Saturday, April 26, 2008
No captain, no vice captain, no problem
My line up to take on the DC's
Ajinkya Rahane
Loots Bosman
Abhishek Nayar
Robin Uthappa
Dwayne Bravo
Luke Ronchi
Gaurav Dhiman
Shaun Pollock
Dilhara Fernando
Rajesh Powar
Ashish Nehra
Friday, April 25, 2008
lol
Sreesanth's crying on the field for some reason. He's bawling in fact. VRV and Karan Goel are consoling him. Now Sangakkara also goes up to him. I wonder what that is about. Curiouser and curiouser.read the Cricinfo commentary
And the reason he was crying like a baby whose candy was taken away - Sources close to him said that after the match a smiling Sreesanth walked up to Harbhajan - the captain of the losing Mumbai Indians - and said "Hard Luck". "That was enough for Harbhajan to lose his cool and hit Sreesanth under the eye," said sources close to the fast bowler.
Not quite the Howling wolf, our Sreesanth.. More like a whimpering dog.. And he calls himself a fast bowler!!!
Updates :-
From the Hindustan Times, more insight into the flare up
Harbhajan temporarily suspended from IPL
Harbhajan faces 5 one-dayers ban for slapping Sreesanth
--
Stanford speak
from the BBC
Now, that wont go down well with the "trusted custodians" of the game, or will it...The American said Twenty20 would not threaten Test cricket, saying: "To me it's boring, but the Test game will always be here.
"It is important it stays not just for the purist but it is the foundation, it is the old school colonial thing of years gone by.
"It has a real purpose but I think of the 50-over game, its shelf-life may have come
England are "very likely" to compete in the Stanford Twenty20 tournament in the West Indies, England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) chairman Giles Clarke disclosed on Thursday.
Go figure!
So, if I understand it right, England wants to put together a Twenty20 competition that will rival the IPL but will involves franchises playing the IPL???
Elsewhere in the article, this quote from Sean Morris
"We need to have a product that is exportable back to India, because that is where the money is. To do that you need India's agreement. You are going to need some of their top players. There is no reason why their franchisees wouldn't mind playing a few more games in England. That seems an entirely plausible option."And elsewhere in the newspaper, these quotes from the very same Sean Morris
"This is a great opportunity for English cricket, an unbelievable chance for England to reassert itself," Morris said. "I just hope we take it. India, a big competitor, has got first to the market. Considering that we invented Twenty20, they should not have got there first. It is important that we act quickly.and
"India now generates over 80% of revenue in world cricket if you add the IPL to the figures, and it can't be healthy to have that much power and influence in one area. We need to have an even keel. We have to stand on our own feet or we will get weaker and weaker. I am sure that South Africa and Australia feel the same way."--
And finally this line from David Hopps, that takes the cream
England has not dared to talk so openly about itself as a trusted custodian of the game since the heyday of the MCC.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
M’rashtra warns cheerleaders, IPL organisers
Mumbai: The Maharashtra government today said "strict action" would be taken if cheerleaders violate the norms of decency at the April 27 IPL match between Mumbai Indians and Deccan Chargers here.
"When foreign dancers are allowed to perform in India, the government gives them work permits and performance licences to the organisers on condition that it should not be vulgar or obscene. If this condition is violated, then the government would take action," Maharashtra Minister of State for Home Siddharam Mehetre told PTI.
Hmm, didn't see the government of Maharashtra objecting when the son of the Chief Minister of the great state did his version of the Full Monty in a movie..Obviously nothing vulgar or obscene there...
The minister said the organisers may have invested crores for organising such matches. "But this does not mean that they make semi-nude women dance in front of people, he said.
"These are things meant for foreigners and not for us. Mothers and daughters watch these matches on television." he said.
Hmm, so semi nude women ie women showing their midriffs and legs and dancing in front of people are taboo in Maharashtra because what will our mothers and daughters think.
So, Siddharam bhau/dada/ji/saheb, what do you have to say about good Maharashtrian women exposing thier midriffs while gyrating in front of people? Or are you planning to ban the lavani too?
