IPL 5

So its been two weeks and only 15% of the league matches have been over and its good to see a whole lot Indians performing well with the bat and the ball .

The first match between the CSK and MI wasnt good enough for a tournament opener because it was just a one sided game as the champs were humbled by the Mumbai Indians.Mumbai Indians Lost a sitter against the pune by 28 runs ..


The next match between the KKR vs DD , the two Delhi mate met again in the opposite team. But KKR could not use much of their foreign as well as their Indian players .I feel they dint get synchronize into a team .

The Delhi made a decent bowling performance against the KKR but their batting came strongly with Sehwag and Pathan firing .Pathan scored a konck of 42 in just 20 balls. 
But daredevils lost their second game against RCB in Bangalore .The Delhi team became strong when Jayawardene and Pietersen join their team against the CSK in Ferosha Kotla . The Delhi  made it one sided victory with a seven wicket win ..Thanks to CSK batsmen for giving away four run outs and ending theor scorecard at 113........


They have some of the big names of T20 like Gautham Gambhir , Brendon Mccullum , Jacques kallis , Brett lee , Yusuf pathan and they have the world no 1 all rounder Sakib al hasan in their bench .So if these guns fire as a team KKR would be tournament winner .But Kolkata came back strong with two back to back wins against the RCB & RR....


Pwi vs MI i would say the best match in the tournament as the captain Ganguly defended a score of 129 and succeeded eventually by controlling MI at 101-9 and wining by 28 runs.  Robin uthappa , Ashok Dinda , Murali Karthik played well. But the Aussie all rounder Steve Smith played an excellent knock of 39 and bagged the MoM .
Pwi  played the first match at home and won comprehensively against the KXIP but lost the match followed on Thursday against the same Team at Mohali due to some sloppy fielding by the warriors and losing wickets at regular intervals.

Rajasthan royals under Rahul dravid played extremely as an unit and won their opener against the KXIP. Ajikiya Rahane the young opener scored a splendid 98 runs against the Kings XI and won the MoM . Kevon Cooper the Trindad player had a dream IPL debut who had an injury and missed the match against the KKR on Friday.

Royal Challengers Bangalore had played well against the CSK and Delhi daredevils. but the match against CSK was something like a big bad luck for them . Even they had scored two hundred plus but lost the game due to some worst bowling .
They still have lot of options in foreign players and picking a best eleven would give them a good result 


So far the tournament standings are 

Standings

Pos	Team	Mat	NeR	Pts
1	MI	4	+0.361	6
2	DD	3	+0.820	4
3	PWI	3	+0.573	4
4	KKR	4	+0.305	4
5	RR	4	+0.183	4
6	CSK	4	-0.051	4
7	RCB	3	-0.417	2
8	KXIP	3	-0.583	2
9	DC	2	-1.950	0

 Purple cap holder              :        Munaf Patel

 Orange cap holder             :       Ajinkya Rahane    

 Super Sixes                        :       Francois du Plessis 

 Fair Play award                  :       Rajasthan Royals

Lets hope the next progress of the tournament with some close finishers and some  hundreds in it .

Remember every team depends more on the foreigners than the Indians in it which is worst condition for team India in the upcoming T20 world cup.........

Ganguly 's Return - IPL 5

Look for the Come back of DADA

Sourav Ganguly "The Prince or DADA fondly called " will be making his return as a captain & mentor in this season of IPL for the Pune Warriors in the absence of Yuvi who is out for his treatment against Cancer ...

Sourav has been a highly prolific captain for India ......Under his captaincy India had made lots of High's and a few Low's  and  he made this resounding India at present by his marvelous pick ups to make playing eleven ..

This would be a certainly a test for Ganguly and there is a pressure over him to achieve something better with his new team..... There is no doubt that he is a good hitter but the problem he faces is he wasn't in the net for quite sometimes.. as he was busy with holding the microphone and following the India 's Disastrous Tours in England and Australia ...

But the ability in DADA will make him to return to his stupendous  form....Of course every fan of Dada wants him to hold this season's trophy and as well as to wear the orange cap over his head ...

Dada had also mentioned his first aim is to make Pune in the Top four teams and we hope that he can certainly do it and he has the ability to do it.......

South African fast bowling legend Allan Donald will be the bowling coach while Praveen Amre will be the batting coach. Paddy Upton will be mental conditioner of the team ....

Dada has made some quick moves by roping Marlon Samuels , Michael Clarke ,Tamim Iqbal,Luke wright in the Pune squad ....

