Those who must type or speak something about cricket to put bread and butter and a cup of custard on their tables have rustled up a storm of sorts to remain in circulation and good earning shape over this year's IPL. Yet again, The League, as IPL may be referred to, hasn't failed to feed many bellies hungry for debate and rhetorical punching. But I wish to isolate out Sunil Gavaskar from the rest of the baand baaja baraat and keep him aside, for he is a man who has played the game for India with the best intentions, great accomplishment, courage and has rendered yeoman's service to the cause of Indian cricketer. His views require careful interpretation and discussion - I could not even understand what the rest of cacophonists said or wrote in print and web.
Sunnybhai is correct when he says there is a likelihood of a precedent being set where players chose club over country.
While the ususal suspects exist to rave and rant about IPL in the context of all that happens in this universe, to please a special target audience or an employer or both, so that they may remain prominent, or displayed prominently on front pages of print and portal, or referred to frequently enough among cricket-driven web chatters like us to remain in fine earning circulation for a longer period of time, Sunnybhai's views need to be interpreted in a different light. He doesn't belong to that group of theorists and bandwagonists.
Everybody knew beforehand that if India had an extended run in the World Cup, IPL and the shifty tours thereafter would pose problems. The organizers knew it, the players knew it, the commentators knew it, the technical committee people of BCCI and IPL knew it. Only thing, most of them weren't probably giving India many chances of going the full distance and they expected the early boot and longer rest, which, they might have felt, would be sufficient for the players.
The tours after the World Cup, planners might have imagined, would be leapt at by players seeking redemption and escape. Unfortunately for such calculations, if there were any, India did the unthinkable - it played the entire tournament and won the World Cup! Now there was a problem.
The committment to IPL 4 was already pre-written - Sunnybhai himself would acknowledge, having been an insider before quitting, that players had little choice in the matter of participation...or more correctly, non-participation in IPL...given that the powers that be straddle the span from BCCI through IPL to Franchise. IPL was a BCCI institution and the franchises are now essential implants into the landscape, and there is serious overlapping among the three to boot!
Between the IPL, Franchise and BCCI, the poor player could only approach BCCI for sympathy and empathetic rest for he had won for them very much in this season with the World Cup being the latest trophy. The IPL 4 season was yet unborn and the Franchisees yet to be compensated for their investment with performance.
What could the player do other than approach BCCI to take a lenient view this season? They couldn't have approached the franchisees or IPL members for a pardon. They couldn't dare....given some officials overlap and can hurt them bad if IPL or franchises suffer.
Perhaps Sunnybhai's statement is carefully designed to prick those ears by banking upon the baand baaja baraat waale to pick up his comment and raise sufficient noise in the mohalla of cricket.
Sunnybhai himself till not long ago was part of the BCCI, IPL and rumored to be associated wioth a franchise. I am sure, given that he himself was a surprised World Cup winner in 1983, would have, somewhere in his mind, considered the possibility that this Indian team could win. In which case, his thought process might have extended the theme and latched upon the possibility of a cramped schedule, injury and tiredness? It's only reasonable to expect that his intelligent mind must have easily considered all such possibilities. But we didn't hear anything BEFORE the World Cup...or IPL. No questions were aired...no what ifs were aired out by these very same who now are stirring their gravy pots with harsh energy.
He certainly didn't protest the scheduling of IPL 4 so soon after the World Cup knowing fully well there was a West Indies tour coming up after the cup, BEFORE the World Cup. When he was a member of IPL till a point. Having been a long-serving player and follwer of the game, he must have known the chances of injuries, sore bodies and minds AND the compulsion for players to play in BCCI's IPL instead of resting.
IPL was hailed as an engine for India's cricket growth. It is...nobody denies its importance to Indian cricket except the khaane-peene wale baraatis who must please some tastes to have something to khaana and peena and remain in khaana-peena mode.
Sunnybhai has been closely associated with many aspects of IPL's construction including lending his commentary to it.
Surely he must know and have anticipated instead of being slightly shocked AFTER?
