IPL-3 re-visisted….

IPL-3 re-visisted….

Ah finally… .I find some time to blog !!! And this again is a self-imposed duty, despite having my plate full with redundant activities. Just for the sake of a break and to update my blog that has been starving since 6 months !!

Let me be frank, I do not like this T20 form of cricket very much – would always like ODI and Test cricket. However it could well be within a few years that the 50-over format may go for a DLF MAXIMUM !!! And that would be a ‘CITI Moment of Success’ for T20 cricket… :). There you go… The ICC World T20 is already underway and yet the IPL’s not left my thoughts.

Its déjà vu time now… with reference to - http://prashanthnayak.blogspot.com/2009/05/ipl-season-2-re-visited.html

So here I go listing down the moments that charmed me (and also irritated me… ) -

The Match of the tournament – 5 games stood out for me – Rajasthan v Deccan at Nagpur, Chennai v Kings XI at Chennai, Rajasthan v Mumbai at Brabourne, and the Final. By narrow margin I would go for the Final, thanks to numerous swings of balance it had.

The Jaw Dropping moment of the tournament – This came very early in the IPL-3 season when Yusuf Pathan went berserk against the Mumbai Indians bowlers with a 37-ball-100. An innings Shahid Afridi would be proud of.

However a special mention goes to Murali Vijay’s 127 against Rajasthan at Chepauk. Some of his strokes reminded me of Ricky Ponting’s fabulous 140 at the Bullring in the 2003 ICC ODI WC Final.

Also 3 cheers to Harbhajan’s Pyrotechnics against the Chargers at the DY Patil Stadium.

The Best commentary Quote - Yet again Harsha Bhogle walks away with this prize. In the opening game between KKR and Deccan, referring to a slog that VVS Laxman played, Harsha went on to say - “This is like Lata Mangeshkar trying Rock ‘n’ Roll”. And while later when VVS got out for a similar shot , he said - “Lata Mangeshkar should not sing Rock ‘n’ roll” ….

The most clichéd words said – A new entrant to this year’s list was – Karbonn Kamaal Catch. However the winner was - “There you go.. the MRF blimp”

The Ice-man - No prizes for guessing this one !! Mahendra Singh Dhoni for taking CSK to the semis at Dharamsala with those 2 monstrous hits off Irfan Pathan. Not to forget, the Mohammed Ali thump on his helmet after the win !!

The SOUTH AFRICANS - With due respect to the Proteas, the chokers tag this time went to the Kings XI Punjab. After all, they brought back something from their visit last year to SA in 2008 !!

The Best Media Coverage for the season – We all missed the Fake IPL Player badly…didn’t we ??

Captain of the Tournament – Look no more beyond MSD !! Chennai were a match away from going out of the tournament and MS rallied his troops to lift the title. His calculated chase at Dharamsala, the strategy of givng Ashwin the new ball, kicking off the onslaught in the Final with Raina… all stand out. And who can forget placing the straight mid-off in the form of Hayden to snap Pollard in the Final…

Statement of the Tournament – MS Dhoni saying to Harsha Bhogle - “Chennai people are so warm. They even come to me and speak in Tamil whenever I stop in the ‘red light areas’ on my bike”. Oh goodness… what a slip of tongue that was !!!

Check it out here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPSzlOKBBGU&feature=related

The Glamour quotient – I never bothered to see what the IPL parties had in them. So I will stay with what I saw during the games. With Mandira only making special appearances, many people would have had their eyes on the Deccan Chargers’ low profile owner Gayatri Reddy. The cameras surely did though !!

The Mandira moment – Angad Bedi filled in for Mandira this year with his bloopers. The most notable one was at the big room of the Chinnaswamy Stadium. Referring to a portrait of India’s spin quartet, Angad said- “Here are India’s spin quartet – Bedi,Chandra,Prasanna and Chandrashekar” !!! Wonder what Venkatraghavan had to say about this to Bishen Bedi :)

The Joker – Sreesanth had his moments again this year, swearing at batsmen and clapping at umpires. In a KKR v Delhi game at the Eden Gardens, Dinda got a healthy edge off Sehwag to the keeper and after a vociferous appeal, Rudi Koertzen slowly moved his left hand forward with index finger protruding. He surely must have been joking to have shoved it into his pocket !!!

