Desicritics Category: Sports: Cricket

IPL, Cricket and Corporate Efficiency

Kartikeya — Tue, 13 May 2008 00:23:26 EDT

Charu Sharma was fired by owner Vijay Mallya as the CEO of the ridiculously named Bangalore Royal Challengers franchise in the Indian Premier League. Yet, the most bizarre part of this story, if you actually think about it, is that Charu Sharma was hired as "CEO" in the first place! The ever reliable Wikipedia encyclopedia describes Mr. Sharma as "an Indian cricket commentator, cricket administrator and quizzer". I suspect that the "cricket administrator" bit comes from Sharma's stint at the Bangalore Royal Challengers.

Charu Sharma has been a fixture during Cricket broadcasts (when the players take a break), goading inarticulate experts (former players) with provocative suggestions and liberal references to shame, spines (lack of) and guts, unless of course he has Miss Noodle Straps for company. This was the case during most of the 2003 World Cup, and with his looks and her brains, they proceeded to reinvent the old English game with all the imagination of a Bollywood B-movie script writer (Ok .. maybe B movie scriptwriters don't deserve this comparison).

Among Mr. Sharma's salient efforts as CEO of the Royal Challengers is this comment about cheerleaders:

The whole controversy is irrelevant. Frankly speaking, it is a trivial issue and doesn't deserve the attention it is getting. All those creating such a big ruckus are looking for publicity and the least we can do is not to allow them to get away with it

"the least we can do is not to allow them to get away with it" - if you can make sense of that statement, then you deserve to be in the Civil Service. I suspect (in all humility), that Mr. Sharma started off trying to point out that the whole issue with cheerleading was much ado about nothing. The latter portion of his quote suggests that inaction would be a bad idea. Now, this in itself, if one chose to be pedantic is not implausible. Of course, cheer leaders perform public service and have nothing to do with publicity. And Mr. Sharma making public comments about the so called "detractors" gives them less publicity, not more. So, Mr. Sharma in effect suggested that people who were uncomfortable with the fact that he had hired cheerleaders for publicity purposes in a public arena, were in fact, merely seeking publicity (my aunts don't think its a good idea, and they want no publicity).

It gets funnier. When the grand divorce finally happened, the Bangalore franchise tried to put a kind spin on Mr. Sharma's departure, suggesting he left on his own. It would have meant lesser publicity for all concerned. But what does Mr. Sharma do? He comes out in righteous anger to correct his former employer, and explains precisely what happened - "I was summarily dismissed". Publicity anyone?

While many commentators, like Sharda Ugra, have discussed this episode, nobody has actually questioned why the glib tongued Mr. Sharma was hired as CEO in the first place. For years and years now, the BCCI has been consistently pilloried for being "unprofessional" and "amateurish" (these are some of the less offensive terms), because it is run by elected officials who are not necessarily joined at the hip with Cricket. Ms. Ugra observes :

"The free market hawks will interpret the Sharma sacking as the advent of a new ruthlessness and accountability that cricket lacked"

The more interesting and more consequential question i believe is whether Shah Rukh Khan or Priety Zinta or Mukesh Ambani or Vijay Mallya or anybody else is any more qualified than Mr. Pawar to be at the helm of Cricket. At least Mr. Pawar is accountable to Cricket community in India by way of elections and a board. The same free market hawks that Ms. Ugra refers to have long decried the influence of the likes of Mr. Pawar on the BCCI. But this is business now. So what if the owner knows little or nothing about cricket, as Mr. Mallya himself admits, albeit as a way of explaining why he had to throw his CEO under the bus. It's useful to note here that the public pronouncements from all parties in the wake of firing put even Mr. Lele's worst efforts to shame.

So, at the end of the day, Mr. Sharma getting sacked as CEO of the Bangalore Royal Challengers, is about as ridiculous as him getting hired as CEO of the Bangalore Royal Challengers. Which in turn is about as ridiculous as Mr. Vijay Mallya owning a Cricket team, and then making hiring and firing decisions while explaining that he knows nothing about cricket.