And the hay-makers....they pounce now, when at one time they were counting the months to Dravid, Sachin and Laxman's retirement after the World Cup.
If India had lost the World Cup early enough...as expected silently by many noisemakers...there was already chatter about that retirements would come and new faces would be given a leg up to start a new cycle again and redevelop the Test team. If that had happened...if Sachin had quit disappointed....if BCCI was shaken by an early dismissal of India in the World Cup and seleceted a new-look team, would these cacophonists have cried foul?
Would the cacophonists have then cried out so outraged that India was sending a B-team or C-team or Gambhir or Sachin or Viru had 'conserved' themselves for the IPL 4 AFTERWARDS and sacrificed India in the World Cup?
C'mon...these hacks take vacations paid for by their paymasters at the drop of a hat on the pretext of having worked a hard season and these very hacks are crying foul over those players who have persevered consistently to make everything..EVERYTHING... from Test Chamionship through World Cups to IPL count for India when they take a vacation that should have been gifted to them by a grateful nation? C'mon...show me one sincere hack...one sincere one among the baand baaja baaratis from Agra to London and beyond who have matched these Indian players in sincerity, purpose and dedication at great expense to their bodies.
Grow up...update your clichés...grow out of them...grow a new rant...a new peeve and jealousy. This one's got too boring.
Take it in the context...this was a special year. There was a 50-50 World Cup to get through additionally. Next year will not be like this for there will be no World Cup before the IPL. Maybe a T20 WC but that's not quite as taxing as the 50-50 one.
Shame on all those who jumped to raise a finger on the players who served India so gallantly and gave us so much joy! Shame! Shame! Shame on you all to grudge them a break.
And so many were actually waiting for new faces to happen in the various Indian squads AFTER the world cup BEFORE that tournament happened!
There has to be a limit to such hypocrisy.
And didn't the players ask for some time to rest after the World Cup? Surely they must have been asked by BCCI-IPL to consider the larger picture and play?
And in sport, injuries can happen.
And oh yes, for a host and his family members, it isn't easy to cry off with injuries and sickness if a wedding's been planned in the family and guests have arrived. The IPL 4 was just that...you couldn't expect Indian players not to participate and diminish the tournament.
All those Agraawaasis who are speaking gibberish by pouncing upon what appears to be godsent for them should spend time and make the same efforst as the team in incorporating some sanity into their write ups and bread-butter song.
The players deserve to be given rest. One appreciates their playing IPL so soon after winning without time to celebrate.
You have to have large pool of players and use them. India has been doing that for the most part of past decade anyway...in ones and twos players have been used and rotated. Why the fuss now? Just because it is the policy and interest of some to ceate controversies around Indian cricket?
These dinosaurs need to update their mindsets for good now. Indian cricket has changed...accept it and learn to live with it.
And what about Afridi who now goes to play T20 for Hampshire? Why don't the same carping cacophonists say or write he has taken this tack and 'quit conditionally' just so he could play for County instead of Country in Ireland?
Nobody cribbed when England players regularly refused to tour India and sent substitutes instead. Nobody cribbed when West Indians played second string teams against India. People appear to live in a haze lost inside mazes.
As far as Sunnybhai is concerned, I think he was actually addressing the managers, former committee members, and franchise owners indirectly through a clever piece of plain-speak.
Tuesday, 31 May 2011
Update required in mindsets of commentators and fans
Saturday, 28 May 2011
Juss A Plain Ol' Lucky Dawg
Dat's what dem say about 'im!
He has good teams under him like many other captains, but his is the most consistent at all levels.
His moves on the field look ordinary, mechanical...even defensive at times, but he prevails with the most bizarre unexpected masterstrokes. Take for instance his use of Ashwin...or even better, pinning a role of slow left arm spinner and main strike bowler on a defunct Yuvraj Singh and firing him up to be the best player of the World Cup 2011 with a combined performance with bat and ball.
Players don't take his challenges as ego problems...they respond to them positively....the way he wants them to.
What's the secret?
