Jump to content

Thoughts about IPL as the tournament has progressed from fans, critics and players

The Outsider

By The Outsider
in IPL Forum

 Share

Recommended Posts

amits Newbie

amits

Posted
Posted

THIS MURDER OF CRICKET SHOULD BE ENDED IMMEDIATELY. its not cricket its not even cricket. this has got to be the biggest farce in the history of cricket. i hope the icc steps in & bans 20/20 cricket. i would rather see 400 runs being smashed in 50 overs as that shows the true talent of team as that includes partnership building & shows the real skill of players in 20/20, a score of over 160 should be banned. the boundaries have been pushed to <60 meters. jayasurya, even hit a 58m 6 against kolkata yday. the boundaries have to be atleast 70 metres also, pitches to suit bowlers should be created. there have to some absolute minefield pitches in 20/20 where scores of 100 can prove to be winnable also, for 20/20 matches, these happen to be my favourite scorecards - http://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/124/124448.html - barbados made 103 & still won by 26 runs http://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/129/129797.html - uae made 105 & still won by 20 runs and not only this, over the last 2 delhi matches, i have even lost icf $90000($40000 v kolkata & $50000 v mohali) also, i am much more happy with the fact that delhi won the ranji trophy which shows the true skill of a team & dont care about this meaningless ipl now. given a choice between winning ipl & ranji trophy in a season, i would go with winning ranji trophy :mad::mad::mad:

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Guest HariSampath

Guest HariSampath

Posted
Posted

fack Delhi.....same rules for all teams and same boundaries....a team that just keeps losing cant make it to semifinals...other teams have won more games and so are better placed...fack all this...DD hai hai...amits ...hai hai :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Chandan Newbie

Chandan

Posted
Posted

For owners, commitment counts, status doesn't : Harsha Bhogle LINK For owners, commitment counts, status doesn’t Harsha Bhogle Posted online: Friday , May 23, 2008 at 2249 hrs IST I can understand Yuvraj Singh being unhappy with the crowd at the Wankhede, personally I am not very happy with booing people either, but his statement was an indicator that one of the worries before the IPL has been well and truly buried. Having cheered for India, having bonded and grieved together, we wondered whether crowds would cheer for their cities and whether the ‘India’ factor would be put in mothballs for a while. It has, it has been buried and clearly you can see that it affects Yuvraj. “Some of the Punjab boys also play for India†he said, quite unaware of the fact that this tournament is no longer about India. At the Wankhede, crowds have chanted “Suryaaaaa, Surya†for a Sri Lankan, Shaun Pollock has been conferred a title, Polly kaka, that belonged to one of Mumbai’s most loved sons, Mohali positively doted on Brett Lee, Kolkata has taken its imports to heart and Dhoni is perfectly acceptable to Chennai. I find that fantastic and it tells me that it is possible to have state and national loyalties as we do in business and in movies. Later this year when Hayden and Hussey play against Ishant Sharma and Dhoni we know where the crowd support will lie. Does that make crowds fickle? Or just more fun loving? Let’s live with the latter! There’s been a lot of talk about learning from overseas players as well and I would like to add a word of caution to it. I have found over the years that players are quite happy to share their knowledge because they know that it is not in possessing knowledge that greatness lies, it is in being able to use it when the moment comes. The onus here lies on the younger players and I really do hope that even if they do not learn a single skill, they watch the attitude of the greats. I hope they realise that skill is important but is widowed without attitude. And you don’t need to look too much further than two good cricketers who came to India and enhanced their reputations hugely. Shane Watson is one of them. He came to the IPL needing more from it than he needed to give it. He wasn’t a major international star, he hadn’t been able to command a great price, injuries had haunted him all his life and his international career was challenged by hamstrings and sides and backs more than by anything else. And so he was hungry, he used his opportunity beautifully and I’d be very surprised if there is an Australian 20-20 team without him again. So too with Dwayne Bravo, who was initially surprised to be invited and then revelled in the atmosphere. Like Watson, Bravo didn’t hold back from playing 100%, was willing to bat anywhere, bowl the new ball, bowl at the death, field anywhere breathtakingly and, like all West Indians, dance in the dressing room. It is players like Bravo and Watson that, I suspect, franchises will be looking for in the coming years; people who love playing cricket and give their adopted sides everything they have. It leads me to suspect that franchises might be a touch wary of superstars who are not too keen to belong. Certainly player attitude will be factored into player pricing from next year. I hope young cricketers like Praveen Kumar understand this. Post Harbhajan Singh, the last thing Indian cricket needed was a tantrum by a stupid young man. With some, affluence breeds greater ambition, with others it spreads a poison. Praveen Kumar should have got a rap on the knuckles, maybe more, for presenting the ugly side of an increasingly rich sport. Instead the BCCI said it did not come under their jurisdiction and washed their hands off it. That can’t be right. No organisation can pay its employees large sums of money and not worry about what that can do to them. Now armed with this knowledge, and the fact that no complaint was registered against him “in the interest of Indian cricketâ€, Praveen can become more audacious and Indian cricket could lose a talented cricketer. Oh, and by the way, I visited the IPL site to take a look at the leading run-scorers in the tournament and there, at number 9, I saw a familiar name. Rahul Dravid has made 329 runs at a strike rate of 126 and it compares pretty well with the numbers for MS Dhoni, for example. Does that spoil some scripts? Or is he not as bad a player as we thought he was? -------------------------------------------------------------- Which superstar is not keen to belong to the tornament? From what I have seen, India's superstars like Sachin, Dravid, Ganguly, Kumble have played with utmost commitment and Dravid has even reinvented himself again after the initial games. One simply cannot question the influence and belongingness of Warne, McGrath, Hayden, Hussey, Smith, Gilchrist and few more. Then which players is Harsha hinting at?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Feed Newbie

