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Despite having possibly the most balanced team in the Indian Premier League, Chennai SuperKings contrived to lose and that too in a pathetic fashion in the semi-finals.I am pretty sure every Chennai fan would have strangled M.S.Dhoni to death, if possible as soon as they saw the starting XI for the match. I cannot not rant and vent out my feelings of depression on seeing the same, please excuse me for this post.

1.There was no logical explanation for Jacob Oram being an "important player" . Despite never being used as a bowler in the league stages, the captain believed that when called to do a job Oram could deliver the goods.The reasoning would have been extremely sound if Oram had been used consistently throughout the tournament, been used to bowling such a thing called as "dibbly-dobbly"/millitary pace/ medium fast.It clearly showed when Oram could not even hit the deck and managed to save some trouble by using his expertise to concede 14 runs in 4 balls.

2. Mike Hussey. It is probably only in a country like Australia that a player of the calibre of Mike Hussey could be kept out of the national team till he was 28( 30 in case of tests ! ). Irrespective of however excellent Jacob Oram is , nothing should have kept Hussey out of the Chennai Super Kings team,especially after he made himself available despite the taxing international schedule for the knockout stages. Form or no form , any Chennai school kid knows who Mr.Cricket is , only the man in charge doesn't.

3. The love for small town boys has been carried a bit too far. Joginder Sharma and Manpreet Singh Gony do not win you matches. The captain seems to be in love with "rural development", but you are not being paid for that, you are being paid to win. M.S.Gony's 2 overs cost 23 runs, it always has. For no fault of his, Sudeep Tyagi was missing from the line-up, his 2 overs might have cost the same, but it probably would not have been the rank long-hops and full tosses that deserved to be smacked. Tyagi seemed to have mastered the art of bowling 2 overs in the start, taking a wicket and getting done with the job ( except for maybe McCullum). This was not right and might have lead to the team's victory, hence drop him !

4.Taking charge was the captains responsibility and man did he do it well.Throughout the 2 seasons of IPL, Subramaniam Badrinath was grossly under-utilised.A player of his mould is best coming in at no.3/4 in the first ten overs after the fall of wickets, not in the 18th over when you use your ingenious batting technique to swat balls down the track. But again this might have lead to better performance and hence forget that.The innings in the semi-final was excruciatingly painful to watch, the consolidation and building up was much better left in the hands of Badrinath, the "slam-bang-thank-you-ma'm" is something which players like Badri (I should add Dravid too here) cannot learn.

I do have my own theory which can back this up, the performance of Badri could have cost one very good friend of the captain a place in the test side. Badri is due a place in the national test team, the fact that he fails to suck up to Dhoni is the cause for him not being there is disheartening. Smacking Stuart Broad for 36 runs in a T20 match does not make you fit to become a test player.

The failure was in no part the fault of the players, the fault lies in all its entirety with the "Cool Dude" - "Win my Love Songs " - "I can field as badly as you guys too" Captain Fantastic Dhoni. Being Cool is over-rated *. It does not bode well if you stand around and smile while your team is dropping catches left, right and center . In the semi-final,where you have a small possibility of winning, this demands some intensity/display of emotion/inspiration from the captain, which was very clearly missing.In sharp contrast at the other end the captain was Anil Kumble and you could clearly see the difference in attitude.

I have always stood with the fact that Dhoni has been riding his luck. The current Indian team is probably the best ever to play in a long time, we have a good pack of pacers up front who can perform in any set of conditions, few decent spinners ( according to the cricinfo Page 2 resume one of them is the best spinner for India abroad after Irfan Pathan ) and a batting line-up which no longer revolves around one man.This team does not need an inspirational/special/magical/made in heavens captain, it will probably perform the same if the "match ke pehle first ball" captain continues to captain the team throughout the T20 World Cup.

At the end of the tournament, none of the teams looked like champion material.Though, I really feel for Anil Kumble, under him the Royal Challengers were a different team, he did his best and the others just could not deliver when it mattered. The IPL is yet to be won by an Indian captain - Sachin can never be a great captain, Dhoni's luck has run out, Kumble needs an ounce of luck and Yuvraj needs to do something other than take hat-tricks (Sehwag/Gambhir dont deserve a mention) .It is going to take sometime coming , but I hope it comes soon.