Tuesday, 17 May 2011
A scripted success
Rampaul - 7/75 ~ Sammy - 7/45 ~ Bishoo - 4/68
Saeed Ajmal - 11/111
The pitch may have been Providential but it was the same for both teams. Rampaul stripped Pakistan's lean batting line up with blistering pace and movement of the ball unseen from a West Indies pace bowler for quite a while. Sammy kept it tight around Bishoo and Rampaul and feasted in the second innings with a five-for.
Two brittle batting teams, but one held it's own just enough. Lack of support to Pakistan's Ajmal was evident whereas the West Indies bowlers supported each other's efforts. In the end, this was the difference - Bishoo and Chanderpaul were allowed to bat West Indies into a position of strength. West Indies employed the variety in its bowling rather effectively.
Given the recent spate of discomfort and counter-currnts sweeping across the Caribbeans over changes induced in the West Indies team, one can only repeat what a man once said - Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomfort.
This West Indies victory may befool many, fickle supporters of cricket in the Caribbeans may sway wildly once again upon this rare victory, it remains however to be seen if this unit can prevail consistently in different conditions. Sammy became twice the bowler he otherwise is upon it. To his credit, not many Pakistan bowlers could become twice the bowlers they are upon the same patch of ground.
Congratulations are in order nevertheless...the West Indies batsmen applied themselves a little more than Pakistan's and their bowlers were always in the game.
Perhaps if this had been a pitch born in India, the world wide web of cricket might have deeply inquired into and suspended it in a trice. But that's a story for another day.
As of now, let's enjoy the coming good of a wild plan. Read More......
Friday, 6 May 2011
Sehwag lends rare quality to IPL
Given the situations and conditions the two innings were played in, Sehwag's resuscitating 80 off 47 against a rampaging Kochi team on a low pitch followed by his blistering one-man show century in the next match against Deccan Chargers when his team mates were collapsing or frozen all around him, I felt they were the two best innings of all IPLs I have seen. These were not carefree innings. Their intrinsic quality was what came through so easily and naturally forward. Two winning gems of innings by the Maharajah of Multan (or Nawab of Najafgarh if you please), a man we otherwise call simply Viru. We leave this note of appreciation brief in the same spirit of keeping it simple.
Prejudice and lack of comprehension of Sehwag's game be damned for good now!
Scorecard - vs Kochi
Scorecard - vs Deccan Chargers
Tuesday, 3 May 2011
The Gandaharis of BCCI
The BCCI correctly raised salient objections to certain aspects of UDRS in its current form and refused to entertain the system. It is left to speculate if BCCI will adopt the same if suitable amendments are made though.
UDRS is an ICC issue. BCCI's role in it will be naturally limited to that of a member nation. But what prevents it, the BCCI, from demonstrating to the entire world the kind of system they envisage in construction and application on the platform of IPL?
That is if the initial premise has been accepted at all - that umpiring needs support to be more accurate in these days of ultra slo-mo HDTV.
As if the poor catching and fielding weren't a sufficient put-off in this season's IPL (I ascribe that to the lala mentality of now well-fed Indian domestic players), we have the most bizarre umpiring decisions seen in this edition of IPL. Makes you wonder if the matches aren't scripted in advance.Matches are cut short and course changed immediately by poor umpiring. For instance today's Deccan Chargers vs KKR game. The umpire misses a thick edge and gives Christian out LBW. And he's wearing dark goggles to boot. The glare of floodlights cannot be the reason surely! A T20 game is more vulnerable to quick death if an umpire raises an improper finger into it as compared to longer formats. And there can't be worse tortures than watching a T20 game killed by the 10th over itself. If BCCI-IPL want to fob this off with an obsolete 'part of the game' kind of crap, then they will not have any viewers left. Only addicts will remain. You can't keep pushing substandard products around and pass them repeatedly as the best yuo can offer. Who knows if the matches BCCI-IPL is selling to us all aren't scripted in boardrooms already and some umpiring and catching deficiencies aren't part of those careful strategies?
Our views on umpiring and the need for its improvement are well recorded here. They were written keeping international cricket in mind. In a previous article - A Suitable Crab - we had mentioned the need for BCCI to strengthen its umpiring development system alongside coaching system, the main emphasis of that article.