Money cant buy you love...
| 19.5 | Symonds to Warne, SIX, the captain blazes and what a sensational win! Warne steps down the track and carts a half volley just over the deep extra cover rope. All players in the dug out rush onto the field and Yusuf Pathan jumps on top of Warne, the guys in blue are simply ecstatic |
| 19.4 | Symonds to Warne, SIX, Goodness! Warne steps down and clubs that high into the second tier over deep midwicket, how that changes things! |
| 19.3 | Symonds to Warne, FOUR, he charges down and creams a low full toss over the bowler's head, the fielder tries to get a boot to it but the ball beats him |
| 19.2 | Symonds to Pankaj Singh, 1 run, low full toss, he steps down and pushes that to lonbg-off |
| 19.1 | Symonds to Pankaj Singh, 2 runs, he takes a few paces down the track and clubs a high full toss to deep midwicket |
W A R N I E!
W A R N I E!
W A R N I E!
W A R N I E!
W A R N I E!
W A R N I E!
W A R N I E!
W A R N I E!
U beauty!!!!!!!
wait a minute!!!
18.2 Singh to Warne, 1 run, makes room and RP follows him by cramping him for width, he drives square but Bangar slides and intercepts it at point
not enough players within the circle during that delivery means that technically that ball is a no ball. Then why is the score card showing 21 reqd in 10?
Roster Depth
This CricInfo article deals, in some depth, with the roster changes that will impact the teams come May.
Based on these roster changes,based on what has been on display so far and the depth of rosters of the various teams and the length of the tournament, I am picking the Rajasthan Royals, Mumbai Indians and the Delhi Daredevils to be guarantees in the playoffs.
The Chennai Super Kings and the Kolkotta Knight Riders have a shot if they can consolidate on the brisk start they have had, before their marquee players depart because I believe that teams with a 57% win record ( 8 wins out of 14) have a very good chance of making it to the play offs.
---
The length of the tournament and the travel involved brings in a fascinating new dimension on the tactics/strategy involved.. And it is here that the local players drafted into the various squads will make the difference to the fortunes of the different squads.
All the more reason to back the Rajasthan Royals, Mumbai Indians and the Delhi Daredevils.
---
Injuries and fatigue will become more prevalent as we go deeper into the tourney, bowlers will break down and power hitting will take a back seat. And that is when the cricket will get interesting.
Did someone say EPL? The IPL is looking more and more like the NFL ( and not just because of the Chargers)
Mr Tiddywinks speaks
“You look at the number (cost) for the franchises, somewhere between 70 million and 100 million and they pay the players on top of that, explain it to me how they get their return.”
queries James Sutherland, CEO Cricket Australia.
Here is Indranil Basu's article explaining the IPL revenue model, in full
January 26: After the emergence of the Indian Premier League, BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah had grandly announced: "Indian cricket is now worth a billion dollars every year." So where is all this money to come from and where will it go? What's the 'business model' of the IPL? Is there any way the franchisees who have bid millions of dollars a year can make money?On present evidence, people have started to warm up to the idea of city based franchises. And while Hyderabad may not have been a sell out ( attributable to logistical reasons as much as a lack of interest), Kolkotta, Chennai, Mumbai and Bangalore have been sell outs.
To get a fix on the answers to these questions, let's start from the source of the river of moolah. The IPL — read BCCI — has four major sources of revenue. The first is the sale of media rights for the matches, which will fetch the board $1 billion over a 10-year period. The second includes things like title sponsorship of the tournament, licensed merchandise and so on. Put together, these form what the IPL calls "central revenues".
From the sale of media rights, IPL will keep 20% for itself, give out 8% as prize money for the tournament and distribute the remaining 72% evenly between the 8 franchisees. These proportions are valid till 2012, after which IPL's share goes up in two stages by 2018, with the shares of both prize money and franchisees declining.
