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I might be wrong but it seems as if the Indian Cricket team always starts a new series (home or abroad) very poorly and then tries to catch and make amends. Barring a much superlative batting effort or even more importantly, some washed-out day (s), India would lose the first test against Sri Lanka. If you look at India’s 2007-2008 away Test series against England & Australia and home series against South Africa, you can see that the Indian team started badly and did better as these series progressed.

In the England Series, but for the bad weather and some rear-guard action by Dhoni, India would have lost their first test at Lords. They managed to win the series 1-0 in the end. Even in Australia they lost the first Test at MCG, could have pulled off a win or at least a draw at SCG and ended up beating the Aussies at Perth. Even against SA at home after a drawn first test, India lost the second test and pulled off a win in the third to level the series.

Why is that the case? Does the team has a lot of inertia or need a lot of time to acclimatize? In any case it needs to pull-up its socks and demonstrate some guts and fighting spirit if it wants to survive this very precarious situation in the first test against SL.

It is all over for the Mumbai Indians. They started the IPL terribly and finished it even worse. It gave it’s fans a TON of hope by stringing together 6 fantastic wins only to follow it up with 3 heart-breaking losses. Now the Semi-Final stage is set with Chennai Super Kings playing against Kings XI Punjab and the Delhi Dare-Devils taking on Rajasthan Royals.

What does a Mumbai fan supposed to do? Who does he/she root for?

Should he/she root for Super Kings because it’s lead by Dhoni or the Royals because of Shane Warne, Delhi Dare-Devils for Viru or Punjab for Yuvraj?

Quite honestly as a Mumbai Indians fan, I am not sure what I will do. If I had to pick right now, I will lean towards rooting for Chennai. What about you?

This is exactly what every Mumbai Indians fan (including yours truly) is hoping for. Mumbai could have clinched the Semi-Final spot by beating Delhi the other day or would have just needed one more win from now on if they had managed two more runs against Punjab.

They did neither, so the team finds itself on the brink of elimination. One good thing in this challenging situation is the fact that Mumbai’s destiny is in their own hands. If they win both their remaining matches they are through, regardless of what happens in the other matches.

Chennai needs to win their last encounter to guarantee their position. A loss their could create a very interesting situation.

Anyways, Mumbai Indians take on tomorrow Rajasthan Royals, the best team in IPL and if they win this match, it will setup a thrilling finale for the IPL round one.

Go Indians!!!

Before today’s match between Kolkata & Delhi, there were all different possibilities about which teams would make the semi-finals (other than the Rajasthan Royals. Once that match was washed out, Kolkata is out of it. Now Delhi, Chennai and Mumbai are fighting it out for the 4th position.

The next match between Delhi and Mumbai is a virtual quarter-final for Mumbai Indians. If they win that match then they are through. If Delhi wins then the fight continues.

Chennai has 2 more matches to go. One against the best team, the Royals and the other against the worst team, the Chargers. Winning one of them would see them through to Semis.

So in a nutshell the encounter between Mumbai Indians and Delhi Dare Devils is the most important remaining in the IPL first round.

Agree?

I have not been able to see a lot of these matches (being on vacation for about 10 days with limited internet access) but quite honestly I just love to see all these teams with a fantastic mixture of international stars playing against each other. No one team seems to have lob-sided advantage. They all have reasonable fire power in batting as well as bowling and we should see a very tight finish for semi-final births towards the end.

It is fun and great site to see Dhoni and Michael Hussey batting together, Ponting and Ishant Sharma playing for the same team, Symonds and Afridi representing the same team, Shane Warne and Graem Smith in a huddle and many many more interesting combinations (including Bhajji smacking Sreesanth ).

I hope to catch more of those matches (may be some live ) and hope that IPL continues to flourish.

You can say that Dhoni is arguably the biggest “thing” happened to Indian Cricket after Sachin Tendulkar. Though they represent totally different styles (including hair) of personalities, they both have moved the Indian fans big time…

Dhoni came with a bang with his skyrocketing shots and huge sixes, and over the past year+ has established himself as a successful captain for India in all forms of Cricket (including T20, ODIs and a Test win against SA). He also got a million dollar contract for himself while leading the Chennai Super Kings in IPL.

Now during his journey has he changed as a player/person? He is still as confident as he used to, still enjoys while playing the game, still shows ability to take decisions and seem to handle to stress pretty well.

What has changed then? One thing that I noticed while watching his interview after India’s Test win against SA in Kanpur was the fact that he took credit for all the changes he made and went on to say that his “eight changes provided eight wickets”. So what is the big deal about this comment you will say. Well in previous similar situations (in CB series in Australia e.g.) he would answer this type of question by saying that it is the players who perform when put in a situation by a captain. So the credit goes to the players. Small change this might be, but many a times it is this type of small change in attitude that can bring on BIG changes in the future. Interesting to see how the Dhoni era progresses…..

I am not sure how many of you watched or followed the first IPL encounter between the Kolkata Knight Riders and Bangalore Royal Challengers, but to me the most astonishing site was not the batting of Brendon McCullum. Now that is quite strange when you consider that McCullum posted the highest individual score in T20 at the strike rate of 200+.

For me the most amazing site was seeing Rahul Dravid and Wasim Jafar walk out to open the innings for the Royal Challengers. These two don’t even feature in India’s ODI squad let alone T20 and are more known for their ability to stick around rather than setting the fireworks with their stroke-play.

So why? I can understand Bangalore choosing Dravid to be their captain and franchise player, but having him open the innings and that with Jafar is like guaranteeing suicide by hanging oneself and taking some poison just before doing that, just in case……..

It is then no surprise to me that the Bangalore Royal Challengers were Royally destroyed by the Knight Riders. And any Twenty20 team that sends Dravid and Jafar to open their innings chasing 220+ total in 20 overs deserves all that beating.

Thoughts????

To my eyes, this pitch looks like a minefield. India currently has a lead of 23 runs which realistically is all they would be able to put together. I can not imagine SS and IS sticking around too long to make any substantial difference. South Africa should not have much difficulty wiping that deficit without losing too many wickets (if any).

So, the most probable scenario is that SA will put up a sizable second innings total setting India a big enough total to chase. Looking at the present condition of the pitch and the South African attacks’ power, it would be very difficult for India to bat 4th and that too while chasing a large enough total.

So the most probable scenario is South Africa winning this test and the series very comfortably. The only scenario that I can see for India to pull off a victory here is to repeat their performance at Johannesburg in 2006. India would need to bowl out SA very very cheaply. Any total of 200+ to chase on this pitch in the 4th innings would be extremely difficult. Then again stranger things have happened

Go India!!

I think the Indian Cricket Selectors for the Test team need to adopt the same strategy they did for the ODI team. House Cleaning. Got to get rid of the Dravids and Gangulys and even Jafars and get some fresh blood (Kaif

When it was required to hold his ground and stop the bleeding Dravid could not do it. I think Ganguly has lost all motivation and Jafar looks too lazy and lost. On the bowling front kick out Sreesanth. I am sick of his antics and his bowling today was poor. It is sad but Kumble might also be playing his last series.

It is pretty obvious that India is going to lose this test and lose it by an Innings. Use this as an opportunity and get new players in.

I saw this article on Time.com. Wanted to Share. Here is the link.

Sixty Years Of Asian Heroes

Enjoy reading….