Indian Premier League (IPL)

[prasen9]

Does Mohnish Parmar still chuck? Seems like that there is no point in having him. Maybe some like Abdullah or Shukla who can bat a bit should play.

[Sandeep]

With little or no effort to find able reinforcements in batting and bowling departs is costing DC big time. They are simply hoping that one of their international players will click. Terrible scouting job from DC. And I don't understand their misplaced trust on Suman!!! He is such a misfit for 20-20 that he should have been dropped right in the beginning, or atleast send him in the top to stabilize the batting!!! He is horrible down the order.

DC shouldn't have let Rayudu go to Mumbai and should have signed Ranadeb Bose. That could have at least given them some options.

[PKBasu]

Nice to see Ganguly gradually find some form. Obviously, playing domestic cricket occasionally (with much consistency) wasn't really enough to prepare for the quality of bowling in the IPL. He has taken time to get into form, but the 50 two matches ago was a good step, and now he has played a superb match-winning innings against Deccan Chargers. Hopefully, we'll have many more like this in the second half of IPL3.

[Sandeep]

For me, more than Ganguly's form it highlights Deccan's terrible bowling attack. I think we just saw Ganguly's best innings in IPL-2010 and that should be it for him in the rest of the tournament.

[PKBasu]

Bangalore have an embarrassment of riches, with Pietersen, Kallis, Steyn and Cameron White playing today (and Ross Taylor waiting in the wings, alongside Boucher!). Uthappa keeping today, ahead of Boucher and Goswami.

[prasen9]

Brett Lee has been very bad in this tournament. I do not know if Punjab should carry him any further. He has no wickets in 3 matches and has leaked over 10 runs per over *on average*. The promising Juan Theron is out of the team to allow Lee play. I say give him one more match but not any more after that. This season is gone but Punjab should try to figure out if Theron is the future or not. Give him some chances.

[Kumar]

Chennai scored 246 runs, highlight being a century from Vijay (this was a guy who was dropped in favor of parthiv patel)... Rajasthan fought back nicely and came with in 20 runs of winning it...

Whatz up with Chennai? Why the hell would they pick Anirudh Srikanth over someone like AB Karthik or even C Ganapathi who is a decent all rounder.. Does it have something to do with his Last name? Has anyone watched him... I have followed him thru scores and he doesn't have the eye-catching stats of his colleagues in TN team...Bollinger is a welcome addition... Hussey may not get much chance, between Albie Morkel and Hussey, I prefer Morkel.. He shined with bat and did not have good time with ball though... If they have to give Hussey a chance, Hayden could be dropped?

[genius]

i was not impressed by arun karthik's brief display at all.

ganapathy is a ranji player at best.

only a few days ago, i was wishing vijay play some eye catching knock. it has been answered.

the selectors have been left with mud on their faces.Picking kohli and jadeja vs australia when uthappa was rotting away along with rohit.

kohli is doing his best parading his skills fearlessly.but its just a matter of time before he finds long on.

uthappa is striking the ball so phenomenally he changes the whole script from 12 runs an hour to 7 runs an hour.

That's the difference between players of the 24-25 age group and players below 23.

[puneets]

prasen - are you ghostwriting gambhir's columns ?

http://www.cricinfo.com/ipl2010/content ... 54634.html

[Kumar]

i was not impressed by arun karthik's brief display at all.

ganapathy is a ranji player at best.

only a few days ago, i was wishing vijay play some eye catching knock. it has been answered.

.

Genius, I know Ganapathy is a ranji player... but he may be the best choice among the local talents.. unless u prefer Joginder... I haven't watched Anirudh play, What is your opinion about him... Sandeep, you could also chime in... Is Anirudh worth all the opportunities he is getting (i am almost seeing the parallel to Rohan Gavaskar)

Deccan Chargers are floundering... Unless VVS can change something, he may have to retire from T20...

[prasen9]

prasen - are you ghostwriting gambhir's columns ?

I would have been honored to have done so Fining Gambhir was nonsense. Players should be able to say whatever they want out of the field including criticizing umpires. Since when is calling ordinary opponents "ordinary" so bad? It shows Gambhir's lack of class or whatever, but, everyone cannot be and should not be expected to be as classy as Tendulkar wrt what they say. I would actually slightly differ with Gambhir though. I rate Adam Voges quite highly though not high enough to be in the ODI team ahead of those that are ahead of him. But, Voges is better than ordinary. As for the rest of the bats: they are indeed ordinary. It is indeed Warne's genius that gets whatever he gets out of the Rajasthan team.