But apart from them Pune warriors has some quality T20 players like Robin Uthappa , Manish Pandey , Jesse Ryder, Angelo Matthews ,Murali Karthik , Alfonso Thomas,Wayne Parnell .........
Unfortunately Graeme Smith will no be there due to his ankle injury , Michael Clarke the last foreigner for Pune squad will be there only in the beginning of May & Angelo Matthews will miss the first two to three games.But there are still some fine players in the squad with whom Ganguly has to make certain XI that would give the best

Come on DADA

So we hope  that Ganguly 's Warriors will strike hard and bag the trophy and mark his Return to the game................

The first mission will be against the mighty Mumbai on Friday at the Wankhede , Mumbai ......

COME ON DADA................................ U CAN DO IT..........................

Mumbai Indians

                  Mumbai Indians owned by the Reliance industries Limited has been  a consistent team in IPL and  to their regards they are the last season CLT20 champion under the captaincy of Harbhajan Singh who came in as stand in captain when Tendulkar was kept outside due to injury .

The side couldn't make use of the conditions they had in 2008 and 2009 season but they came back  strong in the year 2010 with a winning percentage of 68 and end as tournament runners . 

The side looked really strong when Keiron pollard made to the blue jersey from the 2010 season..Lasith Malinga or the slinga is the main strike bowler for the Mumbai Indians who is the last season Purple cap winner . He also won the man of the series award  for the CLT20 '2011 .

Harbhajan  Singh who is not part of the Indian team since the disastrous England tour for India couldn't make a strong comeback even in the first class matches . But as a vice captain of Mumbai Indians he has to play a big supportive role in their campaign.

 Rohit Sharma who did not play in the recent Aussie tour is the highest paid player in the team  but made a strong 70 runs in the Pakistan match at the Asia cup. So he is definetly a player to be read by the Indian selectors.

Ambati Rayudu the Hyderabad wicket Keeper made the team in the season 2010 . He made his selection a positive who at times provided partnership for the team and was behind the stumps guarding the wicket .  

Sachin Tendulkar captain of Mumbai Indians recently made his Ton of Tons which would ease him to play aggressive in this format . He had a good season of  IPL 10 & 11 with the bat.

Andrew Symonds who retired the from all forms of cricket paved way for Richard Levis-the fastest T20 centurion and was his replacement .

Players to watch : Sachin Tendulkar , Lasith Malinga ,Keiron Pollard ,Ambati Rayudu

Players newly made to the team : Richard Levis, Dinesh Kathik , RP Singh,Herschelle Gibbs

Players who needed to prove a lot  Harbhajan Singh , Rohit sharma .......

Home ground :Wankhede Stadium ,Mumbai ........

Batsmen Sachin Tendulkar (Captain) Tirumalasetti Suman Aiden Blizzard Ambati Rayudu Rohit Sharma Suryakumar Yadav Herschelle Gibbs Richard Levi Jaydev Shah Apoorv Wankhade All Rounders Kieron Pollard James Franklin Thisara Perera Mitchell Johnson Amitoze Singh Sujit Nayak

Wicket Keepers Aditya Tare Davy Jacobs Dinesh Karthik Sushant Marathe Bowlers Harbhajan Singh Munaf Patel Abu Nechim Dhawal Kulkarni Yuzvendra Chahal Pawan Suyal Lasith Malinga Pragyan Ojha R. P. Singh Clint McKay Robin Peterson Rahul Shukla

Coach - Robin Singh Assistant Coach - Paras Mhambrey Captain - Sachin Tendulkar Vice Captain - Harbhajan Singh Bowling Coach/Mentor - Shaun Pollock Fielding Coach/Adviser - Jonty Rhodes Batting Consultant - Lance Klusener Physio - Patrick Farhart Physio - Robert Gibson Fitness Trainer - Ramji Srinivasan Video Analyst - CKM Dhananjai

 So this is  about the Men in Blue of INDIA .... Lets hope they emerge as the Title winners of IPL 2012 and see Sachin with the bat again in the shorter version  .......................

Bangaldesh cricket

Bangladesh might have lost to Pakistan by a few margin of runs but they have made the world to turn back towards them .

Remember they have chased India's target of 290 in 49 overs and also Sri Lanka's 212 in 40 overs .. These two teams were the last year 's world cup contenders.

Bangladesh had a lot of positives in this Asia cup like they have the ability to chase down a big target ,made crucial long partnerships at regular intervals,picked up wickets at times.

The Batsman's like Tamim Iqbal, Sakib al hasan ,Musfiqur Rahim had a spectacular time with bat against the major teams of Asia . Especially Tamim who made 3 half centuries in the league as well as a crucial 60 in the final against the Pakistanis.