The second stream — other central revenues —will be shared between IPL, franchisees and prize money in the ratio 40:54:6 up to 2017 after which IPL's share will increase to 50%, the franchisees' share will drop to 45% and the remaining 5% will go for prize money. The third major source is, of course, the amounts bid by the franchisees. The fourth stream comes from the revenues generated by the franchisee rights, of which 20% will be given to IPL.
From the franchisees' perspective, while the share in central revenues will be a given, they can raise money on their own by a variety of means. These include selling advertising space in the stadia for home matches, licensing products for their team like T-shirts, getting sponsorship for the team uniform, advertising on tickets and so on, apart from the gate money. As already mentioned, 20% of all of this will then go to IPL.
What do the players make? Apart from the annual fee contracted with the franchisee, they get a daily allowance of $100 through the IPL season, which lasts about a month-and-a-half. The total amount spent on player fees for an IPL team cannot be less than $3.3 million each year and is actually expected to be significantly higher. In other words, players will earn about Rs 80 lakh or more per season on average, though the amount would vary from one member of the team to another.
Players could also get bonuses from the team owners and perhaps even the prize money that the team wins by virtue of where it finishes in the tournament. But it is for each franchisee to decide whether these payments are made to the players or not.
Even in the case of the annual fee negotiated between a player and the franchisee, not all of the negotiated amount may actually go into the player's pocket. This is because the IPL is reaching two different kinds of agreements with players when it gets them on board. Under one arrangement — called the "firm agreement", the IPL commits a certain fee to the player.
If a franchisee bids more for that player in the auction between franchisees for different players, the IPL gets to keep the excess. Under the other — the "basic agreement" —the player gets whatever is bid for him. Not surprisingly, most players so far have opted for the "basic agreement".
Now that we have the broad structure of the flow of money in place, how does this translate into actual numbers? The bottomline, acknowledge BCCI officials as well as franchisees, will depend on whether the IPL as a concept takes off and captures audiences.
As things stand, the expenses committed by franchisees are more than what they are certain to receive as income from IPL or from sale of their own rights. The UB Group, which acquired the Bangalore franchise, says the idea was to use it as a vehicle to promote its brands. "We are not looking at making money. But revenues will be in excess of costs," said Vijay Rekhi, president of United Spirits, the spirits company of the UB Group.
Some franchisees said that if everything goes according to plan, they will break even and perhaps even start making some money after about three years.
Sources say IPL is guaranteeing $7 million per franchisee from central revenues. But what will come from the local level is anybody's guess. Even with the right to market just about everything connected with their teams, the industry is not expecting to raise more than $2 million per franchisee each year.
BCCI expects the franchisees to earn $1.5 million from gate money in every IPL match, but insiders say the figure is "exaggerated" and that the franchisee will be fortunate to get $1.5 million from 7 home matches at home. In fact, highly charged India-Pakistan one-day matches make around $3 to $4million.
However, based on IPL's calculation, tickets will have to be sold for Rs 750 to Rs 1,000 per match for gate money to be of the estimated levels. Will the fans pay that much? Apparently, there is also a suggestion from IPL that franchisees could have some "business class" tickets for Rs 10,000 each. Again, will there be takers for such expensive tickets?
There are franchisees who are planning to sell tickets for Rs 200 to Rs 300 to keep them within the reach of the middle class, without which making the IPL a success would be difficult. But then, they cannot expect huge revenue from the gate money.
Assuming the gate money is around $2 million for all seven home matches, this means the franchisee in the first year can look forward to total income of about $10 million after paying 20% of local revenues to IPL.
Against this, the franchisee will have to spend at least $8 million (see Pitch Report). To this must be added the bid amount divided by 10. For Mumbai or Bangalore, that means another $11 million. Even if it's lower for others, the franchisee's expenditure will be anything from 1.5 to 2 times of what his income is, at least in the first year.
What can change in this equation to make the business financially rewarding for the franchisee? If local revenues really rise, things could get better. It all boils down to whether the IPL teams can make their cities identify with them. That's the billion dollar question.
And the one thing administocrats ( thats Uncle J) need to understand is that the hype and the hoopla sustains interest only so far. It is the quality of cricket that will bring in the audience.
