as I see it: IPL

Showing posts with label IPL. Show all posts

As many of you, I have also been spending most of my time watching IPL - 2. After the Royals' onslaught on Kings XI Punjab this Tuesday, the next match was between Kolkatta Knight Riders and Delhi Daredevils. KKR hasn't had a good season, in fact they have had a horrible season. They are at the bottom of the table with only ONE victory in their kitty. I wonder how did that happen, I pity the losing side.

So, seeing the match and the horrible performance by the Knights I spent a few minutes thinking about what is wrong with this team.

Nothing, absolutely nothing went right for them. Again that sounds much better than what it actually is, i.e. EVERYTHING is going WRONG for them.

The skipper McCullum lead from the front by dropping a not so difficult and important catch of DD's skipper Gambhir. The team simply followed their captain and put in their best in dropping most of the catches, misfielding and giving as many boundaries as they could.

On one occasion when I thought that Gambhir had nicked it and it was a clean catch, this time it was the umpire who refused to raise his finger and adjudge Gambhir out. Not only this, every few deliveries you could hear the commentator say something like "Edged and four", "Edged, over the keeper's head", "Edged, past first slip for four", "Edged and that would beat the third man". It was all going wrong for the Knightriders. They were taking a beating from LUCK itself and the fielders were anyways not helping themself out of the mess they were in.

Taking a look at their team, I think they have a pretty decent team on paper. But they have not preformed to their potential. The dangerous McCullum ripped of the opposition attack only in ONE innings and that was in match number ONE in IPL season ONE. Another explosive batsman, Ricky Ponting had just failed to perform last year. Chris Gayle, the most violent of all when it comes to thrashing the bowlers, was injured in the last season and has failed to do anything significant this season as well. KKR's bowling attack got a blow when Pakistan players had to keep away from the IPL. What they had was Ajantha Mendis who I personally don't admire as much and think is an overhyped player. You can bowl the 'Carrom Ball' and trick batsmen once or twice or even thrice, thats it. There is nothing extraordinary in that bowling other than that.

Poor batting, bowling and fielding has ensured that they don't win any match. They are on a losing spree! I am doubtful if team owner SRK (who came back to India and said that he won't return until his team starts winning again) will get a chance to come back to SA from India if they continue like this, which I think is very likely. And that isn't all. The tiff between coach Buchanan and Ganguly, the multiple captain theory and the captaincy being taken away from Ganguly and handed over to McCullum, all shows the atmosphere within the team management and the players.

Add to it the sacking of players like Aakash Chopra and Sanjay Bangar, what has just happened to this team? And as if this was not enough, that problem took another avtar, this time in form of the FakeIPLPlayer (a blogger who claims to be a member of the KKR Squad and keeps on giving updates about the team's strategies, differences, tensions amongst players and management and many other happenings in and around the team).

They are going through a really bad phase. It is difficult to say which was worse, Bangalore Royal Challenger's condition last year or KKR this year.

PS : Just saw a report on NDTV, saying that Buchanan and his team will no longer be with the KKR Team in the next season of IPL. They went on to the people of Kolkatta for their reaction on this news. Boy, they were really excited and celebrating it. One guy said that he is very happy and he riduculed Buchanan top to bottom and even blamed him for bringing all Aussies into the team and destroying the KKR team while keeping the best Bangladeshi bowler Mortaza (who KKR won in the auction after a hard-fought battle with Punjab).

Strange enough but the reporter said that SRK and Co. have deliberately removed 'Kolkatta' from their team's name and that it is now referred to as 'Knight Riders' only. Now I didn't know that.

PPS : Just Googled and found out that they actually dropped 'Kolkatta' from KKR. Reports also suggest that SRK has approached Nokia, Sahara and Anil Ambani Group to sell-off his team. Ooh La La. Thats some 'Too HOT Too Cool' News :)

IPL is over and I am back surfing the net, reading blogs, watching videos and here is what. I found an interesting video along with a story related to it. So, all of you must have seen the DLF IPL - Cricket ka Karmayudh video
So, while looking for some more updates on plagiarised music pieces on itwofs.com I came across this interesting piece regarding the Karmayudh video. Before I continue have a look at this video

So, need I say more ? It first appeared on CNBC where ad film maker Prasoon Pandey defended the plagiarism charge of lifting the DLF IPL Karmayudh ad campaigna 5 year old US TV promo. He admitted that there are striking similarities indeed but insisted that he had not seen the baseball ad before.

He said actual footage was given to the animators to paint on top, they having painted on top also put a splash on a shot and showed it to him. He liked the idea and gave a green signal to the animators. He went on to say that he had also confirmed with the animator E. Suresh of Famous Studios that even he had not seen the ad before.