Any publicity is good publicity for Charu Sharma, Mr. Mallya and for the IPL. The whole thing is a show anyways. Just like the WWE.

SlapGate, Suspensions, Referees, and Code

Kartikeya — Fri, 2 May 2008 13:58:21 EDT

They are falling like nine pins. Players are getting banned, suspended and fined. They're blaming each other for using delaying tactics (in a 20 over game). Sachin Tendulkar meanwhile is still injured (and is being spared all this nonsense).

It emerged in the midst of SlapGate, that even though the IPL had all the trimmings - on field umpires, third umpires, fourth umpires and match referees, they didn't actually have a code for the referees to enforce. The garrulous Farrokh Engineer eventually used the ICC Code of Conduct in his ruling on SlapGate. It now appears that the IPL has appropriated the ICC's Code of Conduct for Players and Officials and further extended it beyond the ICC's wildest dreams. What we have, is the first ever instance of a referee suspending an umpire in a game of cricket! Farrokh Engineer has suspended the on-field umpire Pratap Kumar for heeding Sourav Ganguly's request to refer a disputed catch to the third umpire.

It began with this incident involving Shane Warne and Sourav Ganguly. Warne's side claimed a catch against Ganguly. Ganguly wasn't sure if it was clean, and didn't leave the wicket. The fielding side was convinced that it was clean, as was the square leg umpire (Rudi Koertzen, no less!). It all rested with the umpire at the bowler's end who needed to be convinced that the watch was clean. Now, if the umpire at the bowlers end was convinced that it was clean, he should have given the batsman Out. Usually, if the umpire at the bowler's end has been unsighted, he will take the word of the umpire at square leg. In any event, Ganguly requested that a referral be made (which he ought not to have done), and a referral was made.

So far so good. Farrokh Engineer has effectively ruled that Pratap Kumar went against his own better judgement and was influenced by Sourav Ganguly's request in making the referral. Is it really possible to prove that sort of thing? Also, if it is infact proved, is a suspension enough? Shouldn't Pratap Kumar get kicked out?

In any event, the most breathtaking thing here is that the Umpire has been dragged by the match referee into the fray, along with the players. This is unprecedented ground - where a referee sits in judgement of an umpire. Given Engineer's decision, why should he not suspend an umpire if a couple of LBW's are given wrongly, especially if in both cases, you have the batsman showing his bat to the umpire as the appeal was in progress (indicating an inside edge)? The whole premise of the Umpire, is that they are above the fray. They are not in competition with the players, and hence cannot be judged alongside the players. Referee Engineer has done just that.

Shane Warne's suggestion that Ganguly asked the Indian umpire to make the referral (as reported by Cricinfo), is dragging the whole matter down further into a charge of favoritism. Since the catch was taken by Graeme Smith, and the square leg umpire was Rudi Koertzen, why would a similar charge of favoritism not apply when considering the case of the square leg umpire immediately ruling that the catch was clean? This is especially interesting given that the third umpire, Asad Rauf eventually ruled in favor of the batsman, against Rudi Koertzen. With Farrokh Engineer enforcing his adopted British voice in the matter, what we seem to have is a perfect commonwealth brouhaha.

Of course, all these charges of parochialism are absurd, but that is what this seems to have descended into. The whole thing seems to closely resemble World Wrestling Entertainment, which resides deep in the bowels of Cable TV, with its make believe umpires and contests. The convenient application of the ICC's Code of Conduct to grant an element of seriousness to proceedings, coupled with the complete moral and logical relativism which marks Farrokh Engineer's treatment of the umpire, is just one more signal that the IPL is not serious about Cricket.

