CricDigs Blogs

Kevin Pietersen batted in his last game of the IPL2 and yet again, he didn’t score any runs or contribute in any substantial way to the team’s victory. In fact, had it not been for Boucher and some poor fielding by the KKR, the Royal Challengers Bangalore would have lost again.

Consider this — now, that Pietersen will be gone, either Kumble or Dravid would be asked to step in as the team’s captain and this is something that Mr. Mallya knew all along. So, he was probably so confident about KP’s performance that he was ready to buy his services for a handful of games and that too for outrightly bizarre sums of money.

The result? KP’s batting and his captaincy has been absolutely abysmal. He seems to be still fighting the ghosts of being removed from England’s captaincy. Isn’t it a bit belittling for iconic players like Dravid and Kumble to be asked to step-in as second-choice skippers?

Well, the cricket experts had been shouting that Punjab Kings XI team was short on quality bowling and would fail to defend any score that their very capable batsmen were likely to put-up. However, the trend of the last two matches played by the Punjab team suggests something totally different.

For starters, yesterday night, they managed to defend a score of just about 120 against the very capable batting line-up of the Mumbai Indians even though they do not have a single outright fast bowler or a spinner who can turn the ball square. This is in fact, their second straight victory in terms of defending a low score.

In the last match also, they defended a pretty small total by using part-time spinners including the captain (Yuvraj) who is getting smarter in bowling in the death overs. Yesterday, it was his chance of testing the arm of part-timers like Karan Goel who was amazingly effective. Well, eventually it was the bowling of the left-armer Abdullah that turned things in favour of the Punjab team.

There seems to be no end to the miseries of the ICL. First, its annual fixtures got derailed due to the security concerns in the sub-continent and then its leading players from Pakistan started to break-away. Now, another stipulation that was supposed to deter ICL players is about to get dusted and this is sure to entice more ICL players to leave the troubled franchise to try and revive their international and county careers.

New Zealand Cricket has announced that the one-year ‘cooling period’, endorsed by the Indian Board for players returning from the ICL, is not a very practical suggestion. This means that despite the immense discrimination that these players faced, they have a chance of straightaway playing for their national sides. Further, most of them realize that ICL is doomed whereas IPL continues to go from strength-to-strength. This announcement was sparked-off with regards to the rehabilitation of former Kiwi international pace bowling sensation, Shane Bond who has publicly described his desperation to get back to playing for his nation.

This could be bit hard to digest for hardcore fans of MSD but the fact is that for the first time in his short international stint, he finds himself really against the elements. His team, the Chennai Super Kings, don’t look like the finalists from last season of the IPL. This is now beginning to show on MSD’s temperament. For the first time, he was seen waving his hands, a bit frantically as the opposition batsmen flayed his bowlers.

Later, newspapers carried reports of how seriously he is miffed with some of the bowlers and has publicly announced that some heads will roll in Super Kings’ next match. All this from, perhaps, the best skipper in contemporary cricket?
I just think he has got used to winning at everything he has played so far, to be more accurate he has captained so far, including the CSK in IPL1. Time will tell how MSD manages to maintain his composure, i.e. assuming and hoping that he will.

I guess, it was bound to happen at some stage — Delhi Daredevils was on the verge of a batting failure in IPL2 and it finally happened in their match against the Rajasthan Royals. The DD batting has too many batsmen who seem to enter full-throttle mode from the very onset. Although, that is a requirement of the T20 game, some level of planning an innings too is needed.

Yesterday’s match had the first five of DD getting out to shots that looked too casual or just too bold. However, a defeat early in the tournament gives them the time to think about their approach and make a stronger comeback. Team Jaipur must be happy, having scored their first ‘proper’ victory as not many experts were ready to read too much into the super-over win that came against the Kolkata Knight Riders. Shane Warne was very pleased with the victory, though I must confess some of his batting order switches did not make too much sense.

For someone like me, this really is no big surprise — the much-advertised franchise of the IPL and supposedly the most glamorous one, i.e. the Kolkata Knight Riders find themselves on the verge of sinking in the IPL points charts. I sincerely believe that this is simply a case of too many non-cricketing issues being enforced upon the team, courtesy of a certain Mr. Shahrukh Khan. The man had been promoting his team to an extent that it now seems as if he has been playing the game for the last two decades or so.

He should have never taken on legends like Gavaskar in the first place and to publicly explain every move, no matter how ridiculous they sounded, made by the team coach was very unprofessional of SRK. Just like they say that every good player does not necessarily make a good captain, I guess all good actors do not make great cricketing brains. Well, that is imagining that SRK ever had any iota of cricketing knowledge in the first place.

So, Australia did win the third match of the ongoing ODI series in Abu Dhabi, and lead two to one, but there was something more to these matches that made them interesting. After quite a gap, ODI matches with low, aggressively defended scores were on display. A score of about 200+ was regarded as a safe, in fact a match-winning score. This comes as a complete contrast to what has been going around for the last five years wherein scores of even about 325+ look pedestrian on many occasions. It was nice to see the sub-continental spin bowlers relishing the slowish pitches that meant batsmen had to craft-out their innings.