Undoubtedly Sakib was awarded the man of the series who scored 459 at an average of 59 and picked up 6 wickets which  proved why he was picked up in the IPL.

Mashrafe Mortaza made a good comeback by picking a handy wickets in every match and so these were good positives for the Tigers....

Lets don't forget the next T20 world cup in 2014 will be held at Bangladesh. So these kind of tournaments and the BPL (Bangladesh premier league ) will make the tigers hunt for a strong contender for the title.

Tamim showing his bat towards the crowd after a cementing half century

But in the case of improvement for them ,they depend much over the two batsmen  Sakib and Tamim which is not good in many cases. So they need to train a lot in the nets as well as play in the foreign conditions.

But overall this is a great team effort from team which was suspected as a feeble voice....

In short they didn't won the Asia cup but won the millions of heart ...........

  

ASHES HISTORY

The small terracotta urn believed to have a burnt bail ashes  

The Ashes one of the bigger reasons for cricket to be the second most popular game in the world...........It is one of the most celebrated rivalries in international cricket and is currently played biennially, alternately in England and Australia.

Reason to be played : The series is named after a satirical obituary published in a British newspaper, The Sporting Times, in 1882 after a match at The Oval in which Australia beat England on an English ground for the first time. The obituary stated that English cricket had died, and the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia. The English media dubbed the next English tour to Australia (1882–83) as the quest to regain The Ashes.

During that tour a small terracotta urn was presented to England captain Ivo Bligh by a group of Melbourne women. The contents of the urn are reputed to be the ashes of an item of cricket equipment, a bail. 

 Replicas of the urn are often held aloft by victorious teams as a symbol of their victory in an Ashes series, but the actual urn has never been presented or displayed as a trophy in this way. Whichever side holds the Ashes, the urn normally remains in the Marylebone Cricket Club Museum at Lord's since being presented to the MCC by Bligh's widow upon his death.

                         

About that match :

         On their tour that year (1882) the Australians played just one Test, at The Oval in London. It was a low-scoring affair on a difficult wicket Australia made a mere 63 runs in its first innings, and England, led by A. N. Hornby, took a 38-run lead with a total of 101. In their second innings, the Australians, boosted by a spectacular run-a-minute 55 from Hugh Massie, managed 122, which left England only 85 runs to win.

The Australians were greatly demoralised by the manner of their second-innings collapse, but fast bowler Fred Spofforth, spurred on by some gamesmanship by his opponents, refused to give in. "This thing can be done," he declared. Spofforth went on to devastate the English batting, taking his final four wickets for only two runs to leave England just eight runs short of victory in one of the closest and most nail-biting finishes in the history of cricket.

When Ted Peate, England's last batsman, came to the crease, his side needed just ten runs to win, but Peate managed only two before he was bowled by Harry Boyle. An astonished Oval crowd fell silent, struggling to believe that England could possibly have lost to a colony. When it finally sank in, the crowd swarmed onto the field, cheering loudly and chairing Boyle and Spofforth to the pavilion.

colonists) to get the runs. Peate humorously replied, "I had no confidence in Mr Studd, sir, so thought I had better do my best."

The momentous defeat was widely recorded in the British press, which praised the Australians for their plentiful "pluck" and berated the Englishmen for their lack thereof. A celebrated poem appeared in Punch on Saturday, 9 September. The first verse, quoted most frequently, reads:

Well done, Cornstalks! Whipt us

Fair and square,

Was it luck that tript us?

Was it scare?

Kangaroo Land's 'Demon', or our own

Want of 'devil', coolness, nerve, backbone?

On 31 August, in the great Charles Alcock-edited magazine Cricket: A Weekly Record of The Game, there appeared a mock obituary:

SACRED TO THE MEMORY

OF

ENGLAND'S SUPREMACY IN THE

CRICKET-FIELD

WHICH EXPIRED

ON THE 29TH DAY OF AUGUST, AT THE OVAL

"ITS END WAS PEATE"

On 2 September a more celebrated mock obituary, written by Reginald Brooks under the pseudonym "Bloobs", appeared in The Sporting Times. It read:

In Affectionate Remembrance

of

ENGLISH CRICKET,

which died at the Oval

on

29th AUGUST 1882,

Deeply lamented by a large circle of sorrowing

friends and acquaintances

R.I.P.

N.B.—The body will be cremated and the

ashes taken to Australia.

 Bligh promised that on the tour to Australia in 1882–83, which he was to captain, he would regain "the ashes". He spoke of them several times over the course of the tour, and the Australian media quickly caught on. The three-match series resulted in a two-one win to England, notwithstanding a fourth match, won by the Australians, whose status remains a matter of ardent dispute.

