Champions Trophy Preview : Will The Blue Prevail?

IPL IS OVERRRRRR! IPL IS OVERRRRRR!

Hey you yellow & hey you blue, & you, yes you red & you purple, its time to unite.

Take a breath. You have 15 boring overs to chill in the middle & it still wont be gone in a blink.

Oh yes. The 50 overs are crawling back to contention after some heavy dose of Boom-bang-booom.

About time we move on to the omelette from the boiled one. As Mr. Shashtri would say "Quality Cricket" with no meaningless games and run rate boosting minnow bashing. Although the quality of the teams will differ from South Africa to India to Pakistan to NewZealand, every team on their days is capable of winning the other seven.

Check the blue jerseys.

Check the "Go go go Virat" chants.

Check the "Jeetega bhai jeetega, India jeetega" prayers.

Check the mighty superstitions.

THE CHAMPIONS TROPHY IS HERE.

[Issued in viewers' interest : The following article may or may not suffer from major IPL hangovers, occasionally. Although we promise to behave ourselves as much as we can, blame goes out to the grueling bit of cricket (& off-cricket-all-the-wrong-things-too) that took place in the last month or so. Happy reading & sorry in advance!]

However, back to business  what can we expect from the team with five CSKians, three Sun Risers, two Mumbai Indians, two Royal Challengers, two Daredevils and a lone (ex) Warrior ? (#oksorry )

Unlike most of the other selections in the near & a bit distant past, the one for the CT was less outrage-worthy. Like, much. To the utter surprise (i.e : disappointment) of the average cricket pundit, the selectors showed some mostly invisible guts and left out Viru from the probable 30 & ultimately dropping Gauti & Yuvi on the D-day.

Well done, gentlemen! (?) Claps please!
But, a flawless XV, not to be.

Maybe Sandeep Patil & co. were trying to pay a tribute to Cheeka.

Picked Murali Vijay. Why? He showed some form. Format? Tests. When? At home against the kangaroos.

Uh oh. How nice of you guys. See, I'm not trying to rub salt or pepper or chilly. But he averages 17.81 in ODIs, 10.00 overseas (6.00 if you exclude Zim) & well, 22.28 in the just concluded IPL season. (He really did fail in the final even. Yeah, still can't believe.) 
Now thats very unattractive.

Che Pu would've been apt. The technique to deal the bounce & the patience to digest Dhawan-Virat's fury. Boy, he could've been some package. Le sigh yougaiz.

And Irfan's quota, to fault the wise men, could've considered the ever so economical Md. Shami from the Pakistan series. & PK has his amusing off field activities to blame & thus we miss out on seeing the Kumars together, again. Even maybe a surprise package could be arranged in the form of a Siddharth Kaul or an Ishwar Pandey.

OKAY FINE, JUST SAYING.

It feels weird to not to outrage selections. Tcha. Habit you see.

Who are we? Indians!

What do we do? Play cricket!

How do we do? Bat our way to victory!

Now then, the men with the key. As the Gautis & Virus are on a break (hopefully a long one), its time for the moustache to deliver. Da.one ofcourse. But the debate lies within the position of his partner. DK(hopefully his injury is quickly heal-able), Sir Vijay & Rohit. If fit, DK should be the obvious choice because even be the middle order crowded like a office time tube, thinking out of the box straighaway is simply not MSD.

But, that was 'should'. 'Would' will be Vijay! Dont give that damned look people, you know why.

Keys are Dr.3 & Mr.5. Virat fires, we win. Raina fires, we win. Their job is to get to a likely spin disaster & Ishant-mess proof total. Sorry guys, you two need to pull your socks as high up as possible.

In the middle, Mr. Talented looks like getting a chance to prove his omnious lazy elegance, yet again.

But mind you Rohit, this might well be the last. You might have won a trophy beating your very own captain less than a week back but who knows, next time the selectors might get lazy & forget to pick you. Get it lad?

Nothing to say about MSD. Captain knows his favourite format better than all of us combined.

No.7 is tricky. Ideally it should be Irfan because you really dont see the selectors favouring him for anything else other than it being UK & him being a Fast bowling allrounder. May Sir Jadeja blesses him from the bench. Amen.

How we should line up :

Dhawan, DK, Virat, Rohit, Raina, MSD*, Irfan.

How we shouldn't :

Dhawan, Vijay, Virat, Rohit/DK, Raina, MSD*, Jadeja.

Never a stronghold. Will never be. Will always lack something. Existence of same old problems which goes back to old, not so good or good back then yet outdated solutions.