Delhi Daredevils Break Chennai Super Kings

Aaman Lamba — Fri, 2 May 2008 13:48:40 EDT

After 5 turns in the round-robin league of the Indian Premier League Twenty20 series, the rankings are quite interesting and might even have had an unbeaten streak for the Chennai Super Kings, had it not been for the Delhi Daredevils disciplined bowling and batting today at Chennai.

The game was foreshadowed somewhat by the departure of Matthew Hayden, Mike Hussey, and Jacob Oram to prepare for an Australia-New Zealand series. Perhaps for this reason, but as much due the efficient Delhi bowling, Chennai were limited to 169, not a good enough score in Twenty20 any more. Stephen Fleming saw his first inning in the IPL, a rather good one, but losing his wicket in the fourth over. Vidyut's own maiden inning was better, and partnerships between Vidyut and Dhoni, and then Morkel pushed the score up, but they seemed to lose steam in the middle overs.e

The Delhi batting was more focused, and high scoring. Right from the start, Gautam Gambhir and Virendra Sehwag kept up the pace, and pushed the score past 100 in just under 9 overs. Sehwag hit quite a few sixes and fours, until he was caught in the twelfth over. Gambhir went in the 14th over, and the run rate slowed somewhat as de Villiers and Shikhar Dhawan wrapped up the total in the last ball of the final over, winning by 8 wickets.

The points table has a bit of an upset after this game, and the remaining games before the knock-out stage should be interesting as the top teams battle for their positions with the struggling middle order teams. The bottom-ranked teams like Bangalore and Mumbai have little hope of surviving this stage, but stranger upsets have occurred in cricket.

Team	Games	Won	Lost	Tied	N/R	Pts	Net RR
Delhi	5	4	1	0	0	8	1.263
Chennai	5	4	1	0	0	8	0.743
Rajasthan	5	4	1	0	0	8	0.525
Punjab	5	3	2	0	0	6	0.372
Kolkata	5	2	3	0	0	4	0.681
Deccan	5	1	4	0	0	2	-0.214
Mumbai	5	1	4	0	0	2	-1.396
Bangalore	5	1	4	0	0	2	-1.886

Off-field, both Shane Warne and Saurav Ganguly were fined for their sportsmanship, or the perceived lack of it. Also, Harbhajan Singh has apparently disappeared from IPL and Mumbai Indians hoardings.

Rajasthan Royals Humble Kolkata Knight Riders

Varun P — Thu, 1 May 2008 14:31:35 EDT

When the King of Bollywood, Shah Rukh Khan, launched his cricket franchise, the Kolkata Knight Riders, in glittering style a few weeks along with a couple of heartwarming taglines, he could never have imagined that a few days later he would be mouthing one of those phrases after the third consecutive defeat in the IPL tournament — Be scared, be shit scared!

Though the Knight Riders began their campaign in style, winning two matches in a row, the fire seems to have died in their bellies ever since they have returned from the six-day break!

Or maybe, the fire was not there in the first place! I mean take away Brendon's dreamy, breezy, surrealistic, out-of-this-world innings in the first match, a shocker of a pitch in the second and a couple of breezy knocks from Shukla and you are left staring at a batting line up that has failed to fire in any of the matches! Sure, the bowling looks good, especially with Ishant running in and cleaning up the left handers, but the overall standard of the Riders has left a lot to be desired.

Where is the fire, guys? What happened to all that aggression? Are you lacking any sense of purpose or a reason to perform? Or all you are concerned about is pocketing your fat pay cheque? If the Knight Riders do not get their act together in the coming days, then they may find themselves contesting for the top 4 position in the IPL championship — from the bottom!

Nothing should be taken away from Rajasthan Royals, who have relied on local talent and the sheer presence of their captain, Shane Warne, to cause as many as four upsets. For a team labeled as underdogs, they sure have done wonderfully well to have 4 wins under their belt from the 5 matches they have played so far.

