Cavaliers clinch Arizona playoffs - By Anand Kumar

Cavaliers clinch Arizona playoffs - Dreamcricket News

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Gilly the blaster and the IPL regional loyality

As Gilly’s thunderstorm knocked off the only north Indian team that could make it to the semis this year (as opposed to three last year, Punjab, Delhi and Rajasthan), the second edition of IPL has become even more interesting with mouth watering possibility of a final between two worst teams of the first edition of IPL, Deccan and Royal Challengers. Will that happen? Will resurgent Royals challenge the Super Kings tomorrow?

We will have to wait for another 24 hours to know about this, but for now, let us concentrate on the Special Gilly punch that stormed Deccan into the finals of IPL-2 and what Tishani Doshi mentioned as a north vs south divide in her cricinfo column even before the first semi final started, cautioning Daredevils with a “MIND IT DELHI”.

If you have followed the one day career of Gilchrist, today’s knockout punch would not come as a surprise to you. Be it the finals of the world cup 1999, 2003 or 2007, he has always attacked the opposition out of the game in no time and has produced his best when it mattered most in the so called big game. Today was no different. Most of us believed that Deccan was in for a good chance this time around and the first three consecutive wins only reinforced that belief, however when they wandered in the later part of the tournament winning only 3 of the last 10 league games, that belief was somewhat getting subdued.  Gilchrist probably was aware of that and leading from the front, he rose to the occasion and batted Daredevils, the most consistent team of the IPL-2, out of the tournament as he carved 21 off the very first over including 5 consecutive boundaries, 17 off the third over from Sangwan and the massive 24 off the 6^th over from the daredevils captain Sehwag. All packed in within 30 minutes of play and it looks like a keypad operated computer simulation of cricket game. His brutal attack had such massive impact on Delhi, that failures of Gibbs and Symonds from Deccan in this game have gone completely unnoticed. What Twenty20 fun!! Hats off to Gilchrist for a Twenty20 masterpiece. The message must have reached strongly in the Challenger and Super Kings Camp.

Given the outcome of the first semi final of IPL-2, Tishani Doshi’s article on north and south divide as far as cricket is concerned, would not have come at a much better time. On a funnier note, my own north Indian roommates have been after me because I have been supporting the non north Indian teams (Chennai, Deccan etc) so far. Looking around within my own cricket club, it is easier to find people being loyal to the IPL team that is related to their native place. Some of them have started becoming crazy to the extent that they become arrogant at times. Suddenly it comes to my mind, what a great idea it was to have City based teams in the IPL given the Indian set up. Probably this was the only way for a quick loyalty build up around the teams. Hats off to Modi and Co on this idea.

I would still be wondering, why it is tough to support a team based on the quality of cricket it is playing? And hence, how conveniently people would be able to switch loyalty back to the national team immediately after the IPL is over for the second edition of T20 world cup?

Cricket once again seems to be winning over Glamour in IPL

After Kolkata kicked defending champions Rajasthan out of the second IPL today and Chennai almost shut the door on Punjab’s possibility of making it to the semi finals (mathematically they still have a remote chance), I wanted to have a look at the current standing in the IPL-2 as of now and could observe an interesting pattern. If you look at the below colorful points table, there is a reason why the last 4 rows have been marked yellow.

 

Team	Matches	Won	Lost	Tied	N/R	Pts	Net RR	For	Against
DelhiDaredevils	13	9	4	0	0	18	0.251	1812/237.5	1788/242.4
Chennai	14	8	5	0	1	17	0.951	2086/255.3	1855/257.1
DeccanChargers	13	7	6	0	0	14	0.265	1953/252.4	1927/258.1
Bangalore	13	7	6	0	0	14	-0.253	1824/256.0	1869/253.2
Kings XI Punjab	14	7	7	0	0	14	-0.483	1787/251.2	1887/248.3
Rajasthan Royals	14	6	7	0	1	13	-0.352	1688/253.1	1810/257.5
Mumbai Indians	13	5	7	0	1	11	0.401	1732/236.2	1636/236.1
Kolkata	14	3	10	0	1	7	-0.789	1757/248.5	1867/237.5

 

 

Together with Bangalore, these four teams, Kolkata, Punjab, Mumbai and Rajasthan Royals would probably make the glamorous group within the IPL.  The common notable points about these teams: 

1. The ownership was mostly individual.
2. The running was mostly glamorous

Seeing these teams at the bottom of the table, came to my mind, could this be a basic lesson for those owners? Did cricket at the end seem to emerge as winner over the glamour yet again for the second time in a row? Is this game more than the individual and glamour would hardly fetch success on the field (off the field, probably yes)? If yes, when would the likes of Shahrukh Khan and Preity Zinta understand this?

