T20 WorldCup is fast approaching and its time for us to cheer and support Team India. It will be great fun to see the same people backing their foes couple of weeks back in the IPL.
One thing is sure that its going to be exciting than the 1st edition. Australia and SouthAfrica have already made their intentions clear that they are not going to take it easy. The success of 2007 worldcup and the mega success of IPL has proved that the format is here to stay and the top teams are going to fight for the top spot.With the success of IPL, victory here means a lot in terms of domestic T20 championships and replicate IPL like formats in their respective nation. so its going to be keenly contested WorldCup.
I feel there is no clear favorites for the 2009 WorldCup and there's going to be a lot of upsets and surprise winners. There are lot of new names in most of the teams but for Team India and the success of these new talents will be the defining factor.
India has distinct advantage of having many match winners in this T20 format. Sehwag,Yuvraj,Dhoni,Raina & Y.Pathan can win matches single handedly and Gambhirs form will decide the fate our campaign. Ishant,R.P.Sighn,Praveen & Zaheer should be doing well in helpful conditions. I will never pick an inconsistent performer like Irfan but i am sure he will play a few games and can spring a few surprise in helpful conditions. Harbhajan & Ohja form a good spinning options for Dhoni.Overall we have a very well balanced team and it all depends on how well we cope with the conditions and potential is transformed to performance and most importantly how well Dhoni uses his talented side.
For cricket fanatics like us, its going to be yet another 2-3 weeks of sleepless nights after the month long IPL carnival. Most of the matches will start at 5.30 UK time which is 11 in the night for us and true cricket fans will try their best to keep them awake till the end of the match. For general public this years event will not be a discussion item as they might not watch the matches live. The Newspapers will carry only partial scores and detailed scores will be available only on the next day which will be too late as our TV News channels will break the news.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Dhoni digs CSK's graveyard ........
It has been very hard to see that CSK went down without a real fight, as a CSK fanatic it was very tough to digest the fact that csk did not make it to the finals.
I am not going to write about the way they performed but the strategic failure in picking the XI for the big semi-finals based on commonsense and the facts which sent CSK packing out of the tournament.
I attribute this defeat is the reflection of Mr Cool Dhoni putting himself ahead of the team in many instances in this tournament. This was a open fact through out the tournament, it was purely some over-smart captaincy,unimaginable team selection and no intervention from the think tanks of CSK cricket management to set thing right at least at some point of the tournament.
Specially on the semi-finals, why would some one pick Goni ahead of a spinner in spite of his very poor performance with the ball and pathetic fielding. Dhoni yet again proved he backs few guys and goes with the instinct and not by one's performance. The whole cricket world knows that it has been spinners all through the tournament but he preferred Goni ahead of Ashwin who bowled brilliantly in the low scoring match against KXIP. Why to pick Oram again and again when he is not going to get his time to settle down in batting with the strong top order and he has been listless with his bowling. We could have picked Thusara or Ntini (sad that we did not use the leading SA bowler in even a single match) as a pure bowler and if this is not acceptable he could have used him as a new ball bowler and picked Ashwin in place of Goni, we would have had many options in the middle overs. If dhoni plans to bat up at No3 & No 4 there is no use in having both Badri and Oram in the side just for fielding.
Finally if Dhoni is going to shuffle his batting order very often in any form of the game in favor of himself, not only CSK but even Indian Team will suffer in time. We saw this happen in Kitply and AsiaCup finals with some dour batting from Dhoni but there was some justification for that but the kind of moves he made in the IPL is debatable. The sad side of all this is neither CSK nor India has a good backup for captaincy .
I am not going to write about the way they performed but the strategic failure in picking the XI for the big semi-finals based on commonsense and the facts which sent CSK packing out of the tournament.
I attribute this defeat is the reflection of Mr Cool Dhoni putting himself ahead of the team in many instances in this tournament. This was a open fact through out the tournament, it was purely some over-smart captaincy,unimaginable team selection and no intervention from the think tanks of CSK cricket management to set thing right at least at some point of the tournament.