The same can't be said of the other, more fanciful and overpaid, franchises. The battle for the Top Spot in the IPL championship promises to be a captivating one and in my heart, I believe it's just a matter of one win — yes, just 1 win, 1 moment of inspiration — to set the Knight Riders back on track! So, keep cheering SRK, Kolkata, All the King's Men!

IPL's First Victim: Harbhajan Singh Banned For 11 Matches

Aaman Lamba — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 08:06:35 EDT

Harbhajan Singh was handed down a ban of 11 games following the IPL-managed hearing in New Delhi. The bowler was found to have acted without provocation and did not intend to appeal the decision. The Mumbai Indians' coach, Lalchand Rajput, was also fined for not taking any steps on the spot despite being right behind the two when the incident happened.Sreesanth was given a warning, despite there not having been any immediate provocation.

"The referee studied video tapes of the incident and found the assault by Harbhajan was totally unprovoked. The footage exactly showed that Harbhajan went down the line, wishing all the players, shaking hands with a few players," said Lalit Modi, the commissioner of the IPL who is also a vice-president of the BCCI. "Sreesanth was the third player that he met. Instead of shaking his hand he actually slapped him and continued down the line, shaking hands with the other players."

It is strange that the Mumbai Indians' team management and owners have not be penalized in the tournament, as the player was in effect the team captain. The management's attempt to disown responsibility with the 'contracted' player excuse is a weak measure, and in any corporate setting would not have been tolerated. Players on any team should be concerned about the arms-length nature of their relationship with their owners, which implies that while they would be only to glad to take credit for the successes, yet might not take responsibility for any actions contrary to their interests, even if on the field.

This, in effect, weakens the viability of the IPL as an independent collective of organizations. While controversy creates cash, the IPL should dock the team and its management, and perhaps the Xings XI Punjab management might be allowed to seek civil damages. The only way the Mumbai Indians could be seen to do the right thing would be to penalize the player in their own way, perhaps monetarily, although there is a significant financial impact from the ban. As it stands, the Mumbai Indians is the most expensive franchise on the IPL roster, and this almost certainly makes them a poor horse to bet on, if one were allowed to mix metaphors.

Harbhajan Singh also faces independent disciplinary action from the BCCI, and a permanent blot on his cricketing record, which was not free of controversy in the first place.

In other non-cricket related news, Tamil actress Nayantara was dropped as brand ambassador of the Chennai Super Kings ahead of today's game in Bangalore against the Bangalore Royal Challengers. She failed to show up for a game in Chennai, and despite reports of health issues, the team management was in no mood to see its brand investments go waste and has dropped her from the list, and decided to go with only Vijay, another Tamil star, as the brand ambassador for the team.

Thoughts on IPL

Adithya — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 00:07:11 EDT

There was a time when the excitement of a cricket match was natural. People drove around on the roads of Bombay with the Indian flag draped around them, their cars etc. This was even before a victory. It was around 2003 and it was the World Cup. It must have either been India vs Pak or India vs Australia. Heck, I gave up on my board exam and invited friends, bought snacks and waited for the match to begin.

Cut to 2008 and we have contrived excitement all over India. I just don't understand why so much of marketing and propaganda is going into this. Forget BCCI's revenge on ICL, BCCI's show of might or Lalit Modi's whims. Why is there a major build up to everything concerning IPL? Why didn't it just stop with stars purchasing teams and becoming owners? I did like that joke of Saif in an awards function when he said, my friend here(SRK) was not allowed to watch a cricket match and so he bought himself a team!

Thankfully people watching IPL on CBN are not subjected to the countless ads. Or so I hear. I have watched, probably, 10 overs of IPL so far. I read about it here and here. Why is Sivamani there in the stadium adding to all the frenzy? I can understand if I see SRK in Kolkata or Preity Zinta in Mohali. You cannot see Mukesh Ambani often because he has a proper job. The other owners have a job that requires them to show their face at regular intervals. Let's not even get into the whole cheer girls thing. Why are these people being such a dramebaaz? Like someone remarked, if a sport resorts to cheer girls dancing, singing half of the time, the sport must be really shallow. I liked Ramachandra Guha's comment on it though:

"All the organisers are doing by making scantily-clad white women dance in front of huge crowds is to stoke the base voyeuristic and sexual insecurities of the Indian male. It is revolting, appalling and shows the game in very poor light."

