Indian Premier League (IPL)

[prasen9]

Yes.  I would have a hard time cheering very loudly for Ponting but my subdued cheering would grow as time heals the bad taste in the mouth.  And I was not elated at all when I came to know that the good-guy/bad-guy Agarkar was in the Kolkata team.  He did have his good-guy avatar out today, which was good.  Hopefully he will avoid his infuriatingly inconsistent and profligate ways.  Similarly, I would not boo my favorites Sachin, Shewag, Laxman, and maybe Yuvraj, but I could certainly boo (lightheartedly, of course) other Indian players Jaffer, Dhoni, Dravid, Zaheer, Irfan, etc.  Of course, over the season, I will start booing everybody who is not in the team I follow.

p.s. of course, a special decibel will be reserved for Symmonds and Hayden.

[S_K_S]

Great to see Parthiv Patel back on international TV. Holding his own with Hayden to begin with. Loved the three 4's of Sri.

LOL did you see bemused look on Lee's face when he bowled Hayden off the free hit. You could see him wanting to celebrate and having to hold himself back.

Great ball to get rid of PP

intelligent bowling by Irfan to get rid of Hayden. How is Dhoni playing for Chennai? Tata's should have got into the act and had a Jamshedpur team

[Kumar]

Fielding standards is abysmal. Murali made a mess of a catch.. Chennai scored 240 runs and forgotten man M Hussey scored a century

[puneets]

prasen - During yesterday's match, it looked like Ponting made a conscious effort to bond with his teammates, and that made quite a sight. At the fall of each wicket, he was the first one to come and hug the bowler, with a huge smile on his face. Looks like he has realized that his image needs a makeover in India.

[PKBasu]

Yes, Ponting's broad smile was noticeable throughout the game, especially when his skipper got each of his two wickets.

Amazing batting by Chennai today. Hussey, Raina, Badri were all superb. Putting on 240+ in 20 overs is spectacular stuff. The catch that Murali just missed was an incredibly difficult one. The team names are truly ridiculous, though. Today we have Kings XI taking on Super Kings...say what?

[puneets]

Redskins Cheerleaders Shake Up Cricket In Modest India
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 03577.html

[nballa]

are you guys really as naive as you make out to be?
they brought in the boundaries by at least a few meters for this circus.
mohali had huge swathes of green outside the boundaries and most of the sixes hit in the first two games would be comfortably held in the deep. 30+ sixes in two games tells the story, hell i can plunk a couple off jiljil sharmas 120 kmph lollies. i can understand their desperation to make this into a success but bringing the boundaries in such a long way to get huge scores is a cheap gimmick.

[S_K_S]

Rajasthan are definitely the worst team after day 2. Can't quite see how they are going to put the runs on the board and the bowling is not going to keep scores down. I doubt there will be spinning tracks for Warne.

The other team to lose today, Punjab, have less to worry about. It was a brilliant innings by Hussey and 240 is almost impossible when chasing . Pyschologicaly knowing that you have to get 2 runs per ball must be daunting for the chasing side. If Yuvi had stayed a bit longer it might have been done.

So far quality wise I would rate the teams as:

Kolkata (Awesome batting and a balanced bowling attack)
Chennai (Awesome batting; less of a bowling attack)
Punjab (Good batting and bowling)
Bangalore (All depends on Dravid & Kallis; 2 is not enough)
Rajasthan (Relegation fodder)

& my team the Deccan Chargers take to the field tomorrow 

[PKBasu]

Rajasthan do look a pretty weak side, but they looked worse yesterday because they were facing McGrath (who bowled the first maiden of the tournament, which turned out to be a wicket-maiden) -- and two key batsmen (Yusuf Pathan and Shane Watson) were run out early. Kaif looked totally out of sorts for this version of the game, but perhaps he was planning to unleash some strokes after settling in (but simply didn't manage to settle in!). Munaf, Watson, Warne, Yusuf, Ravindra Jadeja, Darren Lehman and Trivedi constitute a reasonable bowling attack -- albeit a bit spin-heavy.
Bangalore look pretty weak for this version of the game as well.

[PKBasu]

For Punjab, Yuvi's dismissal proved fatal (holing out in the deep off Joginder), especially as Katich never looked likely to match the required run-rate. But until Murali and Oram bowled a couple of tight overs at the end, Punjab were actually staying in line with the target, and the match stayed exciting until their 18th over. It's always better to have competitive matches, rather than the one-sided ones like Bangalore's capitulation to Kolkata.

[genius]

Albie and ntini will play for chennai later. but i would have preferred steyn or morne. The bowling will revolve around murali unless nitini gets a seamer's wicket.  how balaji's current state is anyone's guess.

steyn certainly could have made a difference to bangalore yesterday. even bracken was injured. they also have misbah coming in  and ross taylor.

The style of cricket played by hussey and raina would be required to make the league sucessful.it was fast and furious. raina looked really good. he seems to have improved a notch or two. it won't be a bad idea to bring him for the shorter games. Badrinath played well too and he can  play at this level.

these younger players are making kaif look outdated with their incredible hitting. but equally can they an innings and game for test foremost?

was disappointed that pankaj and sangwan did not get a chance to play today.

[prasen9]

The faster they make the field bigger the better.  Very soon they will realize that scores of 240 render a match meaningless because the other team has almost no chance, and really a bit more balance between the bat and the ball would make the matches better.  Even when Punjab was chasing, at no time did I really think that Chennai would lose.  This is not to take away from McCallum and Hussey for they had to play such innings and not many of the others did.

-pm

p.s. I guess, for once, I am with nballa on this one.

[akmohanty]

watching the kolkata-Hyderabad match right now. What a crazy match, on a pitch spitting venom  and the lights going off with 3 overs to go.  after a half-hour delay, it's due to start again with the lights coming back a shortwhile ago.
with all the money poured in and the best grounds at their disposal, see what BCCI has managed to dish out 

[puneets]

The pitch was certainly below par, a dustbowl,  with uneven bounce and balls turning viciously. At one point, it looked like the umpires were planning to call the match off, but then they relented.

[prasen9]

I am not defending the pitch, but this shows once again that pitches where bowlers get assistance makes for closer matches and more excitement more often than not.  Perhaps the assistance should come in the form of extra bounce, swing, and/or consistent spin, but there should be as much hue and cry about the flat, dead, batting wickets as much there is for broken pitches.  Imho, Chennai pitch was the worst among the three test pitches in the recent series.  That is, given a choice to play Tests and bury it on a pitch as in Chennai and that in Kanpur, I would always prefer the latter even if India has no spinners worth their salt and three Dennis Lilee's in their side.  Of course, Speed's ICC complained about the Kanpur pitch and not the Chennai one (for the record, I have no love or love lost wrt Kanpur or Chennai and am not biased for/against one or the other, as of course, I am for Kolkata).