Like getting back to Irfan. He was proven. He has the experience. Reputation too. Form? Who cares. That is how Indian cricket works. Though we have no choice but to give him a go and hope he lives at least upto half of his next Kapil Dev tag (Strictly on cricketing terms and not fixing) which revolved around earlier. Half will do. Or bit less than half even. Something is better than nothing when you consider the fact that next world cup is there in down under.

Here is one Kumar of Indian bowling and he has no criminal cases against him. He is fresh and swings it both the ways around. Meet Mr. Bhuvaneshwar Kumar. In some brilliant form, he is one of our hopes. In fact, he is our strength.

India should go for a lone spinner and is Ashwin really good enough ?

Ashwin who has played his 20% of games outside subcontinent has a poor wicket tally (seven wickets in ten matches at an average of 54.28) and a terrible strike rate (60.8) which is almost double when compared with his sub continent statistics. Amit Mishra on the back of a brilliant IPL who has no significant international numbers to back or neglect- with his corrections to his no ball problems- could well be a choice. With numbers not in his support Ashwin should not consider himself as first choice which is the case for Mishra too. Anyway with the tag of lead Indian spinner (Sorry. He may well just be the go-to-man in India) he could (he will) get into the eleven and We can only hope that , somehow Dhoni rather comes out of the mental block to try and test than dwell on a fixed mindset.

So you might have a question here.

If not Ashwin, then who else? Well. Not exactly. Like the Indian spearhead, Indian lead spinner is also a polished myth as of now. Nice attractive and catchy words, isn't it?

How we should line up ?

Bhuvi, Umesh, Ishant/RVK, Irfan, Ashwin/Mishra.

How we shouldnt?

Any attack with Jaddu. Because we are not playing in India.

And finally, a request or two for the pseudo old man (Look at his beard, dude.) & the real old man.

Dearest Skipper & Mr. Goggles,

• Please give the random stupid selections on board a break. Not to go by reputations & all. (C'on, they won't do those this time around. Will they? Yes? Ouch.)
• Not to play the ones that might risk the fate of our campaign. e.g Vijay & Jaddu.   (As to quote our Skipper Fantastic, "Horses for Courses.")
• Lets NOT offer a (by-all-chances-non-performing-yet-soooo-talented) Rohit a lot of merci. He has had enough when it comes to the blue jersey. Time to hit out or sit out, really.
• Beware of the Africans. They have one bearded genius in their ranks. Then their wicketkeeper batsman can bat a bit to be honest. Plus there is that one beast by the name of Dale Steyn. Although we have a colossal stat of never losing a game to them in CT (Yes. Two out of two. Achievement. No?) But still, beware.
• Last but not least, the off-field issues over the last couple of weeks have been beyond disappointment & distraction. But lets not the dark of betrayal & guilt not hit the boys in blue. Atleast giving it a shot-able, no doubt.

Have had enough, enough, absolutely enough overseas affliction in the last couple of years. Now, just when we started to dream of a crown earned in not so favourable conditions, the darkest era of cricket in India decided to hit us. Hard.

Does that give enough reasons for why we, the battered fans, the scarred pundits would love to see the trophy coming home?

Oh please. Who are we again? We are Indians. Whatever happens, cricket lives on with us. It flows in those veins, man. We can't help it. Like a constant from one of the Physics journals.

Good luck guys.

Asking for a soothing performance for these jaded cricket-corrupt-hearts.

May you return victorious.

(Nothing wrong in hoping. Okay? Okay.)

[ P.S : This preview was written before the mute (almost), reluctant (much), cautious (very) press conference by the respected Captain of the Indian Cricket Team after reaching Birmingham.

                                                                                 i.e : We were a bit lazy to re-edit.]

Read more ...

Unique, Unrivaled And Unparalleled.

I'm not going to find any adjectives to describe this stadium. It is not possible even. Against the backdrop of snow clad mountains, in Dharamsala, took place a game that defines the greatness of a team that is never tired of winning. Here we go.

19.3 Irfan Pathan to MS Dhoni. Boom. Six over long on.

19.4 Irfan Pathan to MS Dhoni. Boom. No. Booooom. This never looked like landing. CSK are into it again. They have done it again.

That was no big deal. Surely not when you're watching one of the best limited over finishers ever. With 29 required off 12 to get into the playoffs, a place they never missed out in all the 6 seasons till date, all he did was smashing Rusty Theron for a couple of boundaries in the penultimate over before launching his helicopters at Irfan.

This game is an example of how The Chennai Super Kings bat.