I am all for T20 cricket but then it's neither being played nor marketed the right way. It's good fun. Things take a turn in a matter of a ball. The T20 world cup showed how exciting it can be and it also showed how bowlers do have something to play for. But then having a league with players worth millions, we have a strong batting side hitting sidelined Indian players all around the ground. Add to this Sivamani, Washington Redskins cheerleaders, Bhajji slapping, Sreesanth crying and countless brands laughing their way to the bank.

A friend compared IPL to league football and said we could do with something like that in cricket. That is so illogical. Mukul Kesavan points out beautifully. It is very pedestrian and it highlights ignorance when you make such a comparison. League football celebrates football in all its splendor and glory. It's proper ninety minutes of play. Not a toned down version like T20. They don't try so hard to market themselves. Don't tell me they don't have to. They never did. I'd watch Real Madrid play Manchester United at Old Trafford rather than Mumbai Indians play Chennai Super Kings. That is until they play proper cricket and inspire me to give up my board exam and invite friends home. On the pitch, that is. Not on Royal Sundaram stand with Vijay, Nayanthara and Sivamani!

On a completely different note, some of those marketing minds at work are truly gods. You can't help but like this. Truly remarkable people at work.

IPL Cricket - Neither Quite Nor Quiet

sufferingsocrates — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 03:34:55 EDT

The current Indian Premier League Twenty20 matches seem to be getting embroiled in one controversy after another. If the whole idea of the IPL was entertainment, it seems to be dishing out added spice and controversy to make it an even bigger hit. Unfortunately, after a little over a week of IPL action, it is really sad to note that the standard of cricket has been quite disappointing.

Critics and experts of the game say that Twenty20 isn't really cricket and IPL never so. Simple reason being that, the skills of any cricketer is too short to be assessed in this format which hardly lasts 3 hours. A counter argument could well be, is it really worth watching 35 hours of play spanning over 5 days of Test Cricket ? True, and that precisely is the reason why a new fan base is developing for Twenty20. A new generation of sports fans who just want to see an exciting short game, with lots of sixes and fours and an enthralling finish if possible, like the Jaipur/Hyderabad game this week.

In essence, many of those in the new fan base, would have been those who found even the ODI format too tedious to watch over 7 hours in a day. The three hour Twenty20 format is short, crisp and not too dragging. It is the bowlers whose reputation is taking a pounding. On the positive side, the bowlers will have to be even more clever and try to come up with more tricks to counter ferocious hitting all through 20 overs in a match. McCullum started the IPL with a scorching 158* in the very first match and the success of the batsmen has been consistent, except for couple of below par performances during the IPL.

Though the batting has been sometimes outrageous and unimaginable, the fielding standards have been quite shoddy and at times mediocre. Especially, the dropped catches in most matches have been quite appalling. An exception could be the match between Punjab/Mumbai yesterday, where Brett Lee made a fabulous run out and Yuvraj and Bravo came up with stunning catches. That apart, the fielding has been poor all through. The bowling has been pretty bad too, except for some inspiring bowling from McGrath, Mohammad Asif, Ishant Sharma and Brett Lee. It is understood that this is a batsman's game. But unless the bowlers come out with a better strategy, Twenty20 could well do without any world class bowlers.

Batting has been brilliant at times. Conventional shots have been put in the back burner and scoops,reverse sweeps and slog sweeps have become the daily dose. It was hearty to watch Sangakkara's innings yesterday, which was conventional, yet brisk and much to the liking of cricket connoisseurs.