P.S:

1.The T-20 "Champions League" beckons and in all probability that will be a bigger farce (or in Lalit Modi's words "Marketing Success" ) than the IPL . Do the rules of the IPL stick there too ? - Not more than 4 overseas players ? Isn't that putting Deccan/RCB/Delhi to a disadvantage ? If you know the answer, please leave a comment.

2.*Thanks to Srikanth, my PS team-mate for this.

'Men in Blue' are back in business. We have a new young captain, the members are standing up to the occasion and the young guns are staking a claim to oust seniors from the regular team ( but with the great BCCI selection panel will never happen :)). The entire country is back to its usual routine, rooting for the team at a world cup even though it is a new and much shorter version of the game they are just getting familiar with - T 20 .

T 20 is designed for the spectators, no longer do they have to endure slow painstaking batting. There is complete entertainment for the 3 odd hours it goes on.Teams are no longer in the pavillion, it is the dug-out instead. You move from your seat and the game has turned on its head. There is no changing of channels between advertisements. Everyone seems to be in a hurry to finish it off. But, where has the beauty of the game gone ? Where have the coaching manuals gone ? Technique,timing, placement- where have all these terms disappeared ? You can enjoy the game, but you cannot avoid the ironies of it. Most of the nerve wracking situations in the games in the past 2 weeks have been resolved in the weirdest fashions - edges flying to third man, free hits and what not. Despite the belief that orthodox techniqe would fail at this level of the game, it has turned out to be pretty much the opposite. Such batsmen have been the best to watch. A pity that the trinity from India preferred to sit out, the form all three of them were in England, it might have been a greart sight to watch them score through sheer brilliance .Exquisite shots have been played, runs have been scored all in the proper cricketing fashion( only six of "those maginificent 36 runs" was a mishit ). But the young blood does prefer to take the risk element and score runs in their own fashion- the ugly unsure way ( Gautam Gambhir in the indian team for one, all his edges have landed in no mans land so far ). The bowlers though have been the surprise of the tournament, expected to be made mince meat of, but have come out on the top on many occasions. Most bowlers have adapted well to the format, the have realised that they will be smacked for runs, but the ugly hitting is bound to fail at some time. Stuart Clark,Mornie Morkel and our own R P Singh being examples. It is a great venture , but should not be the future of the game for it destroys it beauty.


At my hostel, a room with one TV whose channels change on its own and volume cannot be adjusted is the place to be during the games. Despite having tests, showing the regular BITsian attitue we have all been there standing to applaud the indian team in it's victories, to appreciate the fighting spirit of the team. We have won from improbable situtaions. But there is a topic that crops up whenever the team starts performing within the audience - Match Fixing. There are wickets tumbling for South Africa chasing a small total and the consent was that this could be the result of nothing but match fixing. How else could the Indian team make the mighty africans eat dust ?

Everyone seemed to agree , then why the watch the match in the first place !! If you think that the match is fixed and there has been external speculation that lead to the result how can you enjoy the sport ? In any game, the result should be and is farily decided on the ground. In case you do not believe such things happen, do not follow the game is my suggestion.It is my belief that every sportsman gives his all when on the field and lets nothing external influence him . The result is a mystery to the true supporter till the game is over. Celebrating their teams hard earned victory at the end of the game is what a true supporter hopes for while the duration of the match not a victory earned through the back door . Such a sight is what can be seen in our common rooms at the end of every game. Despite all the doubts of match fixing, not a guy moves from his seat till the last ball has been bowled and victory assured. That is the essence of sport and what a supporter/follower/fan celebrates everyday.


P.S:
Of course, attempts to taunt the opponent and induce a change in the course of the game are plenty - Flintoff pulling one on Yuvraj and the reply will haunt Stuart Broad for his lifetime, sadly in another game what Materazzi did and Zizou's response wil also haunt a lot of lives .

That is the title of the autobiography of my favourite cricketer of this age- Rahul Dravid. Readership seems to have increased over the past few posts and I am sure that by the end of this post, I will end up angering most of you who worship the one and only GOD of Indian Cricket- His Majesty Sachin Tendulkar.