IPL was a great opportunity for BCCI to demonstrate what kind of referral system they wanted in place at international level unless of course the regressive forces in it prefer to blindfold themselves to present and future like Gandhari defending a blind belief.
Quota Raj
Quotas in sports has been a topic of discussion. Cricket has had the South African experience to discuss in recent times. The England cricket team, also known fondly among the fans of the game as 'United Kingdom' cricket team, has also been discussed in related threads in the past. More for its complete openness and embracement of anybody who can play capable cricket and can qualify somehow to be on the team.
Despite being the antithesis of a quota system in a way, England, nevertheless, has been dragged alongside and into the Saffer quota cricket threads on various forums at different times by those concerned at the dilution of the essential Englishman in his game.
West Indies too have ruminated over colour and race in the past, and as they do now in the case of Brendan Nash. In fact, there is a significant proportion that say Nash was the best alternative in the situation Darren Sammy ascended to West Indies captaincy but there was some discomfort over this issue and hence Sammy rose instead. Challenor was probably forgotten, Goddard and Stollmeyer too, maybe Jackie Grant as well, but not his brother Rolph or Denis Aitkinson it appears. It is possible that undermining events that led to Goddard giving up his captaincy might have troubled those otherwise inclined to appoint Nash as current West Indies captain.
Like it or not, race divides, often as unfairly as it did in the past, and exists uncomfortably in the fringes of spectators' consciousness even today.
Quotas were designed to be corrective, but beyond a point they become just a weapon handed over to the other side of the intital argument. Continued quotas divide inequitably all over again after the existing disease has been amputated. One can keep shifting goalposts to justify their continuance...sometimes they are required to be extended.
But the danger is that calls for reverse quotas can grow. As in the case of forum discussions over the fate of England's cricket team.
The reason for quotas can also be distorted greatly from initial remedial parameters.
Take for instance what the French Football Federation is reported to be contemplating - Mediapart.
Members of the French Football Federation's National Technical Board, including the France team coach Laurent Blanc, have secretly approved a quota selection process to reduce the number of young black players, and those of North African origin, emerging from the country's youth training centres as potential candidates for the national team, Mediapart can reveal
[...]
But the DTN's concerns about the racial origins of the France team even extend to the issue of the morphology of players, notably black players.
'Who are the large, strong, powerful? The blacks.'
Mediapart has learnt that during a DTN meeting last year, Laurent Blanc suggested that a stereotype of player, which he reportedly described as "large, strong, powerful" needed to be changed. According to Mediapart's sources, he told the meeting of DTN board members: "And who are the large, strong, powerful? The blacks. That's the way it is. It is a current fact. God knows that in the training centres and football academies, there are lots."
Just shows the distortion prolonged quotas or quotas with wrong supporting philosophies can do to man and his society. Quotas, unfortunately, were also designed to divide and continue with the same purpose.
One can always perform recosntructive surgeries over and over again...according to the tastes of those who are percieved as dominant or oppressed in that period of time, but there will come a time when there will be nothing left to reconstruct. The cicaticies of numerous plastic procedures will leave behind an unresponsive horrible mass of scar tissue and nothing else.
I am not a fool hoping for Utopia - that racial feelings will be relegated for ever in this modern world - but what one can do is reject and speak against the burgeoning of the same in recent times.
Too many quotas, too many for insinuated reasons and quotas lingering far beyond their remedial abilities damage sports and society.
Such quotas are merely redressed prejudices. Prejudice is the foundation of division...as it is also for all distortional quotas. Read More......
Sham Samaroo's satirical take
I like this take by 'Starboy' on West Indies cricket scripted by Sham Samaroo, a USA cricketer, at ondriveupdate.com
The satire comes thorugh in a ustaad-jhamura conversation format we in India are all familiar with.
It begins this way
I ran into Starboy on Liberty Avenue last Friday. Starboy bex baad.
What’s the matter, I asked.
A jus come back from GT and WI cricket is in real $hit, Starboy told me.