That much for cricket. Now for the spicier part of IPL. No sooner had the Eden Gardens pitch controversy died down, the culture keepers of India came out against the cheerleaders of IPL. Obscenity was considered to be in full display by the supposedly skimpily clad cheer leaders. This, coming from top brass politicians, who are fine with the deluge of item numbers in Hindi movies, and the lead actors willing to expose every inch of their inherited Indian cultural assets. That has indeed not been taken note of, or is it that the politicians have a censor board of their own for editing these?

I guess, any obscenity which can be of three dimensional nature and real life, and which can be felt, is what irks the politicians. It is so ironic, that on one side they want to have sex education imparted in schools, but do not have faith in the common public when they watch these cheer leaders. It is also amusing and scary, that they want the policemen to do moral policing when the Indian capital has responsible policemen raping minors ! It may be a generalization, but is something serious to ponder about.

The pitch controversy was certainly not planned for sure, and was a blunder by the pitch curator. The pitch at Kolkata by all means was terrible and very dangerous to play cricket on. The magic of Twenty20 cricket is that , it is so short a time to play for, that the pitch condition doesn't really matter. But, if the same pitch had been used for a 50 over game, I am quite sure the match would have been called off . Since IPL is riding on billions of dollars, the match had to go on. The players had to play on, since they are being paid so much ! So Twenty20 now has truly proven that it is not about cricket or the players. It is about the crowd, the entertainment. The pitch or the bowlers or the fielding doesn't really matter. The charm of cricket is the pitch conditions which vary from country to country and season to season. But Twenty20 wipes out that advantage altogether.The batsman, as has always been the case, relish and plunder the bowling.

The positive side of having international stars arrive and play in the IPL was to create better camaraderie between rival players, who would be sharing the same dressing room. There are lots of pros and cons. Players would come to know what are the weak point of a player and play on that when they represent their country. On the positive front, it would also be an opportunity to iron out differences and understand the culture of other players and respect them. This, in fact, could be a boon and a bane. It would be a boon, if the players truly respect and toe the line when it comes to cultural or racial slurs on the cricket pitch. A bane, if the players do just the opposite to sledge even more. The latter sounds rather sinister, but cannot be entirely ruled out. The IPL also gives an opportunity for upcoming talent to learn more about the game from past and present legends with whom they are playing.

Unfortunately, IPL can also work totally against national team members playing against each other. Cricket, being a sport, is really competitive, and when the national team members face off against each other, sparks could fly, words could be exchanged, and this could create disharmony when they eventually play together for the national team. This is precisely what happened after yesterday's match between Mumbai and Punjab yesterday night. An upset Harbhajan Singh (captaining Mumbai), after the loss apparently slapped Sreesanth (bowling for Punjab) who just a few months back were playing together on the cricketing field for India. This has become a fresh controversy, and even if things are sorted out between them, when they share the dressing room for India next time, they would always think back on this incident and not be comfortable with each other.

This incident, for sure, is not make believe and had to have happened. Why else would Sreesanth cry uncontrollably on the field, that too after his team had won their first IPL match ? The problems are only going to start, simply because the owners of rival teams could be at loggerheads, and that could easily permeate to their team members on the field. Well, it could be termed as entertainment, but then it doesn't help in building a good rapport for team members of the same national team.

All in all, the IPL thus far has been cricket-wise, moderately successful, entertainment-wise, hugely successful. Controversies will always dog the IPL, since big bucks are involved and any small incident will always be blown out of proportion. As a true cricket lover, I would only pray that Test Cricket be left alone. And hope that ICC changes the way ODI games are played. For ODIs are in grave danger of being replaced by 20-20 which doesn't really require too many skills. The only reason ODIs would continue to flourish, would be because this is the only format where true talent and big hitters of the game can be identified for the shorter 20-20 format. Test cricket can still never unearth big hitters or fast run scorers.