Specially on the semi-finals, why would some one pick Goni ahead of a spinner in spite of his very poor performance with the ball and pathetic fielding. Dhoni yet again proved he backs few guys and goes with the instinct and not by one's performance. The whole cricket world knows that it has been spinners all through the tournament but he preferred Goni ahead of Ashwin who bowled brilliantly in the low scoring match against KXIP. Why to pick Oram again and again when he is not going to get his time to settle down in batting with the strong top order and he has been listless with his bowling. We could have picked Thusara or Ntini (sad that we did not use the leading SA bowler in even a single match) as a pure bowler and if this is not acceptable he could have used him as a new ball bowler and picked Ashwin in place of Goni, we would have had many options in the middle overs. If dhoni plans to bat up at No3 & No 4 there is no use in having both Badri and Oram in the side just for fielding.
Finally if Dhoni is going to shuffle his batting order very often in any form of the game in favor of himself, not only CSK but even Indian Team will suffer in time. We saw this happen in Kitply and AsiaCup finals with some dour batting from Dhoni but there was some justification for that but the kind of moves he made in the IPL is debatable. The sad side of all this is neither CSK nor India has a good backup for captaincy .
Monday, May 11, 2009
CSK strikes the right combination :-)
Great to see Dhoni re-inventing himself to play one of the most aggressive knocks against Punjab Kings XI and keeping his cool in the death overs as captain. Dhoni was not at his element all through the first phase of the tournament with most of the experiments going against him and CSK lost 3 games in a row. Finally Dhoni & CSK has come out strongly to perform like champs and looks like they can not go wrong from here but for the very ordinary fielding performance.
I still feel there is some confusion in the batting line up even though they have sort of sorted out things and seems to have hit the best combination. My pri match batting order will be like Haydos,Vijay,Raina,Badri,Dhoni,Morkel,Oram and may be based on the match situation badri can be pushed back in the order but i feel they have to stick to this line up. If CSK is pushed to think of an extra bowler, i would prefer dropping Oram and play Ntini rather than disturb Haydos and Vijay pair. In my view Oram has not been able to adapt to the T20 format yet, i think he has bowled very few overs and has got few opportunity to score big with the bat. I have a feeling Ntini might give his best, if given a chance now and may also get ready for the super semi-finals.
Morkel and Thyagi have been good in the last couple of matches with some great seam bowling and most importantly not giving away any extra runs in the initial overs. Murali,Jataki and Balaji have come good in the last 3 matches with some tight spells in the middle overs and Raina has been proving to be the trusted bowler in the death overs. Morkel and Balaji are little bit unpredictable in the end overs, invariably both of them provide a big (12-18 runs) over in the end, need to improve on this and restrict to a 10 run over in the end, Ntini in place of Oram might strike the required balance.
Its all open and dhoni has been pleading in the pre-match and post-match comments that CSK need to field better and hold on to all the chances that come their way. Is this because we don't have a fielding coach :-) may not be, see how many coach's KKR got and also look at their performance, i feel its all in the mind and if one or two come up with some special effort (like the one Raina took in the last game ) all others will follow suit. Today there is a lot of doubt if they will hold on to the chance so they let them go. Hope the confidence is back soon and does not cost them any more.
CSK has a good 4 day break and i am sure will help the old boys of the team (Haydos & Murali) to cool of their heels. Having said that we have another 4 matches and if we win the next 2 matches we are sure of making it to the semi-finals. Need to give some rest for Haydos,Murali,Morkel (has been playing non stop for the past 8 months) & Balaji. Baily has not been tried out till now and has been in the bench for too long and the only match he played he did not bat or bowl so i would expect dhoni to try his bench strength so that they will be useful for 2010 :-). Its the same with Ashwin, he got a game to play but did not bowl or bat so if it will help if they have to replace someone due to injury or some unexpected events.
I still feel there is some confusion in the batting line up even though they have sort of sorted out things and seems to have hit the best combination. My pri match batting order will be like Haydos,Vijay,Raina,Badri,Dhoni,Morkel,Oram and may be based on the match situation badri can be pushed back in the order but i feel they have to stick to this line up. If CSK is pushed to think of an extra bowler, i would prefer dropping Oram and play Ntini rather than disturb Haydos and Vijay pair. In my view Oram has not been able to adapt to the T20 format yet, i think he has bowled very few overs and has got few opportunity to score big with the bat. I have a feeling Ntini might give his best, if given a chance now and may also get ready for the super semi-finals.