The Sun rises in the east. The Sun sets in the West.

A day spans around 24 hours.

Fridays are the best.

Taxes are compulsory.

CSK qualify for the playoffs.

Ladies & Gentlemen, the ultimate constants of life.

So what makes the men in yellow so special? You have your answer in the question itself.


Men Who Matter, With The Bat :

1) The overseas opening slot of the Super Kings have managed to strike gold every single time. Be it Haydos or Du plesis or Mussey over all the seasons. From milking the bowlers from the very first over to giving iron-solid starts to batting through to ensure the hitters a platform, these guys have performed every role to perfection. Irony of the CSK openers is when you look at contemporary MI, still struggling to get their opening combination right after all these years.

2) Raina walks out at 3. One of the better batters in the side if not the best. Apt mix of raw aggression & anchorage. As we'll discuss MSD promoting himself later on, here is another promotion. In fact a giant leap, when compared to his batting position for the national team. With Virat Kohli being the obvious choice, he has the likes of Pujara & Rohit ahead of him, He can never imagine batting at this position for India ever. With short boundaries and flatter pitch negating his short ball worries, how much he enjoys this position?

IPLs top scorer. 2720 runs @140.20

Third highest in terms of Half Centuries. (17)

Second most 6s hitter, after ofcourse, The Gayle. (110)

Only batsman with 400+ runs every season.

Suresh Kumar Raina is indeed the key to how further CSK roars every season.

3) Badrinath. Floater. Support cast mostly. Happy to play the second fiddle & brush the platform to finesse. Crisis man at times. Taking up responsibility in case of early wickets. Batting through & fetching the team a respectable total.

4) HE who? Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Playing higher up the order compared to what he does in the National side.

Result? MAJOR difference.



In T20Is, as journos will say "He likes to hide down the order", really comes a bit too late to finish. But when it comes to CSK, he bats at 4/5 instead of 6/7 & more often than not, manages to take them past the finishing line or atleast close enough for the Jadejas & Morkels & Bravos to subject the final push. Superior, indeed.

But, bigger picture. The greatness of the team is much visible from the fact that its much insulated from the instinctive captaincy. Evident that Captain the player is more valuable than Captain the Captain.

Although you cannot miss the power MSD adds to the value of the team.

Both with the stardom & the bat of course. Chennai's favourite Thala.


The Major Bs - Bowling & Balance :

Bowlers win matches for you. And no one other than CSK has ticked the point better. Even a brief research of their bowling will show how they have always performed as Units. This is not the case with other teams. They usually have a pacer and a spinner in constant and tend to keep on rotating the rest. But CSK, however, differs. & rightfully so. Their bowling attack is balanced and more importantly, constant. Initially in 2010, success was scripted by the spin trio - Murali, Ashwin and Jakati- a strike bowler in Bollinger and a bowling all rounder in the elder Morkel. And when you take this campaign, their attack is built around three medium pacers, a spinner and a slow left arm who can bat. Although the dimension of the bowling has changed, something that never changes with CSK is how they form their bowling line-up. Personnels do differ in minimum but the bowling unit as a whole, remains dead constant.

Balance has been, is & always will be the key no matter whatever the format might be. It gets extra essential in T20s because you cannot afford to make any mistakes whatsoever. Blink & its gone.

CSK, like most of the other things, have mastered this too. Never overdependent on someone/two/three in particular. Like a Gayle for RCB or a Watson for RR or a Marsh-Miller for KXIP. Distribution of Labour as they say. CSK equals the responsibility, top to bottom, I to XIth.

& what happens, everyone wins them matches in return.

The presence of allrounders ofcourse, works like magic.

Whenever you look at a CSK XI, its like OMG he can bat. OMG he bowls too. OMG he is one stupendous fielder too. To sum it all up, they bat too deep, bowl too high & field too good.

The Morkels & Jadejas & Bravos just sit in the middle & create the balance. Impeccable one.

& when it comes to fielding, someone or other is always flying at point & making jaw dropping saves. Be that Mussey. or Raina. Or Jadeja. Or Faf. Or Bravo.

Can you fault them anywhere? Somewhere? Getting jealous like anything.


The Right Ones :

In a tournament overpowered by the Chris Gayles, the AB de Villiers, the Sunil Narines, the Shane Watsons, the Team owners seem to be missing a trick. Dude, this is the Indian Premier League. No?Where are the Indians? This is exactly where the Chennai Super Kings' management has to be credited for their clever domestic picks over the years.