The Guffaw moments – Suresh Raina trying to pull out Doug Bollinger’s transplanted hair, Harmeet Singh sending back Rohit and finally sacrificing his wicket, when the latter had to get back on strike in a crunch moment vs Rajasthan…these two come immediately to mind

Catch of the Tournament – This IPL has been a galore of top class catches. Memorable ones are by David Hussey, AB de Villiers, Doug Bollinger, Rohit Sharma, Dravid, Tendulkar… I may look a bit parochial but I would go for Sourav Ganguly’s catches simply because this was a different DADA than the one we’ve seen in the last 15 years.

Narrowly beating David Hussey and Doug Bollinger’s efforts…

Ego-hurting moments – Muralitharan must have had several of them when he was clouted by Indian domestic players for towering sixes.

Biggest BOO’s - These are reserved for the MRF blimp which was doing nothing at all and for those advertisements between balls (not overs mind you !!! )…

New Entries -

The Romantic moment – Sachin Tendulkar kissing his clenched fist in celebration after pulling off a scorcher at slip off Harbhajan to dismiss Adam Gilchrist at Navi Mumbai.

The Jai-Veeru show – Undoubtedly this goes to the duo of Kevin Pietersen and Virat Kohli.

Most surprised owner - Mumbai Indians owner Nita Ambani must’ve had the biggest surprise when Harbhajan Singh lifted her See the pic below…. :)

Ah ! I have seen this before moment – Kumar Sangakkara dropping a running catch against Royal Challengers at Mohali. Do we see shades of Brendon McCullum here ???

The Biggest DLF Maximum – For those who don’t know, its the biggest sixer !!. Robin Uthappa hitting Brett Lee over Midwicket at Mohali was the biggest I have ever seen in recent times(both in terms of height and distance)

Praveen Kumar’s hatrick was also a standout performance.

On an Ending note the brightest aspect of this year was the way with which Tendulkar, Kallis, Dravid, Kumble, Ganguly, Warne showed the world that T20 is not only for the young lot !!

But yet again, It was sad to see bowlers carted all around the park, with Malinga, Steyn, Kumble, Ojha, Mishra,Ashwin giving moments to cheer for bowlers community !!

Alright…here I sign off with the hope that IPL comes back next year free from all the mess !!!

Sonu Nigam is simply unmatchable……

It cannot get better than this for me…. Shreya Ghoshal live in concert in September and Sonu Nigam live in concert in October. However, on the flip side there  was a decent audience at the latter and a crazy audience at the former. It would have been brilliant the other way round…

It was actually the second time I attended a concert by Sonu, the first one being  an anti-climax, due to the fact that the concert could not be continued beyond 10 PM at the Kanteerava Stadium , due to the Mallya Hospital in the vicinity and the concert only began at 9.30 PM.This was in February 2007 and finally after 2 years I got another opportunity to listen to this brilliant performer…

At the jam packed Palace Grounds, it was a déjà vu with the concert beginning 90 minutes late. I had been to a Shankar Mahadevan concert at the same venue exactly an year back and had vivid memories of dancing to his tunes in a steady drizzle. So the expectations were supremely high……(although I still have a Rahman and Sivamani concert to be attended !! )

Sonu entered with a trademark alaap of his and the very own “Palko ke leke saaye…” And the rest was to follow….. Dil Dooba, Falak Dekhoon, Chak de Saare Gham, Tu Jahan Main wahan, Sooraj Hua Madham, Soniyo, Tumko Paaya hai,…..to name a few. He also went on to sing “Don’t say alvida”, a fantastic rendition from a yet to be released movie.

As if this wasn’t enough, there were the following standouts :

1. He explained how a song gets composed, with the help of Lyrics that goes - “Aloo Bhindi Gajar Matar Paneer”….and merged the tune with “Nachle Ve” … it was such fantastic transition from a fancy song to an actual movie song.

