IPL Semi Final Roads

IPL Semi Final Roads

Most of the cricketing experts of the country and even the common cricket follower citizens were considering and rating Jaipur’s Rajasthan Royals [JRR] as one of the weakest team of the IPL at the start of the tournament, surely they will say this is the glorious uncertainty of the game that this Halla Bol squad become the first team to qualify for the semis.

There was nothing wrong with consideration as none of the blasting names like Sachin, sourav, shewag, Dhoni, Yuvraj, Sanath, Symonds, Eshant Sharma, Shoaib Akhtar, Bret Lee and so on was associated with JRR, In fact this is the only team which was unable to find a suitable Indian player from the selective chunk to lead the team and was depending on retired Shane Warne for the purpose.

Besides this our Indian attitude of looking at things and happening with specific economic vision was also responsible for this view towards the JRR by the critics and masses. We Indians have a tendency of establishing a relationship between price and quality, more we pay more we become assured of quality and surely the JRR is the team of players with lower remuneration.

I recall early days or rather the days before the actual start of the tournament, when all the eight teams have finalized their player, my son was discussing about the winner of the tournament. He was not just surprised but eventually was shocked to hear name of JRR from me. As like the most of Indians, three best teams for him were the Kolkatta Knight Riders, Delhi Dare Devils and Mumbai Indians. I was supporting the JRR from the day one just because to me T-20 is the place of exhibiting all round skills and Halla bol squad is composed from many players having this ability. Most of the players included in JRR’s Halla Bol squad have to prove worth of their playing skills from this or that point of view and this attitude was going to make them the most competitive and dangerous team of the tournament.

Individual efforts are the key to team success but surely the clubbed one and not the isolated. Look at the highest run scorer of the tournament, Gautam Gambhir, baring the last match, middle order of Delhi team failed on whatever chances they got and as the result Delhi team is left with option of praying God for the semifinal birth. At the time of writing of this, JRR and Kings XI have qualified and three other teams
Delhi with 15 points from all 14 matches
Chennai 14 points from 13 matches and
Mumbai 12 points from the 12 matches are beetling out for the remaining two semis slots. Eventually Delhi team is on the mercy of performance of rest of two teams. Chennai will go under the “Do or Die” status when tomorrow they will took ground against Hyderabad but before they need to keep a hawk-eye on the match of Mumbai with JRR as defeat in that match for Mumbai will not only almost block the entrance of Mumbai in last four but also bring a respire of relief for the Chennai as their win tomorrow will change the point table to
Chennai 16 points from 14 matches
Delhi 15 points from 14 matches
Mumbai 12 points from 14 matches
If the Chennai and Mumbai both loose their, these matches Delhi will qualify as the third semifinalist and forth one will be decided only after the match of Mumbai and Bangalore. Here Mumbai will under tremendous pressure as they will have to play not just for a win but also need to take care of over all run rates.

All these if’s and but’s will be going to get answer in next 72 odd hours but one thing is sure, last league match of the tournament between Kings XI and JRR, is going to prove the real thriller as both the team are already qualified so they will battled out just for the pride. Once again the Kings will be forced to face the music of Halla Bol.

Killer Last Over

Killer Last Over

This title “Killer Last Over” strikes my mind while watching the IPL match between Delhi Daredevils and Chennai Super Kings. This was an important game for both the teams as both have lost their last match, In fact Super Kings were the suffering end in their last two encounters. Neither of them was in mood and in situation to face yet another defeat and looked much desperate to record a win. Especially for Dhoni’s super Kings this was a do or dies game after two successive and humiliating defeats at hands of Rajasthan Royals and Decan recharges.

As usual coin favored lucky fellow Dhoni and he invited home team to exhibit their batting skills, might the last two batting collapse of the team forced Dhoni for this decision otherwise this is almost a set trend of Dhoni to bat first after winning the toss. Delhi openers Shewag and Gambhir were in mood of giving yet another demonstration for their firing start and Delhi went on to score 46 runs with both the openers at the central 22 yards long strip, but before the Dhoni feel guilty of committing a mistake, stamps at the batting crease uprooted twice for the home team.

Fielding side was assuming a relief breeze after these two dismissals but Gambhir and Dhawan made sure non existence of it, as this pair went on to register the highest partnership of the tournament. Delhi went on to finish the allotted 20 overs with formidable total of 187 runs.