And again, on present evidence, the quality of cricket has been good enough to garner an audience.
According to Television Audience Measurement (TAM), an audience measurement firm that tracks TV viewership, a staggering 20 million people watched the DLF IPL matches on Max. Max's prime time channel share of 29.3 per cent across the 3 HSM Metros is way higher that the top 9 GE Channels put together (25.5 per cent).Finally, an interview on CNBC-TV 18 with N Srinivasan, Vice Chairman & MD, India Cements; PK Iyer, MD, Deccan Chronicle; Yogesh Shetty, CEO,GMR Sports; Kaushik Roy, President - Branding, Reliance Industries and R Balachandran, President and Chief Marketing Officer,Reliance Retail, reproduced in full
Max recorded an average rating of 6.27 for the first 3 matches of DLF IPL across 6 cities - the opening game between Kolkata Knight Riders and Royal Challengers Bangalore got a mind boggling rating of 8.21.
Q: What was it that drove the valuations of each player in the auction just 24 hours earlier? Was it more potential in terms of revenue generating as you go ahead or was it strictly to do with performance?
Kaushik Roy: I think both, clearly we were looking at match winners and we were very clear right from the beginning that we would have brands to play for the team that are indeed match winners, who can not only perform, but can also ensure that they can get the crowds in. I think it goes hand in hand. So from a branding perspective, that was very clearly reasoned why we put those value up for their names.
Q: Specifically with regards to you, since you are one of the listed entities that has actually listed from this perspective what has driven you for this value creation that you are essentially hoping to garner with the kind of investments that you have made and also is this something that you would consider from a listed entity point of view?
N Srinivasan: There is a good revenue model and we are going to get 10% of the TV revenue, the media revenue, so even if you say that we have offered to invest USD 90 million for this franchise, we will get USD 90 million back in terms of TV revenue over the same period. We paid USD 90 million over ten years and we will get USD 90 million over ten years.
The cost of the player is what we have recovered and other cost which we get because other title sponsorship has been sold for Rs 200 crore and there we get all the revenue at the stadium, we get all the gate revenue, plus branding players and I think there are many revenue streams here. So while it appears that okay we have bid USD 90 million, but actually we are paying USD 9 million a year, we are getting the same money back in terms of TV revenue.
So it is not like a great capital investment has been made and we as a company have been supporting cricket for the last forty years and cricket as a medium to promote your product. Everybody has used, including our own competitors, in our own industry. So I think from a listed company’s point of view, it is a win-win. In fact really we get mileage with very little expense.
Q: There are two particular revenue models that stand out, there is a centralized revenue where you would get the media rights in the title sponsorship and then franchise revenues, and the merchandising that goes with it. Do you suppose that this is an attractive proposition at least for the first couple of years with the kind of investments that are going in what is the gestation period in terms of a breakeven, do you think that a proposition such as this could endure?
PK Iyer: I think Mr Srinivasan has already elaborated that, I do not think any of us are going to lose money, it is not a very capital intensive thing because BCCI has balanced out the broadcast and the main sponsors, so I do not think this is an issue.
As a media company we are very excited by this because for us after Dashehra and Diwali, where we have the maximum amount of spends, the next large thing is cricket. If you have a World Cup, we are going to run full house, if you have a season we are going to run full house and fifty days of intensive cricket gives us a great opportunity as a media company to leverage it.
It is going to be across the country and it is going to be in the prime season, April-May when the holidays are there, the schools are closed. I think BCCI has done a great job of timing it, has done an excellent job of balancing out revenues and multiple revenues, branding, media spend, leveraging I think we are all going to see a huge amount of value getting created in these assets.
There are examples, if you take Manchester United or if you look at their individual revenues stream those valuations are big and as a nation cricket is very large that attracts probably the largest thing after cinema.
Q: Since you are a man from the marketing field, how do you propose to actually go about marketing and generating marketing revenues from hereon? You have four players such as Sanath Jayasuriya, Sachin Tendulkar and of course Harbhajan Singh who has been in the news a lot off late. How does this marketing strategy work for you in terms of leveraging on these players reputations for your products and Brand Reliance as a whole going forward?