2. The best rendition was of  the song “ Phir milenge chalte chalte” from “Rab Ne Bana Di jodi”. Here he actually sang the songs out of which the lyrics were made of , making it into a 15 minute song almost !!! This included “Mere Sapno ki rani”, “Aaja Aaja Main hoon pyar tera”…

3. 4 Kannada songs - “Mungaaru Male”, “Anisutide”, “Ninnindale”, “Neene Bari neene”….with the promise of a ALL KANNADA SHOW next time in Bangalore

4. “Chiggy Wiggy” which included Kylie Minogue’s lines in a female pitch and “I’m the one” by Michael Jackson. “Let’s celebrate his life” said Sonu.

5. Finally my all time favourite Hindi song to end the show… “Kal Ho Naa Ho”, which ended as a rock version….

Due to time constraints once again, the show was snapped when he was actually warming up for lots more…. But nonetheless it was a memorable evening….

The effortless ease with which he switched songs for 2 hours without a break, the maverick energy he had, the improvisations with each of his songs along with witty humour in between, his interactions with the crowd, his maturity of singing…. simply left me flabbergasted.

Thanks Sonu …

By the way : Another Sonu Nigam Chartbuster on the offing.. “Shukran Allah” from the movie Kurbaan…

Perfectionist of an art…and not for any ordinary reason…..!!!

Few days back there was a Disney fan wallpaper released with a quote showing - "Where you are always king of the court". One of the fantastic wallpapers depicting a sportsman as an armed warrior.



It’s been close to 4 weeks since I began the thought process, delayed for certain reasons, for building up a long blog. I have been an avid follower of Cricket, and being an Indian, Cricket and Hindi Cinema come naturally to all of us. After our Parents and teachers, most of us have our idols in these two fields and try to emulate them in whichever various possible ways we can. I developed a liking for Formula-1 few years back and admired Michael Schumacher for his consistency. But he was never one whom I would have wanted to idolise. Another star in my generation has been Lance Armstrong. I always thought of reading his autobiography to know about him, but I am yet to do so. Vishwanathan Anand, Michael Johnson, Sergei Bubka, Michael Phelps, Ronaldo, Zidane, Beckham... some of the several legends in various sports whom I have been following over the years.

But the one sport which I like after Cricket has been Tennis.

And since I started following Tennis is 1993, my first memories are of the great Ramesh Krishnan and young Leander Paes taking India to the Davis Cup Semi-finals with a thriller against Boetsch-Leconte and co. at Frejus. Another was Steffi Graf charming the tennis courts with serenity. And not to forget Pete Sampras lifting the Wimbledon. And his rivalry with Andre Agassi.

But for some reason, I admired Andre Agassi more than Pete Sampras.He had that special charm on the court, while Pete looked like a giant, with an intimidating presence. Slowly as Pete kept on winning Wimbledon's after Wimbledon's, but made only one Semi final at Roland Garros, it justified my following of Andre, because he emulated Rod Laver after 30 years of winning a career slam.

Ok then.. enough of all this preface...

Year 2001...a lean built man with a stubble and a ponytail, ended Pete Sampras's dream of winning 5 consectuive Wimbledons. All connoisseurs of the game began hailing this young 20 year old as a potential Grand Slam winner and the future superstar of Men's tennis. There have been many who failed to live up to expectations in the last 2 decades after early successes…..Michael Chang, Patrick Rafter, Marcelo Rios, Marat Safin to name a few....I just brushed this aside as the fall of Sampras, rather than arrival another new kid on the block...

Year 2004..The same man with ponytail had won the Wimbledon previous year and won the Australian Open that year to become the World No.1, winning only his 2nd Grandslam title. I had a look at the highlights of that match and I was simply dumbstruck.

A new hero had arrived for me...Roger Federer.

All the following statements are a cliché...but something I enjoy reading time and again and never get tired.