Once you take the other teams on the same board, the truth gets even more brighter. Yes, I'm talking about picking & using local talents & domestic uncappeds. Look at RCB, the Aravinds & Mithuns & Syed Mahammads & Mayank Agarwals & Saurabh Tiwarys. Less the good for nothing. Or the Delhi Daredevils. The Naman Ojhas & Yogesh Nagars. Except for Sandeep Sharma in KXIP & Stuart Binny, Siddharth Trivedi in RR, Ambati Rayudu, Dhawal Kulkarni in MI, more or less, each & every team suffers from the same what CSK DOESN'T.

Be it introducing Ravi Ashwin, now Team India's & CSK's frontline offie.

Or giving rebirth to Murali Vijay to an extent.

Or transforming Badrinath. & Shadab Jakati.

Lets take the example of Mohit Sharma. The latest of this lot. Barely known right arm medium from Haryana, picking up 17 scalps in 13 matches with an astonishing Economy rate of 6.23 & SR of 15.18.

Now that is exactly how you construct an absolutely World class team. Pick the right uncapped domestics. Persist. Win.

That, my friends,

Secret To Success Recipe No. 1.

As Stable As It gets :

MIND BOGGLING CONSISTENCY. That is the apt word for a team that has two trophies from four finals and the baggers of the good old statement of "They never missed out of top 4.". Consistency? How? Key? Stability. Not any major changes even after five full-fledged auctions. Look at Delhi Daredevils for a bad example maybe. ( Ridiculous when you value the current team and players they had in their first three seasons - Dinesh Kartik, Amit Mishra, Shikhar Dhawan, Manoj Tiwary, Gautam Gambhir, ABDV, Daniel Vettori & many more. )

The core was retained. Captain himself, Raina, Albie and Vijay were first on the list. The likes of Ashwin, Badri , Bollinger and Hussey were chased successfully in auctions and thus an unit and thus this ridiculous stability. With the same core, playing together year in year out, obviously gives them better chances of desired results.

CSK plays more as an unit than as a team. Beyond a team, really.

So, Secret To Success Recipe No. 2 : One 9 letter word yet to enter most of the other teams' dictionaries. S T A B I L I T Y.

Peaking at right times, approaching big games with much ease and confidence and more importantly giving their best shot at victory, Chennai Super Kings are precisely, Team peerless.

They have always been the team to beat. & from the looks, they will be.

They run a race. Of their own.

Hands shall be raised. Whistles shall be blown. & the trophy showcase will get more & more & more extended. No doubt about that. (unless some tornado hits the thinktank & blows all the sense away & that looks much unlikely)

The Chennai Super Kings are worth it all.

Wait wait.

I sense another addition here.

On this Sunday.

Year-break hattrick maybe.

Who knows?

Read more ...

Next Time Maybe?

"The Royal Challengers Of Bangalore or The Royal Chokers?"

"Hard to believe its RCB & not the South Africans."

"So near yet so far, yet another season of absolute agony for the boys in Red & Gold."

"Its all about Chris Gayle really."

Hi. I am an ardent RCB supporter.

Been there but never done that.

But Chokers? BULLSHIT I SAY!

To choke, you need a team, where is my team?

Season 6, done & dusted, about time we should look into what all went wrong for us. Like the last season. & the last last season. & okay fine, lets not dwell on the fact that the luring trophy of The Indian Premier League travels to our neighbourhood every other year but adamant to spend a night with us even.

Fault is ours, really.

Cricket is what? A team game. Right, RCB ain't got a team. It althought isn't a "One man army" as the newspapers would suggest you. Its more like a "One superman & Two men Army". To be precise. Christopher not-so-human Henry Gayle. Abraham all-around-the-park Benjamin de Villiers. & ofcourse Captain, Virat Kohli. Let the numbers help us a bit. In the 15 games played this season, Trio/Total team runs is 1613/2465. Now thats some 65% of the entire runs & 11 of all the 13 fifties scored. & its a bit unacceptable.

You could compare RCB's batting line-up with a chewing gum. The cheap one that gets tasteless in very quick time. You take out 1, 3, 4 out of it, you ain't got a line-up any more but some "extremely talented" guys trying to slog all the time, that too, unsuccesfully.

The Saurabh Tiwarys, Mayank Agarwals, Rahuls have taken too long to come to the party. & the party is still running.

WHERE ARE THEY?

We are in need of an Ambati Rayudu or a Stuart Binny. Really. No more Tiwarys, please.

So that was the batting outrage.

Hold on to your seats.

Here comes the bowling outrage.

