Cricket in the USA

Yay! The IPL gets a mention in the New York Times.

While we are still on the NYT, this bit about the big four competing and overlapping markets is interesting.

I hope not, Harsha

I hope not.

Big One in the IPL

So its Chennai Vs Rajasthan, finally. I have to admit, before the IPL started, I wasn't a die hard fan of Shane Warne. I loved the fact that he never could actually do well against India. Although I did like the fact he turned the ball by 45 degrees, I did not know what he did with New Hampshire. I did not know that as one day captain in 10 matches, he won nine out of them. Thank you, Mr Chappell for that bit. And I also did not know about this whole "the best captain Australia never had" bit.

But watching him in the IPL has made me fall in love with him. While watching the Indian fab four(Dada, Sachin, Laxman, Dravid) fail miserably in this version of the game, its been total paisa vasool watching Warnie execute his plans with ruthlessness. He had the cheapest team consisting of nobodys and yet he is at the top. It seems he is out to prove a point or two. And I pray to god he does.

IPL Dairy - May 31st

Glenn Mcgrath is a competitor, a great bowler, accurate, this, that etc etc. But Glenn Mcgrath is also someone who never kept his mouth shut whenever he was bowling. His sledging of Sachin is well known. His run-in with Sarwan is well known and documented. And in the match vs Rajasthan Royals yesterday, he once again demonstrated why he is at the top of my hatelist.

After Graeme Smith(who was limping as a result of a hamstring injury) had hit him for three consecutive fours, Mcgrath did the worst possible. He mocked Smith and tried to walk with a limp. Smith, needless to say, did not respond. The funny thing is that no newspaper or website has found worthy of putting this in their respective columns. Shame on you, Mcgrath!

IPL Dairy - May 27th

Common sense. In the post-match interview, Sachin mentioned this word at least 4 times. Yep common sense! Which is

• Mr Dilhara "Godzilla" Fernando, that you take a sitter of a catch,
• bowl straight, especially if the opposition needs just 3 of the last bowl,
• Field well aka collect well Mr Jayasurya.

It was more like Mumbai loosing(their cool and the match) than Rajasthan winning.

Laloo Jee feels "Dhoni style zyada maarta hai!" and GreatBong's excellent IPL roundup.

Good News and Bad News - May 26th

The good news is that both the matches in the IPL yesterday were down to the wire. Chennai's loss means they are still in the hunt. And Delhi's win means that they(Delhi) as well as Mumbai are in the hunt which makes the next few matches very very interesting. The bad news is that Deccan and Bangalore will fight out today for (not) being in the last place.

Good news is that the BJP is leading in Karnataka. The bad news is that they might just be 4-8 MLAs short of simple majority.

Elsewhere : a top sports journalist butters King Khan, Shobha De comments on blogging and Vir Sanghvi writes on the IPL, the best line of which is this

"Thanks to the IPL, cricket is about to undergo a globalised blurring of loyalties in the same way that football has. It’s not that new a phenomenon, of course. There have always been foreign players in county cricket (I assume Shoaib Akhtar picked up that semi-intelligible accent while playing for Glamorgan). But the money that the IPL pays is so huge that county cricket cannot compete."

IPL Dairy - May 23rd

Lalit Modi must be a very happy man. Not only the IPL is raking in the moolah, it is also having a controversy every now and then. And our country's hype creating-newsbyte obsessed 24 hour News Channels have been lapping it up.

The latest comes from CNN IBN. King Khan will boycott all remaining matches going forward. As far as I can remember, this issue laid to rest two days back when SRK was given permission to visit the team dug-out. So why this new stand all of a sudden? Now that his team is out of the IPL, is he trying to divert the issue and become the wronged one?

Also, this cheerleader controversy refuses to die. I don't understand. Wizcraft and Kings XI Punjab should own up to it. We, as a country are obsessed with fair skin. Remember those Fair and Lovely Ads 2 years back. So what's the problem is saying that yeah, we asked those cheerleaders to come of the stage.