IPL Twenty20: Mumbai Indians Lose Sorely To Punjab Kings XI

Aaman Lamba — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 00:03:01 EDT

The poorly named Mumbai Indians have had a string of bad luck, or perhaps bad captaincy, in the Indian Premier League Twenty20 series. They currently share the bottom of the points table with the Deccan Chargers. In the most recent match, the Zinta-Wadia owned Punjab Kings XI trounced the Mumbai team by 66 runs on home ground at Mohali.

The Punjab innings was marked by a 94 from Sangakkara, who received the orange cap for highest overall scorer and the Man of the Match award. Bowling figures were good but not great, with Nehra and Harbhajan Singh taking important wickets. Sachin Tendulkar did not play again, not having recovered from a groin injury yet.

The Mumbai batting never really got off the ground. Brett Lee took two early wickets, and the Mumbai run rate never really rose above 6 or 7, while the required run rate was close to 10 initially, and then rose to 12 and beyond. The highest scorer was Bravo at 23, and Brett Lee had the best averages.

What happened on field after the victory put pale to the game, and sportsmanship itself. While both sides are backing off a fullblown controversy, the bald facts of the matter are that hotblooded Harbhajan Singh slapped Sreesanth in the face when Sreesanth commiserated with him post the match. Sreesanth began crying and the celebrations were marred by scenes of Sreesanth crying continuously, being comforted by team members. Wags mocked that it was perhaps because he hadn't been hugged by Ms. Zinta, but when the truth emerged in the post-game press conference, the cricketing world went ballistic.

An apology was tendered, and the affair is being attempted to be brushed under the proverbial carpet, especially by the BCCI and the PCA, but a cricketing nation is aghast, not least the media. The Punjab team may lodge a complaint with the IPL come morning, and probably should. Tempers have run high on-field often enough in cricket, but it is the responsibility of team managers to control hotblooded players. The difficulty is compounded, as might be expected by the fissures that might affect performance of what is termed the 'national' team. While this might be a disciplinary issue for the IPL, it becomes a matter of team cooperation at the BCCI level.

Sreesanth can be volatile and over-dramatic on the field, and perhaps even off the field, and the prolonged on-field tear-fest was a bit strong. There had been pre-game indications of a looming clash between the two players. There seemed to be ongoing jibes through the match, as when Mumbai's Musavir Khote was dismissed. There were indeed questions on whether this was a manufactured controversy, yet if the IPL is to maintain its effort at being seen as part of respectable cricket, strict action must be taken against Harbhajan Singh.

IPL Twenty20 - Bangalore Royal Challengers Stun Mumbai Indians

Aaman Lamba — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 14:07:49 EDT

It sometimes feels one is watching fantasy cricket, with reports like "R Dravid c & b Harbhajan Singh" and the sportsmanship is making one change one's views about this format. Each game has its own tenseness, and there really seems to be no such thing as 'too much cricket'. When it comes down to the wire, as did this game, all the better.

The Bangalore Royal Challengers faced off against the Mumbai Indians in an away game after their defeat against the Kolkata Knight Riders. They had much to prove, and playing the Master Blaster on his own turf would have been a daunting thought. Fortunately for them, though, Sachin Tendulkar was ruled unfit to play, and the Mumbai Indians took the field under the captaincy of Harbajan Singh.

The Mumbai Indians (confusing team name, perhaps designed at erasing the 'Marathi Manoos' memories) put up a rather good total, setting the Bangalore team a target of 165. There was some drama when Thornely was hit through his helmet grill and had to retire hurt. Sanath Jayasuriya soldiered on, until he was run out for 29. Robin Uthappa and Pinal Shah maintained a good partnership, and Uthappa himself reached 48 before being stumped. Shaun Pollock played through the final overs, until he was bowled on the last ball.