• Roger weaves the tennis racquet like a magician weaving his wand.

• Roger makes Tennis look like an art, like an artist making a painting out of fine fabric colours with a smooth moving paintbrush.

• He makes Tennis look ridiculously so EASY that sends shivers down opponents' spines.

• He plays some of the most difficult shots in the game, with consummate precision and ease, to an extent that "Jaw Dropping" becomes a habit while watching him play.

Let me quote some of the greats of the game -

• John McEnroe described Federer's Forehand as "the greatest shot in our sport".

• Vijay Amritraj on air at Wimbledon 2009 - "You can never hear Roger move on the tennis court..so effortless".

• And no one can beat this Jimmy Connors description - "In an era of specialists — you're either a clay court specialist, a grass court specialist or a hard court specialist... or you're Roger Federer"

Over the past few years Roger has redefined Tennis. I don't need to quote any of his records to say he is the Greatest ever. Look for them here...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Federer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Federer_-_Tennis_Records#Individual_match_records
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Federer_career_statistics

For me, after Pete retired and Andre was at the brink of his career, I had virtually lost interest in following tennis (Apart from watching a few ladies matches :P). It was this man who rekindled my following for Tennis.

If someone were to write an official encyclopaedia for Tennis, Roger Federer would be it !! What does he not have in his game ???

A spectacular Forehand –
He hits it inside out(called the "off-forehand" by Vijay Amritraj and "Dancing Forehand" by Jim Courier ) with the acutest of angles


hits them as down-the-line passing shots, into the corner of the court, on the baseline,


on the sideline and as a fierce winner, with a destructive snap of the wrists generating enormous topspin which does not give any elevation for a return to be hit.

I have never seen anyone with such a variety of forehands.
Check this out for a more elaborated and technical description……….
http://www.tennis.com/yourgame/instructionarticles/forehand/forehand.aspx?id=129054

Fantastic Backhand -
The one handed shot that does not give an iota of idea about which direction it is headed to, there are 4 varieties here –
Down the line backhand,


Crosscourt angular backhand,


A slice volley

and
A slice with backspin.


Precision serve –

He is neither a Goran Ivanisevic, nor a Pete Sampras. Nor is he an Ivo Karlovic or an Andy Roddick. But serving has always been a forte of Fedex's game. He has precision serve from both Ad and deuce courts, equally good on both the centre and wide serves. Another important aspect is the Kick serve he uses for 2nd serves. For the matter of fact, I have seen very few players score a 2nd serve ace at critical points of the match. Federer is one of those very few.

Defence -
Though Roger is predominantly an attacking player, defence is an extremely important aspect of his game. Over the years, as he got to play more and more baseliners as opponents, he had to fine tune his defensive skills. He has a floating backhand defensive return giving him enough time to set himself up to an attacking position and one that looks to land out of the court but teasingly lands in, misguiding players.

Ridiculous shots -
Some of the shots he hits are absolutely ridiculous. Probably only God would hit them so well!!! The passing shot on the run from around the net post, a pickup smash jumping way behind the baseline to return a smash(Roddick, Djokovic and Agassi can tell you about it)
Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Hp-EArV6s8
and this : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yidqJM1Xl4U
Between the legs winner running back towards the baseline and a sparingly used roll-lob-crosscourt to land at the corner of the court.

On court presence -

There have been only two occasions (Out of the very few) that I have seen Federer get frustrated -
Once when he called out "Roger,Idiot" when he served a double fault against David Nalbandian.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIWeuvOrG9o
And once when he smashed and broke his racket on a windy and frustrating day against Novak Djokovic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXeysnDFchA
He is the epitome of calmness and sedation under the highest of pressures, celebrating his wins in the calmest manner. An extremely well behaved person and a thorough gentleman on court (Off court as well, based on what people around him say).


Confidence -
The level of confidence he has in his ability, often makes me think that he always gears up for the business end of a tournament(semis and beyond), going through the motions in the early rounds. He experiments on different aspects - shots, angles, speeds and plays around with lowly ranked players in the first few rounds, gauging himself on his form, saving energy for bigger battles ahead and calibrating his repertoire.