 

Rajasthan was a much unknown team last season but with success came the glamour in the form of Shilpa Shetty and Co. and the team couldn’t make it to semis. Story about Punjab (Preity), Kolkata (Shahrukh), Mumbai (Neeta Ambani) and Bangalore (Vijay Malaya) is well known to everyone.

 

Probably these things are not directly related to the positions of the team as much but they sure have played a part.  Cricket is not an individual game and this fact puts cricket in a different league altogether among other sports. This is very much a team game and should best be left to those who play the game on the field in the real time. By making close and unnecessary presence in the dugouts and other places, the owners might just have made mistakes. Such things might have put extra pressure on the players to perform or the tempting glamour around might have just distracted them a bit from their focus. Who knows what exactly, but there was a correlation in the last IPL and there seems to be a definite correlation in this IPL as well.

 

This theory does lack to explain the Bangalore’s possible semi final spot, however on a funnier note, we can take that as an exception, given that Katrina Kaif only cheered her team from India this time, a mark able difference from the ways of other celebrities.

 

This feeling is also reinforced by the teams like Delhi, Chennai and Deccan making into top 4, where we didn’t see the owners’ presence onto the field area and these teams seemed to play like a proper cricket team. It still remains to be seen who finally will clinch the Mega Trophy, but the glamorous ones have been shown the door once again.

 

Disclaimer: This blog could seem to be illogical and furious to few, but it is intended to those who would find it logically funny.

Why KKR has been losing from close Quarters?

Many must be wondering about the last two losses KKR saw from perfectly winning positions. Against RCB, they not only couldn’t defend a very defendable target of 173, but also lost from a position when RCB had to score 52 off the last 26 balls. Similarly, today against the Chargers, they couldn’t defend a target of 160 and they lost despite the fact that chargers needed 33 off the last three overs with two new batsmen at the crease. What about the last over when they needed to defend 20 runs?

A loss for KKR is no longer news even for the die hard KKR fan because they have been loosing anyways. However the manner in which they have lost the last two games must have baffled many a KRR fans. I mean, it is hard to lose from those comfortable winning positions even in a Twenty20 game when you almost have the game in your hand and the only thing that you needed was probably to keep calm and follow the basics. I mean, it requires something on the part of the bowlers to leak so many runs consistently with ease. I had heard about team’s finding different heroes to win the games, but finding “heroes” (Ishant, then Agarkar and now Mortaza) to lose the games has been a revelation. 

More than the buzz around “Multiple captaincy theory “and “Talk of Racism”, it seems to be related to the after effect of all these. More than the on field cricketing decisions, in my opinion, it has to do more with the team’s mentality and state going into the game. They have only won a single game and that too thanks largely to the DL Rule and after that they have been losing game after game and as many as 10 games in a row. No matter how good a player you are, losing game after games does have its impact on you. It tires your mind more than it tires your body. You are constantly going into that negative zone where you believe that winning the game is tough. Remember, the old saying “make winning a constant habit”. The dressing room environment is not positive, it is mostly negative. The lack of wins would hardly infuse any positive thinking for the future and it might just be about going there and playing, well as we say, trying your best, without much plan for the game or the future. More so when you are already out of the semis hunt.

When you as a team are in this zone, it is going to be disastrous even during the better moments. The losses do not surprise you any longer as they have been a habit so far and the so called comfortable positions surprise you as they have been tough to come by and probably the team didn’t expect to be in such positions. When a team is surprised by the rare sight of win, it is not hard to feel the pressure and make mistakes. It is very normal to have shaky hands and feet when you needed to defend 20 off the last 6 balls and suddenly someone carves a few boundaries and rubs with a huge DLF maximum onto that. It happens.

KRR should keep this in mind and go into the last two games of their IPL stint thinking they have nothing to lose now. Sometimes, going into a game with this mindset does its own good because it relives the pressure of the outcome and gives you a chance to give your best. Why not try this ways of winning at least a game before we call it “Thanks IPL”, after all we have nothing more to lose anyways now?