Well, help me out …tell me what’s going on.
Man, wid a name like kakahole as a selector, nah $hit we gwine get.
Read entire article at ondriveupdate.com
Overall, it is a balanced article and speaks commonsense truths about the West Indies cricket situation without swaying too greatly in the direction of bias if any.
Worth a read. Read More......
Monday, 2 May 2011
Bishoo bowls Misbah: Fourth ODI, Barbados 2011
The ball spun into his pads rather than the expected away and went on to the wickets from there. Was flat and fizzy. However, the action wasn't quite the classical googly from back of the hand yet it came in with the arm. The wrist was side-on as if for a classical leggie rather than back of the hand facing the batsman as in a googly. Fingers came into play there.
Devendra Bishoo has serious variety. This ball was an example. The lads at Cricinfo live commentary completely missed the nuances of this delivery.
India better learn this bowler before embarking on the tour. Some of the young Indian guns looking forward to tour in the absence of seniors are likely to be surprised by this man's guile and craft.
A Suitable Crab
The tongue-in-cheek story of a fisherman at a London (or New York) dockyard and his open bin of Indian crabs among closed bins of crabs from other nations is not unheard or new. However, for those who might not have heard the story, let me quickly bring them up to date.
The story goes like this - Once upon a time in a huge dockyard of London (or whichever importing dockyard of your choice outside India), were stored, large containers filled with fresh catch of live crabs from different parts of the world. The containers from all countries in whose rivers, seas and oceans crabs exist had lids which were tightly clamped. The exception was the container from India, which lay open to the skies above the foreign dockyard. Observing this peculiarity, a visitor to the dock asked the fisherman/dockyard manager why only the container from India was kept open.
The dock manager replied, "Oh, that's not a bother. If we left the containers of other countries open, all the crabs inside them would climb to the top and walk away free. However, with the Indian crabs it is never so, because everytime an Indian crab tries to climb up the container, another crab pulls it down, and therefore none of the Indian crabs is able to leave the container!"
You may all wonder where this is leading to - "Hold strain" is all I can ask you for we will hit the subject very soon. In fact we can bring it up right away - the suitability of an Indian cricket coach.
The land of a fasting Anna Hazare and coincidental World Cup victory appears flawlessly united and uniformly hand-in-hand. The moment's combined palpable energy captured in this country is such that it can shoot a billion rockets to the outer reaches of Milky Way. Such in the supplementary power of so many unified in one purpose, one thought, one ambition. To point at fissures in this fabric at such times would be sacrilegious. But the truth is, beneath this public euphoria, we are nothing but a massive container of the most lively of all crabs.
We climb, we pull, we are pulled and we climb over...over and over again so everyone may rise yet none may rise higher. The situation of cricket's development, especially the system of developing coaches and their appointment, languishes like the crabs in that bin. Indian cricket, for all the massive and foundation-changing progressive steps it has undertaken in the past two-decades has made sure that the post of coaching shall never rise again to greet an Indian.
Coaching is a disorganized sector...a self-employed, small-scale/handicraft industrial appendage of Indian cricket. The big man who comes once in a while in the big black car, stops, steps out, looks at the handiwork available with cricket coaches who set up their small stalls lining the boundary ropes and roadsides of this cricket playing nation, picks out one piece of art he likes, throws down a few promises in exchange, gets back into his gleaming car, has the chauffeur rev up hard and vamooses away into the distance, kicking with his spinning tyres a heap of dirt and dust onto the craftsman's face.
The state of Indian coaches is such...like this craftsman whose best work of art has been pinched...like a sample or specimen...but he wipes his dirt splattered face with a smile and not anger...with great joy thumping inside his chest that his loveliest piece of art shall now grace and provide happiness to so many people in the world.
That craftsman will never be given a chance to create a new piece of art. That scientist will never be given a laboratory space of his own to design new inventions. The Big Man may return to pluck away another sample but will neverbring forward these 'backward' rustic craftsmen and homemade scientists to his glass and concrete factory of cricketers. He will employ a man from New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and even Zimbabwe, but he will never find a suitable crab from his bin of Indian crabs and allow him to shape our and his collective destiny.