Chink in the Armour....
The only chink in his armour has been his battle against his well known rival - Rafael Nadal. Nadal has been another tremendous tennis player and being 5 years younger, a deserving successor to Roger. However the battle only gets better. Rafa leads 13-7 in all matches and 5-2 in Grand Slam finals.

But at this stage of his career, with 15 Grand Slams and more to come, 237 weeks as number 1 and now back at the helm within a year of losing it, a career Slam, 21 successive Slam semis, 16 of 17 Slam Finals , 20 Slam Finals in all....Federer is left with only few things to achieve in his career. Now that he’s more relaxed after all the hullabaloo surrounding his fatherhood, it should motivate him to chug along for many more years.
And setting right his record against Nadal would top his list...no doubt about that.

Looking Ahead…
Few people still say " How can he be the greatest when he is not the greatest of his generation ? "...
They will need a lesson in common sense; however Federer would definitely want to shut their mouths. All said and done, there are more goals for enough motivation ... 8 Wimbledons (He already has 6) to beat Sampras' 7, 25 Grand Slams to beat Margaret Court's 24, Holding all 4 slams if not a calendar slam, a Davis cup win, an Olympic Singles Gold Medal (what better than to win it at Wimbledon in 2012)....
Nevertheless, even if Roger doesn’t manage to match them all, it cannot take away anything from him. For he has enthralled fans all over the world, opponents do not envy but respect him, legends acknowledge him as one among themselves....


He has set the benchmark for the generation to follow and that is what created a monster called Nadal. And will create many more......

Finally to conclude this tribute to Federer on account of his 28th Birthday (August 8th 2009)...

To me, there has never been a Tennis player as aesthetically pleasing to watch as Federer....
To me, there never has been such a humble and down to earth, popular champion...

To me, there never will be a champion who will cry both while losing …


As well as winning...


To me, there never ever will be another Roger Federer...!!!

Take a bow Fedex...looking forward to lots and lots of Slam wins, lots more of those forehands and that gracious charm on the court......

Finally a Federer quote:
A journalist asked Roger - "What is the secret of your success- Genius or Hard Work?"
Roger answered - "I worked hard on my genius" ....

All those days are gone.....

All those days....The days where Tennis and Cricket used to dominate our discussions at college , more than our syllabus, lecture classes, internals, labs, marks etc. People have moved on and so have I. 3 years later, it doesn't fascinate as much as it did, not that I have lost interest but its all about keeping in constant touch with each other. In my previous blog, I had a small dig at 2 of my friends for delaying my blog specially for them. The look-back-references for them are this and this one. When Roger Federer won the French Open and Wimbledon this year, I was extremely ecstatic and happy for him and for the fact that I was fortunate to be in the era where Roger played tennis. But there was no such getting back at the two of my friends on those occasions, except for two SMSes exchanged. When there were instances where I would be on the receiving end, I used to get pings from them and that would start the banter. But when things are other way round, my pings have left me with relatively no responses. After all, i don't need to dwell much on it. The fact is that responses from my side is what triggered the debates. Its a known fact that, if you don't have the 2nd hand, you cannot hear the clap. Now nobody cares for the clap....so why bother? After all Its done and dusted now.... phew !!!

The Light at the end of this road is to be diplomatic, no banters, no trespassing...
They say, Life's all about 'Moving on'..... Truly so !!

Although my blog page shows only one follower, I have 2 other people who read my blog. So fortunately the number is 3 !!
My blogs will keep coming....Including the one I have promised in the previous one. Will take some time to mould my words now, as it would be a commemorative blog than one for the originally intended reason.
If not for audiences, atleast for myself when I look back into my life at my ripe old age ......

Life always comes a full circle....

Life always comes a full circle....

A short post in a jiffy....

From South Africa to England.....

From Johannesburg


To Lord's...


Mahendra Singh Dhoni's life has come a full circle in a short span of 2 years. Whatever goes up has to come down, and that's what is one of life's bitter realities.And after you fall down, the only way is to go upwards!!!