The Indian batting leaderboard (by avg., over 100 runs) now: Tendulkar, Vijay, Raina, NV Ojha, Uthappa, Dhoni, Y.Pathan, Kohli
The bowling leaderboard (most wickets): P. Ojha, Zaheer, Mishra, Harbhajan, Vinay Kumar

Murali Vijay has put in some phenomenal performances in the last few matches. Bad timing. He should consider himself unlucky at not having made the Twenty20 team. Note the spinners taking wickets Ok, I am biased I like P. Ojha quite a lot and think he has been given a raw deal in tests and ODIs. It is quite alarming that Sehwag, Gambhir, Yuvraj, and Rohit are not in very good form and they will form the backbone of the T20 WC team (along with a few others).

[suresh]

The Gambhir episode clearly shows that IPL is more about money-making than cricket -- Gambhir's matter of fact comment is thus seen as something that can potentially hurt attendance at RR games and hence it is a level one offense.


I was at he CSK-RR game yesterday thanks to my son arm-twisted me into taking him to the game. Vijay was awesome on a (flat) pitch -- his cut six of Tait was a sight to behold -- it was not the hard cut that Sehwag/Tendulkar employ but a more conventional shot. I didn't quite understand why Dhoni sent Albie Morkel ahead of himself. In hindsight, I realise that Albie needs time to settle down for his shots and Dhoni gambled on him doing well and succeeded. CSK were clearly a bowler short after both the spinners (Murali and Jakati) were being hit around with ease by Ojha and Watson (a great addition to RR). Albie Morkel cannot be the fifth bowler -- he is at best a part-time bowler who can deliver two overs. It is hard to believe why/how Anirudha makes the team -- I would rather have Gony/Balaji to take his place. Bollinger is a great addition to CSK -- he pulled off an awesome catch to dismiss Yusuf Pathan by throwing the ball up in the air before going out of bounds and then coming back and catching it. His bowling gave CSK the win -- there was no other Chennai bowler who was having any impact. CSK will be hard pressed to win three out of the remaining five matches to have a chance to make it to the SF.

RR are an ordinary team with an extraordinary captain who has the ability to get his players to over-achieve and doesn't meet a beat on strategy. The addition of Watson bolsters their batting and I predict that they will be a tough team to beat.

[prasen9]

Albie Morkel cannot be the fifth bowler -- he is at best a part-time bowler who can deliver two overs.

I never thought there would be a day where I would hear some comment like this, but, very soon maybe we will have part-time bowlers who can deliver one over each and four of them together will be thought of being a capable fifth bowler. I have not watched this year's IPL on the web even though my brother says it is on youtube. I am not that interested, maybe, because KKR is not really a viable team but I doubt that is really the reason. However, I am not among those who think that Test cricket or ODIs are the real deal and would not lament the demise and extinction of either. But some things are indeed ridiculous in IPL, like these strategy breaks, etc. I use my little spare time watching NBA basketball these weeks.

[PKBasu]

I missed watching most of both matches yesterday, but Vijay's seems to have been a stupendous innings. He has always been an attacking batsman, so there is no reason for him to be considered a test specialist. As for Srikkanth Anirudha, I too was skeptical about him, but he has been one of the stars of domestic cricket this year (doing well in the Ranji too, not just in limited-overs cricket), so I think he has earned his stripes. I hope he is persisted with, because the lad is talented. Competition to get into the CSK team is intense though, and I don't think Parthiv should be out of the team for long...

[PKBasu]

Rayudu played a superb hand for Mumbai, especially towards the end of the innings (which I did manage to watch live). Pollard was good too, but Rayudu played a classy, well-planned innings that exploded in the final couple of overs -- usually with copybook hitting as well. Very nice to see the former under-19 star finally come into his own after several years in the wilderness (going from Hyderabad to Andhra in the Ranji -- failing there -- and then moving to the ICL, where he gradually reached form after a hesistant start; the second year of ICL stagnation with no cricket really hurt a lot of the ICL players, including him).