Feed

Posted
Posted

Let's hear it for the veterans : Ian Chappell A few players supposedly past their sell-by dates have been showing the young ones how it's done this past month and some. More... Let's hear it for the veterans Ian Chappell A few players supposedly past their sell-by dates have been showing the young ones how it's done this past month and some May 25, 2008 336239.jpg Old dog, old tricks: Sanath Jayasuriya blazes away © Getty Images When I was a young lad my father, Martin, would often wander round the house singing, "The old grey mare, she ain't what she used to be, ain't what she used to be, ain't what she used to be." A catchy phrase will always capture the imagination of a young kid and in this instance I was also encouraged by not having to slave over a song sheet to learn the words. While nowadays the brutal truth of those words is regularly brought home to me, occasionally an "old grey mare" strikes back and it's glorious to behold. The IPL has provided us with two exhilarating examples. First, 36-year-old Adam Gilchrist hit a blazing century off a mere 42 balls and then Sanath Jayasuriya, two years Gilchrist's senior, followed suit and belted a hundred off 45. Jayasuriya and Gilchrist, the two super-slugging openers of their era, are on the way out but they haven't forgotten that adoring fans are deserving of an encore. It was Jayasuriya who first decided fast bowlers needed to be jolted out of their cosy existence, and inspired by his deeds, Gilchrist followed suit and added to the accelerating ulcer rate among quickies. It takes a hell of a lot of skill to constantly attack new-ball bowlers with what appears at times to be reckless abandon, but it also requires considerable nerve. One of the finest fast bowlers I faced, Andy Roberts of the West Indies, probably best summed up the mindset of the opening batsman. When I once chided him about "dumb fast bowlers" he responded by saying, "Ian, the only people sillier than fast bowlers are the opening batsmen who face up to them." Jayasuriya first captured the world's attention in a duet with Romesh Kaluwitharana against India in the 1996 World Cup. Sachin Tendulkar had fulfilled Indian expectations with a sublime century that posed a stiff test but the dynamic duo silenced the ecstatic Delhi crowd by racing to 42 in only three overs. Jayasuriya went on to score a brazen 79 off 76 balls to lead an improbable Sri Lankan victory. It sent shivers down the spine just watching on television. However, that was nothing compared to watching Jayasuriya live in Singapore a few weeks later. He decided to go solo, smashing balls into the treetops and lofting good deliveries out of the ground, with one finishing on the steps of City Hall. In the process he made some good fast bowlers distinctly apprehensive. Pakistan's Aaqib Javed only half-jokingly said he wouldn't turn up for the next tournament if Jayasuriya was playing. Following Warne's IPL success there are murmurings of him making a comeback for Australia. Hopefully this is a figment of someone's imagination By the end of the tournament Jayasuriya had set the record for both the fastest 50 and 100. Every time he batted people put down their drinks and jostled for a vantage point because they didn't want to miss a ball of this mastery. On the final night Jayasuriya walked through the Singapore Cricket Club bar and everyone rose to applaud him, including four ex-international captains and that is a memory that will stay with me to the end (or until I get Alzheimer's). Gilchrist had that same ability to empty bars and fill cricket grounds. In the 2007 World Cup final he launched a daring assault on the Sri Lankan attack (perhaps as a personal tribute to Jayasuriya) and played an innings that single-handedly placed the trophy in Ricky Ponting's grasp for the second successive time. Most cricketers only dream of making a century in the World Cup final but Adam Gilchrist scored exactly 100 of his exceptional 149 runs in boundaries. It was a skilful innings and an amazingly daring display in such an important game. As an "old grey mare" Gilchrist now has the satisfaction of posting the fourth-fastest century in a Twenty20, a game supposedly for the young and restless. Occasionally the old can become restless. Just ask Shane Warne. At 38 years and retired from all forms of cricket bar IPL, Warne has taken the tournament by storm, leading the Rajasthan Royals into the semi-finals with inspiring leadership and aggressive play. Following his success there are murmurings of him making a comeback for Australia. Hopefully this is a figment of someone's imagination. Warne, Jayasuriya and Gilchrist are all going out gradually and in style, providing some wonderful entertainment in the IPL competition. It's not that making a comeback to international cricket would be beyond Warne, it's just that with what he's currently doing it would be out of tune - a bit like Martin's singing all those years ago.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...