R Balachandran: Any marketing person will tell you that the first real effort actually comes with building a great product. Critically, that’s what we have actually embarked on. If you take the players who are going to play for us - Sanath Jayasuriya and Sachin Tendulkar - have been referred to as possibly the most destructive opening combination in the history of cricket. You have people coming shortly after like Robin Uthappa, you have got Loots Bosman and you have bowling strength in Lasith Malinga, you have Shaun Pollock and Harbhajan who again is possibly one of the most valued Indian players that you can actually imagine, then there is Dilhara Fernando.
Now the issue is the critical aspect of building a great product, which is a match winning combination, made up of the core of a team as well as people who can actually go out there and turn a match. That is the fundamental of really building a great product. The good thing is that unlike many incipient leagues, which started long ago, in this case players have come with fantastic track records and that’s really why of course the bidding happened the way it did, and the auction happened the way it did. Each of them is a great icon; each of them is a great player. So that’s the fundamental.
What I think we will have to craft in terms of marketing is the fact that we build them into a great team that’s very important. But then again it helps that at the international level, all of these players have actually played with each other, they know each other, they know their strengths and in fact outside of the field, they have actually bonded and been friends. So it’s a question of getting them into one team.
The second and very important aspect is building the fan base. I think that has actually already started with the anticipation. We have a huge and enormous sort of advantage there with somebody like Sachin Tendulkar. Sachin Tendulkar is somebody for whom I think ‘Mumbai’ and that’s the phrase has not just awe, not just respect, but absolute love and affection. That’s really what happens when you build a great brand.
Great brands are not just respected or brought or admired, they are loved - people see them as their own and that’s really where the marketing works. There is going to be a lot of brand building. Then what actually happens in the context of manufactured brands or service brands because in a largest sense, this is a cricket brand. There are aspects of performance here - huge aspects of performance, aspects of entertainment, aspects like temperature being affected not just for how cold it is but how fast the wind is blowing, there is a wind-chill factor here.
The speed, the timeframe into which everything is going to be packed from April 18 to June 1, a tremendous tournament action packed with 59 matches, a tremendous weekend of semifinals and finals is going to build a viewership and a fan-following. At the end of the day everybody in the catchment and well beyond is going to be empathizing and resonating with the team. That’s really from a marketing viewpoint what a lot of other people will look to make it work for them in terms of a leverage.
Q: We are talking about the price money that’s more than double of what the World Cup that just went by had to offer. We are talking about 12,744; 10-second advertising slots are available on television during the course of this entire tournament. Do you think that progressively the expenditure that’s garnered on this particular tournament will have to go up and consequently if that is a case, as it should be with the kinds of volumes that Mr. Balachandran was just referring to that the advertisement spends and specifically with the kind of investments that players such as yourself have to make would consistently go up, as the gestation period of this tournament goes on?
Yogesh Shetty: I would concur with what other speakers have said. First of all, you have got to look at this, as a franchise we have territorial rights and what we as individual franchises have to do is make it work as a business model. From a GMR perspective we are looking at it as a business model.
Now anything that happens beyond the turn of the first tournament is more of a cost of acquisition. What we do believe is this franchise model will grow. You have got to understand this is just a start. We are talking about cricket here and this is something new - this is revolutionary, the thought process will become internationalized.
As we are talking, we are talking about international tournaments, we are talking about 20-20 going to the women format, the dynamics are totally different. So yes, there would be extra spend below the line, but above the line revenue will go on increasingly dynamically that I truly believe, because my involvement in sports sponsorship, especially in Formula 1 or even Football, it is the community that engages and that is, why I truly believe this format is closer to the community, is pretty compact and more importantly this is a media savvy game.
I think this will take off big time, BCCI has done a great job. Let us also understand, if we have to start a business, somebody has to set up cost, these are amortized costs. We actually already know what our topline revenues are and it will go on growing. The kind of contacts we are getting right now, the engagements we are getting right now is second to none. We are very excited about it and it’s not challenging time, it's creative time and actually working with the public. One last thing - this is a sport, this is about cricket, as long as we keep the integrity of cricket and the community, we are all winners here.
