Indian Cricket League

I had promised to write about ICL, the so called ‘rebel league’, earlier in my old blog. I managed to watch few matches live in the internet. In fact the first ICL series was available live in msn, but not this series. Everytime, msn advertises, watch the game live, but it is ever loading. Typical msn. But I managed to find another link where I could watch the games live for the first few days. The live matches were not available after that, but luckily the highlights were available.

Now coming to ICL, first of all my sincere apologies to Mr. Kapil Dev, for criticising him earlier. It is only sad that people with wrong intentions have the power. You know who I mean. In any case ICL is alive and happening, though not receiving the attention it is due. I make it a point to discuss the matches with my dear friend. As ever cricket is my priority and I do not mind the team or format. So then, I frantically looked at the points table everyday and made the calculations to check where the Superstars will end up (Chennai Superstars, ofcourse) after the league matches. Well, it was a fantastic performance by the defending champions, especially after being at the bottom of the table at one point of time. Now, they are in the third position and square off with Hyderabad Heroes in the 2nd semis. Heroes are a good bunch of players, and they have slightly better chance of beating the Lahore Badshahs than do the Superstars. Of course, barring a miracle, I do not see Badshash having any hiccups at this stage of the series. It will be really unfair if they lose just this one game and get kicked out of the tournament.

Having said that, I will obviously support Chennai, and after all they are the defending champions. A word about the team. There are no big names, no real superstars, of course except Bevan, Harvey and Arnold. Harvey has been the beacon, with Arnold coming good in this series finally, and Thiru Kumaran has been the spearhead in both the series. Rajagopal Sathish has proved to be a good batsman and ofcourse not to forget the fantastic starts that Vignesh has been providing.

ICL may be crushed, defamed, barred, but it is here to stay. Thanks to all the bollywood glam girls who have taken time off to shake their legs once in a while, the ICL team and not to forget the people who go to the stadium to watch it. I almost forgot to mention the role of Crincinfo. I was very glad initially when it gave the commentary as usual in the front page. But it relegated it to back burner, when more pressing issues surfaced, like the naming of new CEO for ICC, where BCCI tried to flex its muscles to name Mr. Bindra as the successor. Anyway, Cricinfo does give live commentary, but you need to navigate through the ICL link to reach there. I am eagerly awaiting the semis now. It is just a matter of few weeks before IPL starts, and everything will fade away from our memory, including the South Africa series.

Dismal start to a Test Series!

But for Veeru’s brilliance, the Chennai Test was a big yawn. It was a pleasure to watch the master at work, cutting, driving, at will, almost took the match away from the visitors single handedly. The fact that he ran hard even at the fag end of the day, showed his mental fitness more than anything. Now he joins a very elite group of batsmen, Don and Lara, who have scored two triples in their career. For all we may know, Veeru might score one more, even if not many more.

Veeru’s belligerence eclipsed everything, including Amla’s and Mckenzie’s fifties and hundreds. But being a Dravid fan, the next thing that comes to my mind is his entry into the 10,000 run club. One set of people thought that he was terribly slow, whereas others thought that he was a calming influence on Sehwag. In any case, he was his usual self and it would not have made any difference in the end, with such a lifeless track. I hope the curators try and prepare a wicket which has something for the bowlers. After all our recent wins have all come in bouncy tracks or tracks with movement. Anyway, the Chennai crowd deserved the treat, so far the best crowd in the whole of India. Best in terms of behaviour and best in terms of Cricketing knowledge. If you have any doubts, you should do well to remember that the Test match, when Pak won in 1999, would have taken place in an empty stand had it been in any other stadium.

Hello Everyone!

Welcome to my new blog at WordPress.com. I have decided to offshore my Cricket musings from Sanky’s Virtual Space. Thanks for visiting this site. By the way, I have promised myself to write more. I have been giving myself a lame excuse that I feel like writing only in my Laptop. As a result it has been over 2 months since I wrote anything. The time has come to run my fingers frenetically on the keyboard about a thing am passionate about, Cricket……