Till the end of 19th over of batting of Super King all was demonstrating daring and devilish powers of Delhi as the opponent need to score 15 runs from the last 6 ball of their inning. M.S. Goni went on to stroke the first ball of the over for the maximum and this over proved the Killer one for the Devils as with the last ball Kings made sure the killing of the devils. This was not the first instance as previously one such over, when Rajasthan Royals utilized last six balls to score the required 19 runs for victory and discharge the powers of one of the stronger contestant team of the title. While writing this match of Kolkatta Knight Riders and Royal Challengers went under the same phase of Killer over as Royals challenger were need of scoring 19 runs from last over for a victory. Mark Butcher started the over with hitting Sharma’s first ball across the boundary on ground levels, but this time Eshant was with very rigid frame of mind not to follow Australian Symonds at least for this and made sure a 5 run victory for the Riders.

Cricket Kings

Cricket Kings

At last the test series between Australia and India ended and as per the Australian plans Australia won the series with 2-1 to keep their winning record intact though their image of being the undisputed kings of cricketing fields is not as the same as was prior to this series and even the ground behavior of Australian players and sportsmanship were put under the question mark at several occasion during the series.

This series will be remembered for the disputed umpiring decisions favoring Australia, allegation of so called racial comments by Harbhajan and controversial decision of ICC match referee Mr. Proctor over this issue. The issue sounded to such great extant that at one stage it was threatening a division among the cricketing nations of the world. Thanks to decision of excusing Harbhajan from such serious but base less allegations by the ICC appeal commissioner as neither there was any decisive evidence for supporting so called allegations nor even Andrew Symonds was able to recall the exact words of Harbhajan. However Harbhajan is punished with 50% cut in match fees for using abuse words on the ground in response of controversial exchange of words started by Australian player Symonds.

This is appropriate time to look in to the background of all this. Over the years sledging was the effective weapon of Australian cricketers on the ground and no one from the rest of world was not in competition with them at least in this aspect. Since last one year or so young Indian cricketers not only started to tackle this successfully but also started to answer in the language of Australians. This forced Australia to get exit from semifinal of inaugural T-20 World Cup held in South Africa. The war of supremacy on the sledging grounds was at the peak during the Australian cricket tour to India last year and Andrew Symond, Harbhajan and S Shrisanth were the front runners, unfortunately Australians found themselves on the losing side. Hence this tour by Indian cricketers has been taken as the revenge grounds.

Australian players and media are taking the decision of the ICC appeal commissioner not as the justice but as the victory of money powers of BCCI with blaming the Cricket Australia for bowing down under the pressures of monetary powers. How wrong they are? If the ICC was favoring the Indians was it possible that Harbhjan is punished for responding and Andrew Symonds, who himself admit, who initiated this controversial word exchange will be allowed to escaped from being punished? No dear this is pure justice though Symonds was guilty of taking the initiative but Harbhajan was punished for using abused language. Surely in the present times escaping from the temptations of the money powers is almost impossible. I wish to put a question for all the Australian cricketers, many of them are participating in IPCL a tournament being organized by BCCI in the hot summers of Indian climatic conditions and paying very handsome amounts to players, If the Australians players are thinking they are with the resisting abilities for the powers of money, let it prove by saving self from dehydrating Indian heats and opt to keep self away from this tournament, remember this tournament is not going to be played for the national pride and glory. This is a professional league tournament in which players will play for the city which can bid most for them. It sounds funny that a person available in the market for a bid is blaming others for acting under the pressures of money powers.

Most of the cricketing world is looking this as the end of sledging war between the players of two countries where cricket is much more than just a game. Frankly speaking still some suspecting snakes are on the move in my mind, as S Shrisanth was not part of Indian Test squad and now is in Australia for the tri angular ODI series. In all probabilities Australian players will not leave any space vacant for irritating Shrisanth and warm blood of this young Indian speedster might response on the lines of Harbhjan, after all Shrisanth is more vibrant in expression of aggression on the ground when compared with Harbhajan. There are some chances that might the Harbhajan face some adverse comments from the Australians during the ODI series. Let us hope things will not take the same turn again allowing cricketing lovers from all part of globe to respire with relief and enjoying the game in coming days.