In this span of 2 years we have seen MSD taking Indian cricket to near champion levels, raising the bar of expectations.

So there's no point at all....For the media to make a scapegoat out of him !!

The Media is partly responsible for this backlash and not only MS Dhoni.He publicly came out and apologized to fans for the T20 WC loss...

Now then..which media person has ever come out and tendered an apology for any mistake he/she did ?? And its almost close to impossible that anyone will ever do!!!

So there's no point pondering over whatever media says, rather creates, about Indian cricket.
The only thing they must be trusted for is the statistical news that they provide.

By the way..another champion sportsperson's life too has come a full circle...and more ironically at the same place where he began his rise..Eagerly waiting to see if he can overcome the setback....

"The Championships" kicks off next Monday at Wimbledon - 22 June 2009.

People all around the world would hope for this encore......


However, if at all Nadal crashes out in the quarter finals or earlier and Federer goes on to lift the trophy for the 6th time,it would also topple Nadal from the World No.1 spot.And its not even been one year since he was crowned the No.1.

So fingers crossed.....!!! Hoping for a Federer win though :)

For two reasons:

• I have kept my blog on Roger pending since the Roland Garros triumph
  

• I will settle my scores with 2 of my friends if Federer re-gains the World no.1 ranking
  

Roland Garros de King Dethroned

I never happened to watch a single shot of this match.I had been to a family function, hence could not do so.But as I was returning back home,drenched in rain that hits Bangalore only in the evenings ,I came to know of the result by an SMS from one of my good friends (who happens to be a staunch supporter of the main protagonist in this blog). And it was a mixed feeling for me. Firstly,I responded by telling him that it was one of the greatest upsets of all times.Secondly,I was really wondering, DID IT REALLY HAPPEN???

YES Indeed.... Rafael Nadal had been beaten at Roland Garros !!! This was the image that I saw on Television coming back home!!



One who had risen up the ladder of Men's Tennis from being a clay court specialist, to King of Clay and to challenge and overcome the best of them all, on any surface. Frankly, I was just in awe watching him from 2005. Being a very staunch Roger Federer fan, it was really tough for me to see him being challenged and dethroned by someone relatively inexperienced. And
Rafa did exactly just that......It was not until he beat Federer at Wimbledon,that I had to simply adore him for his meteoric rise.

Alright he had to lose some day at Paris...but when?? He was in such tremendous run on clay, that none on earth looked capable to snatch the Coup de Mousquetaires or the Musketeers Cup from him.Federer tried thrice, also getting brutally hammered in 2008.He had lost only 5 matches on clay in the last 5 years, and had never lost a best-of-5 clay court match.
More so, he was stretched to 5 sets only thrice in them !!!

Keeping this apart, he had never lost at Paris since making his debut at the age of 17 in 2005.

Many Federer fans will rejoice at Nadal's loss, for it has been the only Grand Slam Roger has never won, thanks to Nadal standing in his way.

But it would be completely foolish and insane to say Rafa's gonna fall down after this defeat !!

Simply look at his achievements in the past 4 years:

• 4 French Opens in a row, from 2005 to 2008
• First man to Win both French Open and Wimbledon in the same year(2008) after the great Bjorn Borg. This to stop Federer's 5 year golden run at London-SW19.
• When critics began to point out his weakness on Hard Courts, he came out and beat Federer at the Australian Open in 2009, after a gruelling 5 hr semifinal a day before.
• Has already won 15 masters series titles(tied with Federer), second only to Andre Agassi's 17.
• When the whole world was predicting a 25 GrandSlam collection for Roger Federer, Nadal rose out of nowhere, and now Federer is finding it hard to break Sampras's 14.
• Broke Federer's 237 week long Streak at the Top spot of Men's tennis.
• Only player to beat Federer in GrandSlam Finals.
• Furthermore, he had to beat Federer to win each of his Grand Slam titles ( 5 Finals and 1 semi-final)
• Leads Federer 13-7 in Career meetings. The only player currently in the top 10 to boast of this record.
• Last but not the least, he won the Olympic Gold Medal in singles, something that Federer dearly misses.