Q: We would like to know the possibility on how you would leverage individual players that you have bid for having paid so much for the time already? Is there a specific marketing strategy that will come in for each player that will work as a revenue generation model going ahead or will you essentially look at generating individual value from all of your players?
Srinivasan: I explained to you that there are huge revenue streams coming in. All of us have gone with what we think is going to be matchwinning team or combinations. Ultimately the quality of cricket we deliver is what is going to bring in the people. We believe the stadiums will be packed, we believe we will get excellent crowds. We are not looking at this as some kind of proposition where we will lose money.
There are two separate aspects. One is, we want to bring in good quality cricket. We are people who have been associated with cricket for a very long time. We believe we have a match-winning combination.
The second aspect is we believe that this is also not going to be a losing proposition and ultimately the value of this franchise is like a right in a territory. This will grow by leaps and bounds. I do not know what you are trying to get at. But we believe it is a win-win situation, win for the players, win for the public, and win for the franchise owners.
Q: A reference was made to the EPL a little earlier in this conversation, some football franchises globally have actually considered listing of their teams as they go ahead. While we are still early in this entire process as Mr. Srinivasan was talking about multiple revenue streams, is that something that corporates could actually look at say 3-5 years from now given the success of tournaments that a team could actually be listed to harness revenue potential going on?
Shetty: Could you explain what you mean by listed?
Q: Listing the actual team. In English Premier League or Spanish Primera Liga, you actually have teams that are listed on their respective exchanges to raise capital to fund the requirements of the team; do you think similar could happen if the IPL actually becomes successful to some extent?
Shetty: It is an open agenda at the moment. It is a blank canvas. I think somehow people are thinking there is something negative going to happen here. Everything that is happening is positive.
We are talking about the English Premier League, if you look at what is happening to the transfer fees paid and then look at the fan base of cricket in India you suddenly realise the potential. As things evolve, each individual franchisee will start looking at the business model and start realising how do they take it forward to actually leverage the revenue potential. It could be capital realisation or various other methodologies. But these are early days.
But the most important part I would tell you is you just have to look at outside looking inside. If somebody had to compare football with cricket and look at the fan base, India is an untapped market. This is a true franchise, and the reality is that there will be different dynamics coming in, in the next 2-3 years. But they will all be positive for cricket.
Q: It cannot all be positive. It is a formula that has never been tried and tested before. It was something that was suggested by Lalit Modi in 1996 but never saw the light of day. I respect the fact that all of you will have gone in and put in bids for it. But there have got to be challenges to meet for a particular league that has not even taken off. If you just reference yourself with the ICL, it has not taken off as successfully as people would have thought. But there have got to be challenges. What do you see that would actually unfold over the first season itself that would require you to recount or rework certain strategies you may have?
Iyer: We have not gone out and paid USD 107 million yet. The USD 107 million that we have committed to pay has already had a contract with the broadcasting rights. So, first remove the USD 107 million. The player expenditure of USD 20 million has also been capped. For that USD 20 million, I do not think it is going to be difficult.
The amount of verticals one can exploit is limited by your creativity and imagination. You have to agree that cricket is successful and big in India. Anything that rides on that with an international player format and compact, concise action packed has to work.
One media company works while another doesn’t. A soft drink sells and another one doesn’t sell. But in this case, BCCI has been successfully running this thing.
We definitely know that this game has a following. If you look at football worldwide and look at the sheer fan base of cricket in India, I think it is a million times over.
So, I am very convinced that challenges will be there. I am not saying it is not there. The challenges can be in logistics. For example- we are playing a match on April 22 in Hyderabad, we are on April 23 in Kolkata and somewhere else on April 25. So, those are the kind of challenges I see.
I don’t see revenue challenges or cost overruns. Those are not our concerns. We are concerned because this is a great model. But those are challenges and probably branding is a challenge. Building verticals on your fan base is a challenge. But they are all positive challenges.