The true and global revitalization of interest in the concept dates from 1903, when Pelham Warner took a team to Australia with the promise that he would regain "the ashes". As had been the case on Bligh's tour 20 years before, the Australian media latched fervently onto the term, and, this time it stuck. Having fulfilled his promise, Warner published a book entitled How We Recovered The Ashes. Although the origins of the term are not referred to in the text, the title served (along with the general hype created in Australia) to revive public interest in the legend. The first mention of "The Ashes" in Wisden Cricketers' Almanack occurs in 1905, while Wisden's first account of the legend is in the 1922 edition.

After their loss to Australia in 1882, England won the next eight series between the two sides, during which time they lost only four of the 22 Tests. Australia won an Ashes series for the first time in 1891–92, when they beat England 2–1. The 1932–33 tour was known as the "Bodyline series" as, in response to the talented Australian batsman Don Bradman, England developed a tactic of bowling quickly at the body of the batsmen with most of the fielders placed in a close ring on the leg side. England won the series, but the tactic prompted changes to the laws of cricket, and the Australians, buoyed by the batting of Bradman, regained the Ashes during the next series and then held them for six series, spanning nineteen years. It was during this period that the Australians travelled to England in 1948, and remained unbeaten during the whole tour, gaining the nickname of "The Invincibles". In addition to winning the five match Test series 4–0, Australia won or drew all of their 29 other matches against county and representative sides .
Australia have won more Ashes Tests than England, winning 123 of the 310 matches, compared to England's 100 victories. They have also won more Ashes series than England, winning on 31 occasions, once more than England. There have been five drawn series, and on four of these occasions, Australia have retained the Ashes due to being holders going into the series. England have retained the Ashes after a drawn series once. On only two occasions has a team won all the Tests in an Ashes series; Australia won all five matches in 1920–21, and then repeated the feat in 2006–07. England's largest winning margin in an Ashes series was in 1978–79, when they won 5–1. Both England and Australia have held the Ashes for eight series in a row, England doing so between 1882–83 and 1890, while Australia achieved the feat from 1989 to 2002–03.

 

Cricket history

It is believed that Cricket was started in England in 1300 AD.It started as a game of shepherds and became popular among other classes in 18th century AD.

Cricket was introduced to North America via the English colonies in the 17th century, probably before it had even reached the north of England. In the 18th century it arrived in other parts of the globe. It was introduced to the West Indies by colonists and to India by British East India Company  mariners in the first half of the century. It arrived in Australia almost as soon as colonization began in 1788. New Zealand and South Africa followed in the early years of the 19th century.

After some time a club known as "Merylebone Cricket Club(MCC)" was formed at Lords in London.  Cricket became popular in Australia due to British influence there.

The first official cricket test match was played in the year 1877 between Australia and England in Melbourne.

The first ever international cricket game was between the USA and Canada in 1844 .The following year, the Australians toured England for the first time and were a spectacular success. No Tests were played on that tour but more soon followed and, at The Oval in 1882, arguably the most famous match of all time gave rise to The Ashes. South Africa became the third Test nation in 1889.

When some other countries started played Cricket Imperial Cricket Conference was formed in 1909 which gave birth to International Cricket Conference in 1956.The first One Day International cricket match was played in the year 1971 between England and Australia in Melbourne.

The first World Cup on one day matches was played in 1975 in London. West Indies won the World Cup beating Australia 17 runs in the final at Lords.

From that time cricket had a huge growth in limited but had a vast development in it ..............

                      To be continued............................

Comments are expected from my readers...............

Cricket in Olympics

Olympic Logo

There has been only one appearance of cricket in Olympics and this feat has occurred in 1900 Paris Olympics. The only Gold medal winner for cricket was the English against the French .I think they had an epic match.


The main reason for not including cricket in Olympics is that the time for a single match to end is nearly 10 hours. But cricket has become a shorter game because of the introduction of the T20 format. It is now just a matter of three hours and if the Olympic village has two cricket grounds, then it is possible to award the medals within 7-10 days with all the 12 teams participating.


This could be a better chance of development of the game in many parts of the world where the roots hasn't reached . 


The sad thing is that the Olympic committee has just said they would consider the induction of cricket game only in the 2022 Olympics. Why so long? My God!! This time Olympics is going to be held in the birth place of cricket but without it. :(

All said, this is just a feeble consideration for ICC . If they can give a window of 1 month for the CLT20 every year, why can't they give a window for the Olympics every four years.? 


Lets hope our voices make the game we Indians love to make it in Olympics as soon as possible !!


and we hope the men in BLUE come home with the Olympic medals around their necks.


Comments are expected from my readers .......