Dravid stepped down as the captain of the 'Men in Blue' a few days ago. After what most cricket experts would have termed as a 'safe, non- aggressive' stint. The period under Greg Chappel was even attributed as one in which he had absolutely no control over the team. Also he also lead India to it's worst performace in the world cup for a long long time - one which was supposed to be the swansong of the mighty trinity.Of course, there were a few lucky moments which included test series victories in West Indies, England and a maiden test victory in South Africa.

To me the highpoint Dravid's captaincy will be the declaration of the Indian 2nd innings at Lahore ( I think ) against Pakistan leaving His Majesty 5 runs short of a magnificient double ton. And this was when he became a stand-in captain. That was the best sign of intent any captain could show - the team always comes first, no individual however high or low gets a preference. Dravid was always the team player, both as a captain as well as a member . He did everything demanded from him - keeping wickets , open the innings, bat as low as No:6 or 7. Each demand opened up a new dimension to his batting and also delivered a treat to the eyes of fans. There were no complaints, no requests for the captain to change the team's plans or press conferences called. India defeating Australia at Adelaide -a 233 in the first innings, Dravid deservingly came back to score the winning runs - a glorious cover drive ( show innumerable times on espn star ) and some 50 odd runs in the 2nd innings. And lest we forget THE Kolkata test match, the famous victory scripted by Laxman's magnificient innings and the once efficent turbanators doosras, but there too Dravid had a small contribution in changing the script of the match.The number of innings he has played on foreign soil that changed the course of the match are just too many to list. He has always been the man who does all the work, but gets close to no praise, is always criticised for a failure in a single innings. But Sachin can always be depended upon to come back from his failures and rescue the team ( for Dravid has a human elbow, but he has a tennis elbow :P ). Lest I forget to point out he played in some 96 that the indian national team played without being dropped/rested or fitness troubles since his test debut. Nobody else on the international circuit holds such a record.He has scored five double centuries with each one being bigger than the previous one.

As far as captaincy goes, Dravid has always been compared with the most successful captain in Indian cricket- the prince of calcutta . But it was very obvious that both captains had completely different styles - while one wore his heart on his sleeve, the other always had the same calm face. Dravid never displayed aggression enough to satisfy the pundits, he seemed to be silent always. But the team that he took over consisted of a few seniors who doubted themselves, got frequently injured , youngsters who had had lived upto expectations cemented their place in the team and a new bunch of bowlers for every test match.Under Ganguly's captaincy he scored nearly 23% of the total runs put up by India (with a batting average of 102.84) in the 21 Test matches won. This is the highest percentage contribution by any batsman in Test cricket history in matches won under a single captain where the captain has won more than 20 Tests. But he could not repeat the same in his captaincy nor could anybody in the team help their captain in troubled times.

Now, I shall dwell on a topic which I will forever argue with my best friends. Many of them would have already heard me saying everytyhing below at various points of time. Remember the day after the declaration the front page of The Hindu had Sachin complaining about the decision . Another instance - Sachin being forced to play at No 4, after repeated failures , he just went public that he was 'unhappy' with the team management for not giving him his favourite position. The team could fail but not him ! The 2003 world cup - Sachin was indeed the man of the tournament playing brilliantly in every match , but the so called battle of the world cup - Brett Lee Vs Sachin Tendulkar just never happened because he was out in the 4th ball of the innings when the team required a massive contribution from him to even stand a chance of chasing 358. I have no memories of how much Dravid scored or how he got out, but plainly Sachin may deserve praise but not all of whatever is showered upon him. As recently as the England test series - an innings in which Dravid and Karthik had scored something in the 80 + regions and Sachin some 40's the report had a single mention of both of them but every single stroke - offence or defence had been admired by the writer.I shall stop it here for I do agree that Sachin is a great player without doubt, but not as great he is projected to be is my arguement.

If the captaincy of the now strong Indian team goes to Sachin , there is a course of possible events that might have lead to this - Sachin dropping a hint to the selectors/ Pawar/Dravid that he might consider taking up captaincy once again before he calls it a day. Either Dravid would have been commanded to step down or he would have done so graciously. Doesnt that seem like a brilliant story ?? Of course it is ( I at least hope it is ), I made it up for I am no lover of Sachin Tendulkar and seemed to make an interesting end for this long long post of mine :).

But if all this does mean that I get to see more of the ever stylish innings built from brick by the great indian wall, I am all for it .