For the Royal Challengers, Dravid and Chanderpaul spent over 4 overs in a slow paced partnership, marked mainly by singles and the occasional four. In the fifth over, Chanderpaul was in a spot of pain, and was caught out on the next ball, perhaps to his relief. The run rate stayed in the 6 to 7 range until Rahul Dravid was caught and bowled by Harbhajan Singh, well below the necessary 8+ mark. The highlight of the Bangalore inning was a steady partnership between Jacques Kallis and Virat Kohli, which pushed the run rate above 8, until Kohli was caught out. Mark Boucher and Kallis strove to keep the party going, but the run rate started easing again, or rather the required run rate rose above 9, and Bangalore needed 48 from 30 balls. Knowing each other's moves doubtless helped strengthen their partnership. They started getting the necessary eight-ten runs per over after a while, mixed in with almost a single per ball.

The 18th over saw 19 runs hit, with two sixes. This was just what was needed, and eleven runs remained off the last two overs. Boucher kept up the pace, and had to see Kallis off in the penultimate over, but managed to complete the remaining few runs along with Balachandra Akhil in the final over, which saw tight fielding. The Mumbai gang sorely missed their captain, although there's no saying what effect, if any, his presence might have made. Harbhajan Singh's captaincy was well done, and the hairbreadth loss should not rankle much.

While this was a far better performance than the opening game, the Bangalore team did not seem to have the zest for pushing the envelope that is needed when chasing a high target in limited overs. The singles evidently don't cut it in Twenty20, and one hopes the thirst for runs does not see cricketers burning themselves out before their time, or worse, adopting baseball-style tactics.

IPL T20 - Kolkata Knight Riders Defeat Deccan Chargers

Aaman Lamba — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 10:19:18 EDT

The lights went out, not quite symbolically, in the fourth match of the Indian Premier League Twenty20 series. The Hyderabad Deccan Chargers set a rather light target of 110 off 18.4 overs, and the Kolkata Knight Riders found it a surprisingly arduous task to make the climb. Just as they were 20 or so runs (and balls) away from their target, the lights went out in Kolkata's Eden Gardens stadium.

It might have brought back memories of power failures in years gone by in the Calcutta of old, but was apparently a floodlight failure. The teams huddled together to plot strategy, while the crowds grew restless. Being Kolkata, there were doubtless sinister conspiracy theories hatched and dismissed, then taken up again. Meanwhile, statisticians analyzed the odds of such an event, and the possibility of a tie, and the impact of such on the ranking tables.

The game started with an over of overthrows and no balls. Gilchrist and Venugopal Rao had a pretty good partnership going before Venugopal got out in the third over. The best partnership in the Deccan Chargers innings was the one between Gilchrist and Symonds, although the run rate fell a bit short of spectacular. The pitch was difficult, with clouds of dust rising up from almost every ball. The Chargers folded in the 18th over for 110.

The Kolkata innings started with some fine knocks from McCullum, but not for long as he got out in the second over. Ricky Ponting was next to fall at zero to an lbw decision. Saurav Ganguly stayed in the game for a while, and got hit in the chest midway, while gasps could be heard across the stands. The scoring was very slow, however, and an interesting partnership between Ganguly and Hussey was ended prematurely. Hussey and Hafeex stayed the course until the lights went out in the 16th over.

There were many confabulations between the captains and the match referee, the venerable Faroukh Engineer. Repairs were evidently made and the match restarted in about ten minutes without any shortening of the number of overs.

Kolkata needed 22 runs off 19 balls with 5 wickets to spare. David Hussey and Shukla restricted themselves to singles off the next few balls, and the occasional collision with the bowler mid-wicket. They then picked up the pace with a rousing 6 and a 4. Victory seemed in sight, and the crowd sensed blood and was on their feet. They were not to be denied, and on home ground, the Kolkata sportsfan is a demanding spectator.

Hussey wrapped up the game with a six off the final ball of the 18th over, just two balls ahead of where the Deccan Chargers had given up the ghost. The crowd went wild, and made plans for some fine hilsa cooking. All electric failures were forgiven and the Kolkata Knight Riders team rose up the ladder like a Bollywood superhit.