He was right partly in the past to seek external knowledge and assistance. We, the crabs of India, were divided. The Mumbaiyya can never tolerate the 'Dhilliwala'; the Southerner can never tolerate the 'Cowbelter' and vice versa. Then there's the Eastern outrage always ready to explode...this things are distilled by lores and folklorists and the concentrate is spooned into generation after generation. Cricket - the establishment and its players - are not exempt.
Trust is a factor, fear is a bigger factor. Home-boyism is a conviction and so on and so forth...anythign and everything is an excuse to bring the foreigner in and keep the Indian down.
There isn't smoke without fire...those weaned on the strong distillate we mentioned above, have in the past displayed such poverty of management. They fragmented with impunity...none more than men from Mumbai who believe they have a divine right in such matters. people from other parts of the country have played their own dirty games. But how dirtier than say a Greg Chappel-Kiran More's?
While Greg Chappell's destructive role hasn't spoilt the chances for foreign coaches in India, the 'efforts' of a few Indians in the distant past have, curiously...amazingly, forever tarnished the chances of every Indian aspirant to the post.
There is no effort by BCCI to develop this aspect of its rapidly mordenizing cricket. There is no effort to develop and create world class cricket coaches in India. Such personnel are expense rather than assets for BCCI!
How can Indian coaches ever display their abilities if they are forever unsuitable?
How can Indian coaches ever be reckoned on par with international coaches if being Indian is unsuitable.
Why cannot BCCI also invest in a compact and efficient coach development program? It is to their benefit for they not only have well trained scientific coaches of known quality ranging in the country, but they can also draw from them to guide India in international cricket.
People say lack of knowledge is a factor...to an extent they may be correct...but what about the coaches who guided young Sehwags, Sachin Tendulkars, Dravids, Laxmans, Dhonis and so on? If homegrown coaches lacked formal science, they certainly didn't lack the native sense of it.
Then, in a day and age since FM Manmohan Singh had opened India to the world two decades ago, Indian managers are learning and functioning in India and abroad. Aren't they? Then why do we deny Indian managers of a cricket team for a coach, according to many, is a manager after all?
There are those like the columnist in my newspaper, The Hindu, who, when it suits him right see great role for a coach. Similarly, there are those, who when it suits them most, see little role for a coach in a team. Then there are those who remain consistent with their views. The truth probably lies within a range of those opinions. My own opinion is that coaches may be able to play constructive roles...they certainly can...and they can do it best by avoiding their biggest capability - a destructive presence in the dressing room. There are no need for examples....they abound everywhere.
I believe that while coaches can do good for struggling players and also to those not struggling by providing with an additional well-analyzed input, the real power of a coach lies in their ability to be so easily destructive. A good coach, according to me, is one who can avoid this pitfall first and then goes on to maximize individual and team perfromances.
There is no reason why Indian born, bred, gened cricket coaches cannot be found suitable for the post.
When Indian surgeons and engineers are learning and performing miracles and being recognized for it, is it wrong to expect an Indian coach to grow similarly if it is made possible for them?
If a Kamath can be imagined manage Indians with vision and without bias at Infosys, is it 'unsuitable' to expect an Indian to be able to do the same in a cricketing context?
People say Indians have no credentials...maan, that's like people said Indian can't rule themselves...like saying women can't run companies. And yes,keep denying Indians a platform, they will never have credentials..no CV.
Keep denying young Indian management grads their little cubicles and desks, they'll never have credentials to be a Kamath.
The problem lies in having reinforced an impression repeatedly that Indian cricket coaches are a liability to the team. That being Indian is a negative point in the parameters of suitability. That they are impressionable. Weren't foreign coaches impressionable too? Weren't Indian cricket selectors impressionable and easily influenced too? Have we given up Indian selectors and hired foreign selectors because of this?
In fact those who do say such things are unsuitable crabs pulling a possibly capable fellow Indian crab down by his toes. Because he was probably a "Dhilliwala" or a "Masala Dosa" or a freaking 'Rasogollah"! We'll never know anyway for we do not want to know who among us can do it.