Morkel and Thyagi have been good in the last couple of matches with some great seam bowling and most importantly not giving away any extra runs in the initial overs. Murali,Jataki and Balaji have come good in the last 3 matches with some tight spells in the middle overs and Raina has been proving to be the trusted bowler in the death overs. Morkel and Balaji are little bit unpredictable in the end overs, invariably both of them provide a big (12-18 runs) over in the end, need to improve on this and restrict to a 10 run over in the end, Ntini in place of Oram might strike the required balance.
Its all open and dhoni has been pleading in the pre-match and post-match comments that CSK need to field better and hold on to all the chances that come their way. Is this because we don't have a fielding coach :-) may not be, see how many coach's KKR got and also look at their performance, i feel its all in the mind and if one or two come up with some special effort (like the one Raina took in the last game ) all others will follow suit. Today there is a lot of doubt if they will hold on to the chance so they let them go. Hope the confidence is back soon and does not cost them any more.
CSK has a good 4 day break and i am sure will help the old boys of the team (Haydos & Murali) to cool of their heels. Having said that we have another 4 matches and if we win the next 2 matches we are sure of making it to the semi-finals. Need to give some rest for Haydos,Murali,Morkel (has been playing non stop for the past 8 months) & Balaji. Baily has not been tried out till now and has been in the bench for too long and the only match he played he did not bat or bowl so i would expect dhoni to try his bench strength so that they will be useful for 2010 :-). Its the same with Ashwin, he got a game to play but did not bowl or bat so if it will help if they have to replace someone due to injury or some unexpected events.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
CSK back on Track !!!!!!!!!!
Great Double for CSK and chennai is again bustling with the hope as we are back on track and will put up some exiting stuff going forward.It was nice to see the two rookie bowlers perform exceptionally well and i see Thyagi is the future for Indian Cricket and high quality material and needs lot of hand holding to be successful in the international arena.
Finally all the comments and bashing to send Badri at No 4 has been heard and Badri has just performed like a champ, even though there is lot of room for improvement. I would have expected a Raina like innings (98) from Badri in the game against DD but again the effort was just fantastic.M.Vijay started of well and needs a couple of games to settle down and i am sure he is far far better batsman than Parthiv so please stick with him.
Jakati bowled superbly to pick 4 wickets and kept the run flow under check and sure to help CSK in the upcoming matches. We chennai folks would have loved to see Ashwin in his place, why did Dhoni prefer Jakati over Ashwin ? he just got only one match and he did not bowl or bat then how is that Jakati is picked ? I know you will say we already have Murali & Raina bowling off spin and we need a left arm spinner. Including Thyagi & Jataki over Amarnath (who did very well last season) and Ashwin has only proved that Dhoni is not confident on TN players for some reason or other. At least now we have 3 players from TN and wish that they perform well and give confidence to Dhoni in picking more from the state.
Coming back to the match against DC, i hope and wish that the top guns in the middle order get some runs to boost the total and help the bowlers. Dhoni,Albie & Oram are total failures with the bat and expect them to raise to the occasion and peak their form at the right time.CSK has slight edge over the DC as Fidel leaving the team and DC losing the last 2 matches and CSK winning the last 2 games
Good Luck Guys.
Finally all the comments and bashing to send Badri at No 4 has been heard and Badri has just performed like a champ, even though there is lot of room for improvement. I would have expected a Raina like innings (98) from Badri in the game against DD but again the effort was just fantastic.M.Vijay started of well and needs a couple of games to settle down and i am sure he is far far better batsman than Parthiv so please stick with him.
Jakati bowled superbly to pick 4 wickets and kept the run flow under check and sure to help CSK in the upcoming matches. We chennai folks would have loved to see Ashwin in his place, why did Dhoni prefer Jakati over Ashwin ? he just got only one match and he did not bowl or bat then how is that Jakati is picked ? I know you will say we already have Murali & Raina bowling off spin and we need a left arm spinner. Including Thyagi & Jataki over Amarnath (who did very well last season) and Ashwin has only proved that Dhoni is not confident on TN players for some reason or other. At least now we have 3 players from TN and wish that they perform well and give confidence to Dhoni in picking more from the state.
Coming back to the match against DC, i hope and wish that the top guns in the middle order get some runs to boost the total and help the bowlers. Dhoni,Albie & Oram are total failures with the bat and expect them to raise to the occasion and peak their form at the right time.CSK has slight edge over the DC as Fidel leaving the team and DC losing the last 2 matches and CSK winning the last 2 games
Good Luck Guys.
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