The only valid point I think he managed to put forward was that "the splash can neither be any body's property." And that it is not the idea of the IPL commercial which according to him is in the Veer Ras audio track.

What do you think ?

[Credits : itwofs.com]

Surely they aren't discussing this :

Person on the Right : Will you tell me what is going on? You said players who play Test Matches can play any format of the game. Then why don't I see any results ? Did you mean they can only 'play' any format of the game or you meant play well, perform and win ? No, you tell me how the hell does Wasim Jaffer fit into the side. Why didn't you pick Rohit Sharma or Robin Utthapa ? Was it because it was they who probably stole your place in the national team ? No, you HAVE TO tell me how the hell does Wasim Jaffer fit into the side. Could have bought many bottles of bear for that money ! At least it would have signified its existence. Ain't I right ? Everyone thinks we are probably the best Test side in the tournament. But this is Twenty20. You still haven't told me that how the hell does Wasim Jaffer fit into the side. You and Charu made the worst choices possible first and then to cover up you chose Misbah and Boucher. How can you expect these two to do the job of eleven players. WILL YOU TELL ME WHAT MADE YOU CHOOSE WASIM JAFFER ?

Person on the left (Monologue) : God ! Keep it this way. Please make sure that by no chance the name 'Sunil Joshi' pops up into his head. What will I say ? But seriously, why Joshi ? Was it Charu's choice.
I guess he is right how can we expect a win with the side we have ? But now what can I do before the next season ? Oh my God ! he will put me up for sale. Mr. Modi can 'Icons' be kicked out and put up on sale ?
Why wasn't Kumble made an Icon for BRC ? Then like Dhoni even I would have been bought, perhaps by Rajasthan and it would have been great.

[PS : Please feel free to tell me something else that you think they AREN'T discussing]

The five-day long game was perhaps turning out to be very long and less interesting for the followers of the Gentleman’s game. Coupled with the commercial side of it, cricket fans witnessed a new form of the game ‘One-Day Internationals’. You win; you lose or end up in a tie all in a single day. But still an equally popular (if not more) sport, Football or Soccer, was about one-fourth of the total duration of this new form of Cricket and yet had an enormous fan following and money spun into it. While both games enjoy their popularity among fan followers all around the world it seems Cricket is going the Soccer way now.

Picture this - from Test Cricket to ODIs, introduction of ‘Super-Subs’ (one substitution per team per game; didn’t gain much acceptance with the playing nations), the concept of ‘Powerplays’, the advent of Hong Kong Sixes, Twenty20 Cricket, acceptance of the later by the International Cricket Council(ICC). All towards an even shorter format of the game with an extra tinge of excitement, isn’t it?

Twenty20 besides being shorter in duration was a bit different from the other formats of the game. Teams walking to the center, national anthems, batting side sitting in stands next to the boundary, cricket’s version of penalty shoot-outs - Bowl Out - to decide the winner in case of a tie and more. How should we explain this, different from the other formats of the game or strikingly similar to the other game, Soccer?

Moreover, the Twenty20 World Cup not only gained in terms of popularity amongst the followers of the game, it turned out to be a lottery for the investors, the sponsors as well. In this fast-moving world, the shorter the game, the more it earns in terms of the Popularity Quotient it seems.

Talking about India, the country whose Cricket Board is perhaps the richest in the world; cricket is not merely a game. It is a religion for its followers, a business opportunity for the investors. We witnessed the successfully conducted ICL(Indian Cricket League) Twenty20 league few weeks ago and now the fans are waiting for the IPL(Indian Premier League). Bollywood stars and the biggies in the Biz World shelled out millions at the auction of city franchises of the Indian Premier League. The first season kicks off in April 2008. It will surely be interesting to see the transactions in the Transfer Market, though the big names in the current Indian side will be playing for their own city team.

Well now isn’t it somewhat similar to the Premier League Soccer. Surely it is as confirmed by the BCCI Vice President Lalit Modi who said that “the IPL will work in a similar pattern to Britain’s English Premiership League where clubs will be the franchisees of BCCI and players of the said clubs will be sold and purchased like any professional club.”

Having all said and done, the question is, does it really matter whether the game gets shorter or amendments being made in the rule book? Well, we already have mixed opinions from the cricketing experts with a bias towards Test Cricket but as for the fans, they are enjoying the firework-studded form of the game that gets over merely in about three hours twenty-five minutes, and why not? In this super speedy life, with aggression all around, the shortening attention spans and when sports is not an activity to pass time but a source of entertainment why not be open to a change that promises instant gratification. Not to forget the Corporate Giants, Bollywood stars and the TV Channels, who are cashing out on this.

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