My point is not about specific individuals, or to argue if a coach is required or not...if there is a post of coach, the only suitable crab for it is an imported one.
Therein lies the tragedy of an Indian philosophy, that too in modern times.
Local Indian talent must step up
THE FOURTH EDITION of IPL has been insipid in terms of quality of matches played in comparison to the previous three editions. Gone are the closely fought games and suspense that remained going into the last few pages of each year's edition. Today there are three distinct groups...four if you want to hair-split...and even the top team or teams are playing mediocre T20 cricket and still floating. That's because there isn't sufficient depth of quality in any team now except the odd one or two.
The teams that did really well in the past have always been the ones whose local talent had contributed consistently. If Deccan Chargers won a particular edition, it wasn't only because their overseas players managed the show. Ditto for Chennai or Delhi and other teams that did well in the past three editions.
Today, thanks to the spread of local talent in a wider pool and coupled with stagnation of their quality, things are looking bleak. IPL games aren't exciting this season...I confess one of the reason I haven't watched all matches this year is because not many were enthusing. Whatever local talent quality was there has been diluted.
The overseas quality too has been thinned out. Forget the number of names, the people who perform are few and anyway only four can play.
Local Indians shouldn't forget that this is a tournament for them...and not just for the overseas players or big Indian names. Those are just the crutches. It is upto local Indian talent to show improvement in all aspects of their games and keep raising the standards. Learning should be palpable. Reliance on overseas players to provide the quality element to a team must diminish and be restricted to the role of a guiding hand or the extra boost.
Fielding standards have been abysmal. Things have gone in reverse gear in this department! It doesn't make for a high-quality tournament or a gripping one if the viewer is sure that a catch is more likely to be dropped than taken. When the situation is thus, it isn't much fun watching.
Then, there is the complete stagnantion of some young batsmen and bowlers. A couple of seasons with sprinklings of bright games appear to have satiated theit appetite for big-time cricket. Maybe the contracts are too comfortable for them. Where are players like Pradeep Sangwan? Not sure but I think he plays for KKR now...what has he played and achieved this year? Fellows like him appear to be happy extracting the cream from IPL ka dudh and lapping it up. Unless injured of course, in which case I take back those words.
Players like Pandey and Ojha and so on are worse than how they played in the first edition.
Rohit Sharma has made use as has Virat Kohli. Tiwary, Venu, Rayudu....just haven't lifted it to the next level. At least in my opinion.
Mishra has bowled his leggies well, Bhatt and Sharma have too. Iqbal Abdulla has had a decent tournament finally.
I'm a disappointed viewer as far as competitive matches are concerned. After Paul Valthaty's initial heroics, there haven't been many Indian locals to have uplifted interest. If reports say that people aren't staying with the matches and switching channels despite more people tuning in, I am not surprised. I do it.
The reasons are all mentioned above. It is time local Indian players grab this opportunity every year and put up their best cricketing display in this period - be it fielding and batting or bowling. They cannot complain that they haven't been given a platform to perform, be noticed and promoted from.
Keep playing sloppily and people will drift away as IPL loses its quality of play. Local players must stop being in awe of India internationals and overseas players and must raise their games and temperament by at least 5-10 percent and push things along. They have to make their presence felt in a good way and keep the heat on the others to perform accordingly.
With more local Indians in the fray via TEN IPL teams, it is their responsibility to make this tournament shine...not the internationals or India intenationals. Ten teams shouldn't translate into a reduction of quality and ending up with a Ranji like set up rather than a taut, compact IPL.
Anyway, I doubt many of the constantly losing teams will last the distance. Wouldn't be surprised if the owners pack it up sometime.
Today, yet again, I'll tune into West Indies vs Pakistan instead, because at least the benefit from that is one can observe the form and substance of West Indies players India is likely to encounter on its tour next.
IPL's 'not happening' this year for me. Local Indian talent is the hidden backbone of IPL and it must hold up the tournament.