And the list goes on and on....

I might have been a bit Parochial in mentioning Federer several times in the blog, but that has what's been the benchmark for men's tennis in the last 6 years.
And that's what Rafa's tennis career has been about as well..."how he dethroned emperor federer"...

And what a journey it has been so far...This small roadblock would make him even more determined and stronger.

I found a very good article describing Nadal's rivalry with Federer...Aplty sums up their camaraderie and I endorse the views as well...
http://tennisworld.typepad.com/tennisworld/australian_open_2009/



And as he went out of the tournament, he simply admitted defeat saying it wasn't a tragedy after all..Superb head on his shoulders one must say.Andre Agassi predicted that Nadal could be the first man to win a single year grand slam this year, after the legendary Rod Laver.

But now that that's gone, Nadal would certainly want to get the career slam with a US Open title into his kitty.By the way, he did put the man whom he idolizes and has been his no.1 rival, under pressure, by saying that Federer is the favorite to win the elusive French open. The win would complete Federer's career slam and put him on par with Sampras' record of 14.

That would be a sigh of relief if it happens, because I really did believe this year when Nadal won at Melbourne, that he could beat Sampras before Federer does !!! And as I write this blog, Federer has just made it to his 20th consecutive Grand Slam quarter final,with a come-from-behind 5 set win over Tommy Haas.

Hope Federer wins the Musketeers' Cup this year !!!
Hope I get to savour and write more and more about the rivalry and more and more about Rafa.....

IPL Season-2 Re-visited

IPL Season-2 Re-visited

Yes..it's a comeback of sorts for me to cricket blogging. And no points for guessing the topic. Oh yes..it is the end of the carnival that kept millions of Indians glued to televisions, with their daily time tables re-scheduled.Indian Premier League Season-2.
Often it's easy to keep track of short tournaments and revisit the moments at the end.But due to the sheer volume of the matches played and that too without any time to recover (both for the players and for me to track the matches), its more for the reason of remembering the event, is why I am blogging some of the IPL 2009 memories.

So here I go...in no order of preference:

The Match of the tournament: 3 choices - Rajasthan v Mumbai, Rajasthan v Kolkata and Deccan v Kolkata. I would go for the 1st one, since it was more Topsy-turvy than the other two and for the fact that Rajasthan miraculously won it from nowhere.


The Jaw dropping moment of the tournament: Undoubtedly has to be Adam Gilchrist literally killing Delhi Daredevils bowlers.A knock of 85 off 35, right up there with his knock of 149 in the 2007 ICC World cup final at Barbados.


The best commentary quote: In one of the matches involving Royal Challengers Bangalore, when Anil Kumble's best figures of 5-5 flashed on the screen, Harsha Bhogle said - "These are outstanding figures.Something you associate with, in a match between 4th std-A and 4th std-B".

The most cliched words said: No prizes for guessing. It has to be "Thats a DLF maximum". As the tournament progressed , so called ROCKSTAR Danny Morrison made it as "Thats a DLFer"...

The Ice-man : 3 contenders for it - Rohit Sharma,Irfan Pathan and Munaf Patel. However Rohit Sharma takes the cake for his breath-taking brilliance in the final over against the Kolkata Knight Riders and almost repeating it against Kings XI Punjab.


The SOUTH AFRICANS : This coveted crown sits on the head of Mumbai Indians, for showing all of us how not to handle pressure situations. Whats more, they were coached by Shaun Pollock and led by Sachin Tendulkar. That should tell it. (with due respect to both!!)

The best media coverage for the tournament: It has to be the Fake IPL player(http://fakeiplplayer.blogspot.com), who faked to be a 'real IPL player' and gave us all the masala that we needed.It ended in an anti-climax, with him not revealing his identity. However, will we get a glimpse of him again at the ICC World T20??
Time will tell....