Just consider this — Australia scored just 198 in the third ODI and still won the game, convincingly! There were no strokes played on the up and hitting the ball through the line was like committing suicide. This is what I suggest should be done to make ODI games more interesting — provide a plethora of different playing conditions to make every tournament have a typical characteristic about it rather than every game being about slam-banging bowlers.

The Australian team has been under the hammer for quite some time now. To make matters worse, their skipper, Ponting hasn’t been batting as well he used to do. So, when the current one-day series against Pakistan started, it was a bit confusing to hear CA say that Ponting would be rested for the entire series. Does that solve any purpose at all, in any conceivable way?

Michael Clarke has been named as the replacement skipper and he usually does a pretty decent job of whatever is handed to him. Somehow the Aussies looked totally outplayed when batting in the first one-dayer at Abu Dhabi. There were reports in all cricket journals that how they had buckled under the quality spin bowling of Afridi and to a certain extent you cannot blame them — Afridi did take six wickets in that match.

However, to say that the Kangaroos just can’t play spin would be a bit of an exaggeration. I mean, every now and then, the best of teams are bound to have inexplicably bad days and this Aussie team is under a bit of re-building right now, so such lapses are bound to happen. I still don’t think Afridi is the most threatening bowler on any sort of pitch, no matter what these cricket experts say.

Just as expected, the Aussies put their mind to the task in the second game and comfortably defeated Pakistan. Afridi did bowl well under what are slowish conditions but doesn’t spin the ball that much and lacks the consistency. Yes, he does look like someone who is bordering on being something really good. Well that is something that has been happening in his case for a decade now, both with his batting and bowling — on the verge of being really good and then it all goes awfully wrong for him.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Australia defeats Pakistan even more comprehensively in the remaining games and clinches the series quite easily in the end. Yes, they are trying out a few new combinations and pushing-up players like Symonds and Hopes, but the team does have the habit of learning from its mistakes and mending its way pretty quickly.

After a lot of initial hiccups, it appears as if IPL2 is finally taking shape in the form of the cricketing extravaganza it has been marketed to be — finally the matches are getting interesting and the stadiums too are a bit more occupied. For a change, most of the matches held in the last three days were closely-contested affairs and this is what has raised the interest levels in IPL’s second coming.

While the Royal Challengers Bangalore continue to sink further after their initial victory, the likes of Delhi Daredevils continue to roll-on, unstopped yet by any opposition. Dhoni’s men look defeatable this season, having lost two out of the three matches they have played. Further, now they have lost the services of Flintoff as he hurries back home to get an operation done — is there any part of his back or in the anatomy of his legs that hasn’t been operated upon yet?

God knows what Mr. Mallya would be thinking now that Pietersen is failing miserably and Dravid is the leading run contributor for the team. Just imagine how much dough Pietersen gets paid, literally for every 10 minutes he spends on the ground. It is just unbelievable what the IPL has done to the game and now it appears that the Indian connection is fast going to be eroded.

The fact is that most teams are realizing the utility of having more international players in the team. You don’t have to think hard why — you cannot expect regular domestic players to perform as well as those who are playing for international teams. This is where things could get a bit messy for the domestic Indian players — IPL could soon evolve as the International Premier League and in all probability, only Indian internationals would be seen.

In a strange way, it does make sense too — how can a league retain the name of being Indian when it is held outside the host nation? In fact, this hosting of IPL outside India could become a normal practice, as the chances of the sub-continental political/regional atmosphere cooling down appear quite bleak (I hope I am absolutely wrong about this viewpoint).

Those who had been reading the blogs here would remember that sometime back I had proposed the option of having Dinesh Karthick as the specialist keeper in the Indian team and making Dhoni a regular batsman at number four. Further, this would have provided Dhoni the chance of rolling over his arm, when needed and augment his career in terms of reducing his workload. Now, another good prospect has emerged in the form of Uthappa who is now keeping wickets for the Royal challengers Bangalore in IPL2.

What makes this more interesting is the fact that Uthappa could offer more to the team in terms of being an attacking number three batsman for the ODIs. Further, I would now like to propose a different way of combining Uthappa and Dhoni — the two keepers in the team.

For starters, I really don’t know if there are any rules against keepers being allowed to swap positions unless they are injured in a game. If there aren’t any, then an interesting solution could be tried out. Why can’t Dhoni keep wickets for the first 10 and then the last 10 overs of the game? This means that Uthappa would be needed to keep for the in-between 30 overs. This would help the team more since it will take time for Robin to graduate to the level of being a full-time keeper. Further, Dhoni would still be able to maintain his leadership from behind the stumps by being directly able to communicate with the bowlers about the line to bowl.

As far as the choice between Karthick and Uthappa goes — I realize that Karthick may have the better backlift of the bat and looks more organized but Uthappa could be groomed to take over the spot of a regular ODI number three batsman, since Tendu’s presence wouldn’t last for a very substantial period of time. Uthappa is more suited for coming in and scoring at a brisk rate if Sehewag or Gambhir get out early, without compromising on the run-rate factor.