Lastly, why is this a big deal? Note the language - "...difficulties refuse to go away...". You get contracts. You loose contracts. Has the media not heard of churning, change and competition? And to all these people who talk about Dravid's adaptation to 20-20 cricket, could I please request them to visit Harsha Bhogle's latest?

IPL Diary - May 21st

Crunch match today for SRK, Knight Riders and Ganguly, in that order. Warne has already started the mind games - having talked about knocking the riders "out of the tournament". Promises to be a blockbuster.

Don't go to the dressing room

ICC Anti-Corruption units tells SRK. I don't get it. How can you ban the team owner from visiting his team in the dressing room or the dug-out for that matter? If the match is to be fixed, it can be fixed in the hotel the previous day itself. What was the ICC doing when Mark Waugh and Shane Warne were providing pitch information to bookies? LOL!

The ICC should definitely ban him for jumping and showing his jockeys.

King Khan having a bad hair day

On CNN IBN's special with Rajdeep Sardesai and Sourav Ganguly. Check at SRK's hairstyle. ROFL.

Real liberalization is the ICL

and not the IPL, writes Gaurav Sabnis. He has a point. But the question is, after the mega-success of the IPL, where does the ICL stand? I guess maybe shifting the telecast to ten Sports might help.

IPL Dairy - May 17th

The Mumbai Indians are on a roll. The only hitch being that Tendulkar flopped yet again trying a Sehwagesque shot.

Somewhere else, the king of good times' hangover gets over, finally.

Two big ones coming up today. Rajasthan Vs Bangalore. Delhi Vs Punjab. I am putting my money on Rajasthan and Delhi. Would be very interesting to watch Smith vs Steyn. McGrath Vs S Marsh.

Big One today in the IPL

Mumbai Indians Vs Kolkata Knight Riders.

Will Shoeb fire? Will Sachin blast? Will Dada Rock? Will Jayasurya shock? Three hours from now, we will know.

Why I hated the IPL ...and then started liking it...

I am sure that my wife lost count of the gaalis which I used to hurl at the DLF IPL ad. The one which went – tu laga daaav….tu laga daanv...tu dikha josh.

My reasoning was pretty simple –

The BCCI is only interested in making money. The cricket calendar is already jampacked or upar se yeh saala IPL. Won’t the players burnout?

Secondly the way the BCCI went about treating players who joined the ICL – the Zee backed rebel leage. The players were banned, some of them starring in a movie lost their roles and believe it or not, the banned players were even banned from entering the stadium i.e. Reetinder Singh Sodhi was banned from entering PCA stadium at Mohali.

Even Harsha Bhogle’s and Amit Varma’s sensible words did not budge me.

And when SRK said in a press conference that he is not getting good response from Calcutta crowd, I thought wow, this seems like a recipe for disaster.

But the facts are different.

The IPL has proved to be a BLOCKBUSTER – giving competition to not only SRK’s Paanchvi Paas but also saas bahu serials – which is great. And watching the local lads like Shikhar Dhawan, Manpreet Gony, Badrinath, Dinda etc do well also proves Amit Varma ‘s point.

Which is - The IPL puts a price on performance and since the teams are owned by private parties, performance shall and will be the key for selection as well as bidding. So no bribing the selector anymore.

Point 2 : Local lads, mind you these are Indian local lads, shall be playing with likes of Mcgrath, Warne, Smith, Pollock. So the experience they stand to gain is tremendous.

Point 3 : The only players that made money previously were the fab four(Sachin, Sourav, Dravid, Laxman) and some youngsters(Yuvraj, Dhoni, Bhajji etc). When the IPL goes into its second season and when there shall be no Rs 20 Crore cap on the team, you might see a Dinda being sold for 6 crores while Bhajji being sold for 1.5 crores. In Economics we call it the equitable distribution of wealth. Isn’t that what Karl Marx set out to achieve?

Some people will still say that its not cricket??? Well did yu ever imagine that a day will come when yu will wear T-shirts over formal shirts like they wear today. The point which Harsha also makes is that sport to spread has to evolve or change or adapt etc etc etc. Also, I feel that in these days of fast life, fast food and fast cars, no one has the time or energy to watch a Test or a one day match.

For that, you can check the highlights.