Captain of the tournament: MS Dhoni,Gilchrist,Kumble and Warne stood out.But without an Iota of partisanship here, Kumble it is, for simply making the Royal Challengers rise from the ashes like a phoenix. Hats off Anil...I salute you!!


Statement of the tournament: Ashish Nehra was on cloud nine taking a bunch of wickets and went out saying - "I can do whatever Zaheer Khan can do". The very next day, Adam Gilchirst plundered him for 18 runs in his first over and brought him back to earth !!

The glamour icon: No.. it was not Mandira Bedi this time.Danny Morrison,with a goatee beard and extravagant English, had his fair share of moments with cheer leaders. On one day, he had an Aircel Cheer leader sitting on his right lap for an interview and on another day, he had one of Mallya's 'White Mischief Gals' sitting on his shoulders. I wonder what's in store for him,if he does the same things next year in India.

Now the Mandira Moment: Prior to the match between RCB and MI, in an interview with Neil McKenzie,Mandira refered to Abhimanyu Mithun of RCB as a Wicket Keeper.He turned out to be a medium pacer!!!.The best thing was Neil McKenzie too did not know about it. And SET Max never bothered to care about it..Mandira continued to anchor at-the-venue reports !!!

The Joker: It has to be that man again - Sreesanth. He gave Hayden a mouthful after dismissing him,despite being bludgeoned for 22 runs off the previous 5 balls. And he went for a victory run after castling MS Dhoni with an inswinger when the teams met the next time. Perhaps he was venting out his anger for not having been selected for the India T20 WC team, and making his case worse with the sprint!!




The Guffaw Moments: Suresh Raina,Shadab Jakati and Badrinath messing up with the ball like school kids against Deccan Chargers.And I never saw MS Dhoni as grumpy as he did that time.Another moment was the entry of the dog on the field to stop play for 20 mins in the first match of the tournament(CSK v MI).Not to forget, Shilpa Shetty introducing her beau to Geoffrey Boycott, when Boycs was searching for attention from Shilpa.

Catch of the tournament: Rather it would go to 3 people. I cannot remember any better catches in the tournament than the ones held by Roelof van der Merwe and Vinay Kumar at PE, to dismiss Dhoni and Hayden respectively. And they came in a must win game for the Royal Challengers.
The other one was Suresh Raina pulling off a screamer at Point to get rid of Gautam Gambhir at Jo'Burg.

Ego-hurting moments : Abhishek Nayar carting Andrew Flintoff for 3 sixers in an over in the tournament opener.Later in the tournament,Sourav Ganguly never batted in the game against Daredevils, after Knight Riders got a good start.What's worse, Morne van Wyk, Moises Henriques and Wriddhiman Saha got to bat ahead of him !!

Biggest BOO's: These are reserved for Greg Shipperd and John Buchanan for their cries to allow more than 4 foreign players in the playing XI. It made sense for Shipperd, since he had to keep Glenn McGrath out.But Buchanan showed the world that he's the biggest fool.He played Langeveldt and Mortaza for one game each after they were out of the tournament, and gave extended runs to ordinary players like Moises Henriques and Morne van Wyk....!!! Come on..This is the INDIAN Premier League..!!!!

Penultimately, the only thing that was good(if at all there was!!) about SET MAX's extraa innings T20 was the theme song composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy!!!! I better not mention anything else about one of the worst post and pre match shows,(in terms of content) ever presented.




And finally....Special mention to youngsters like Manish Pandey, Amit Singh, KP Appanna,Pragyan Ojha,Tirumalasetti Suman,Vinay Kumar,Ravindra Jadeja & Raina,Rohit and others for keeping the Indian Cricket's young talent flag flying high.

Kudos to Adam Gilchrist's Deccan Chargers for the spectacular IPL victory.


IPL season-2 certainly lived up to its standards !! But IPL-1 was the best... Only because, I was virtually helpless about what to do in the evenings, after the tournament ended. But no such feelings this time around !!! And as Lalit Modi said...Hope the IPL comes back bigger and better next year in India..!