such thing.

 

Indian Premier League is “By Indians, For Indians, On Indian Land but involving foreign players.” This is the brief introduction of IPL. The first season of IPL was a grand success. Even though teams like “Bangalore Royals” and the likes of the teams didn’t perform well, but the owners of every team were multi-billionaires in a month. Every industry felt the boost in the performance with the introduction of IPL. Media industry were the biggest gainers, ground keeping authorities, FMCG companies, players etc followed the suits with grand gains. Though cricket followers and fans gave out money for tickets, but they also gained by the enthrallment and joy of watching the match live on some stadiums. Even the cheerleaders were also benefited from this venture.

 

Forget about the biggies, even a Pan stall, food malls, hotels, restaurants, small scale shoppers were also benefited hugely from IPL, as public who had to go for jobs while the match was being played used to stop at some point and watch the update. In that period, if one was at Pan stall for grabbing a quick update had to purchase cigarette, Pan or some mouth freshener at least. Or for that matter, for getting access in the hotel he had to get something ordered in their. So though indirectly, everybody was getting benefited from IPL.

 

But now if the authority takes this game to different country then all these small benefiters are going to loose the cream they would have got from it. We all know that Elections are more important than IPL, but that can not be an excuse to postpone, pre-pone or outsource the game. Cricket is equal to God in India. So if the followers of the God Cricket, which for the fact everybody is, get embarrassed due to such things as outsourcing take it for granted that Elections are gonna get hit big time. At least the some effect will be there. The other thing is that, Indian Political leaders “waste” so much money, in those futile sessions in Lok-Sabha and Rajya-Sabha with no output coming from those session with lakhs or Crores of rupees invested in it. Instead of wasting so much money there, invest some of it at least in strengthening the security, law and order in the country.

 

I think the solution to strengthening the security of India lies in the statement above. I think if the companies of the likes of Satyam can afford myriad and huge frauds, they can definitely afford to start some “Alternate Military System” which will work under the “Indian Armed Forces” that is “Indian Military” and will share the work load also. In the events of emergency these forces can work like military forces and other times they can take care of internal security of particular state, which they belong to. This will create some employment also and security will not be a concern. Even though the emergency like Mumbai Attack comes, solution can be easily sorted out without having to call those military forces which are working on the border.

 

Holding IPL in other countries is not the solution. Indian public want to enjoy the game in person, physically being able to stand in the stadium and cheer for their favourite teams. If the IPL is outsourced these public will be at loss as everybody can not afford to go to abroad for watching matches. And another thing is that, IPL is Indian Event and carrying that out in foreign land is uncalled for and not welcome. Security concerns can be worked out, the session can be postponed, or re-worked out. IPL authorities need to leave the adamant views and find some way out. Have some high-tech solutions to prevent any mishaps. As already said by Ayaz Memon, the Common-Wealth Games will come somewhere around the mid-term elections, so are we going to postpone those also? Not carrying out two major events at a single time shows the inability of Indian Government. I think India Government can take the load of two major events. And outsourcing IPL 2 to some other country is definitely not the solution.

 

 

Prasad B. Kulkarni

Pune.

Welcome to Soccer at DY Patil

 

IPL T-20 Fame

Just today read the news article in Times of India saying D Y Patil stadium at Nerul, Navi Mumbai will be hosting I-League matches in coming days. Yes, your mind is prompting you correct thing. D Y Patil is the stadium of IPL fame. It held matches of IPL T-20 in the recent past.

 

 

It is good to see that Indians are looking at other sports with the same sporting spirit as they used to look at Cricket. Why only cricket is getting all attention? Other sports are also good. They also need certain skills. Is it that Cricket only requires skills?? I guess no. 

 

But as I have already said in my article on CHANKYA NITI, we are habituated to follow West. Cricket is not our game. We got the legacy from England. But we have mastered it. On the other hand, Football, Hockey, Wrestling are our games. But we don’t seem to have mastered it. We are far away from mastering them. We are so into Cricket that we forget other sports. Forget about people forgeting the other sports because we (people) have the habit of forgeting things very quickly. But how can Indian Government, Media forget about other sports? They should not be.

 

There are currently no takers for other sports in India. Recently only when Abhinav Bindra, Vijendar Kumar and Sushil Kumar got medals for India, India has wake up to those sports.

 

Pertaining to such a situation, we can say that D Y Patil has taken a good decision to host a football match. Atleast somebody is paying attention.

Indian Football League

 

 

After asked about hosting Football match on Cricket ground, spokesperson of D Y Patil said, “If MCG in Australia being a cricket ground can host football matches, then why can’t WE??”

 

So this is a welcome call for other sports. And I hope this trend continues and we pay similar attention, if not more, to other sports also as compared to Cricket.

 

Prasad B. Kulkarni

ITM B-Scool,

Navi Mumbai.