Wait a minute.

RCB's got a bowling attack?

Neither a bowling nor an attack.

RCB possesses 4 guys who come in running with a white ball every match. For the sake of a game.

Because? Formalities.

Often known as the 200s club team (i.e who gives away 200 & scores 200), The Royal Challengers form a bowling line-up that gets hit out of the park regularly at the death.

& regularly in the powerplay too.

& regularly in the middle, alas, yes, that too.

If batting line up was a chewing gum, bowling is the wrapper of the gum. No, I'm not being critical. It is what it is.

Good for nothing.

You could classify the RCB bowlers into three categories

The good & The Potentially good - Rampaul & RVK.
The good on their days - Unadkat & Murali Karthik.
Below par, mostly (I'm being modest) - RP Singh, Abhimanyu Mithun, Dan Christian, Moises Henriques & (heartbroken to say) Muralidharan.

Firstly, none to strike, to spearhead, to lead.

Like a Dale Steyn.

Or a Mitch Johnson.

& none to compliment either.

Like An Ishant to Steyn. Or a Senanayake to Naraine.

Or a Watson. or a Kallis.

Then, stupid selections. Its as hard as it gets. However the worst one was reserved for the must win encounter against KXIP at Bangalore. Murali who has been worse than his worst giving away 40s & 30s every other game was selected ahead of Murali Kartik. The good old "only four overseas players rule" forced Rampaul to warm the bench. Anyway Dan overrated Christian getting two games says it.

Breathe in, breathe out. Bowling. Yay.

Fielding up next.

This particular season, its been pretty average inclined towards poor. Its a shame to say so when your team consists of Virat Kohli & AB de Villiers. But Captain, to his utter poor fate, missed a few.

Of the all, the Miller one will go down in history if it hasn't already.

Ah and yes the away encounter at the Feroz shah Kotla. The team that is competing for the wooden spoon and the team that almost forgot the winning ways nearly coasted to victory and that stands one of the worst ever fielding displays you would ever see. There is more to it actually and this should sum up things. With four runs off last two balls needed Vihari and Steyn were allowed a couple where one run itself was supposed to be tough.

Happens, yes. But Virat, you did drop the match, son.

& maybe the playoff spot too.

& if you ask me, too many "slow-movers" for comfort.

But you really can't blame the fielding much when there ain't much to field. Not joking.

THE BALL IS IN THE AIR ALL THE TIME, MAN.

& out of the park, ofcourse.

Ladies & Gentlemen, this doesn't mark the end.

Two ultra-dreaded things.

One Virat blames for his grey locks at 24.

(& he really has got a few.)

Other AB swore never to be a part of, again.

Yes guys, last balls & Super Overs.

Every single word uttered till now results in these two. What you could say, the combined failure. We took match winning scores to last overs & then last balls & eventually, came second a number of times.

And spare a thought for those two super overs. With Steyn bowling the one first night, one would easily assume the result & it spanned as much as the assumption. Next one, probably bored from the result of the first, Rampaul somehow dragged the sinking ship ashore.

Now that hurts. Big time.

And finally to sum up, RCB should change everything except the top three. Probably the best ever you could say. And auctions cant come at a better time. Retain Gayle, Virat, ABDV and Vinay[Yes, I am serious. He -If I have a good memory- is also a million dollar man and a wicket taking Indian bowler(if not pacer) who could well do a supporting role to a world-class strike bowler.]

Shopping list :

1)A strike bowler

2)A proper fielding coach

3)Anchor batsmen or the crisis man. Badrinath mould. To save the sinking ship.

4)In ABDV we have world's best finisher and we need another Indian finisher who is atleast half of the South African. Binny mould. Finish it off.

5)It's Indian premier league and it's happening in India. Always Out of favour Murali Kartik, No form, only reputation Murali, Errr who Syed Mohammed. Spin. Win.

6)A genuine allrounder. Watson or Perera or Kallis mould. Hit to victory. Strike to crucial breakthroughs. & most importantly, balance the entire seesaw.

Inspite of whatever happens (RCB qualifying/missing out playoffs), this season has been a disappointment. And even (-that is highly impossible- if RCB qualifies, It is even more impossible to overcome one of the best ever T20 team and the mighty Indians from Mumbai given the form of the team away.

Bravo, Virat. Given that you shall be a better leader next time.

& do not drop Miller again. Okay?

More like a 5.5/10 on the final report card.

(Being a tough teacher is much fun. Ha!)

Adios. Project IPL(VII). Fingers crossed.

Read more ...