Q: What is the sort of returns that a format like IPL could generate going ahead? How do you think branding would unfold over the next 10 years, since this is an initial 10-years proposition? Do you see any challenges on that front? What kind of returns do you see from IPL as a whole?
Roy: From the branding perspective, it is the key constituent and the performers in this. It is a kind of a performance-based programme. Therefore, you have to see the performance as distinct players and players who are supposed to be doing distinctive things.
So, we have to look at how we are going to exploit each one of them. Each one of them will actually be going across to build a certain kind of brand image. The whole DNA will actually emerge out of how these people perform on the field and how they bring to the fore their key specialization.
So, that is something that is going to be one of the branding challenges as to how at the end of it you will use a very diverse and distinctive kind of characteristics and yet bring them together as a single team. It should be a single team, which connects with your catchments and neighborhood and should actually go on to break the loyalty. We may see that in the long run.
The Mumbai team need not be restricted to Mumbai alone. When it travels, it will have a certain segment of people, may be in another city, who would want to be part of Mumbai. That is the real brand. It should be able to do something to the viewers, to the people on the ground, to the fans to make them start believing that they love this team
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Soopher Kinks win
After the Bangalore Royally Challenged, it was the turn of the Chennai Soopher Kinks (aka Chennai Soopher Khinghs) to beat the Indians..
And while Harbhajan's captaincy left much to be desired, he showed heart with the bat ( especially after taking that knock on his foot). And Abhishek Nayar!!!
What can one say of Abhishek Nayar... But for Daryl Harper, my boy would have had a wicket off his first ball. ( Just because it is Tollywood and because he has a beer belly does not give Harper license to believe he can be a Sthar!!Focus on the cricket, Daryl.).
And what a superlative effort with the bat... A star is born!
All in all, a great effort with the bat by the Mumbaikars.Pretty sure the pattars wet thier vesti's when Joghinder Sharmha bowled that no ball in the last over.
So, its onto Mohali and the Punjab Kinks..
Go the Indians!!!
Monday, April 21, 2008
Positively ecstatic
Following Sunday's pitch controversy at Eden Gardens, the Kolkata Knight Riders has asked the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) to hire an Australian pitch consultant to ensure better playing surfaces for the six remaining home games. The Indian board has also asked Daljit Singh, the chairman of its grounds and wickets committee, to inspect the surface in Kolkata.More power to the IPL franchise owners!!!
The debate
In recent days, there have been a rash of articles in the non sub continental media, talking down the IPL.
This has been particularly true of the English press. With the tenor of the articles alternating between the condescending and the derisive.
And it is a strange dichotomy. Because the exact same arguments made against the IPL are applicable to the Pro Twenty league and the offers made by Sir Allen Stanford.
This, in turn, prompted a correspondence with Patrick Kidd, English, blogger and journalist with a keen sense of fair play and objectivity.
His response,in the shape of a blog post, is here.
What are you complaining about?
Can someone please tell me what VVS is all agitated about( that is, if the quotes are accurate)?
I mean, it is the same wicket on which both teams played, both sets of players had problems dealing with the indifferent bounce, both teams were impacted by the power failure.
And if his bowlers were in good rhythm before the power failure AND after the power failure, why is VVS angry?
Uh Oh Andrew
Firstly, you are a Deccan Charger, not an Australian. Secondly, the team you are playing against are the Kolkatta Knight Riders, not India(72 seconds into the telecast).
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Devastated
When a Mumbaikar halts Mumbai on its tracks ( damn you Zaheer), when two South African batsmen, both known to be weak in Math, fail to choke, when a team led by Rahul Dravid wins, and when the team on the receiving end are Mumbai, devastated doesn't come close to describing how I feel at the moment ( and no, I don't support the Mumbai Indians but, its Mumbai and I am a Mumbaikar!)
PS- This bit, from CricInfo
True fans
Mumbaikars wouldn't mind being called khadoos (snobbish). Mumbai crowds are known to be the most noisiest and notorious, and when Rahul Dravid, the away captain, was introduced at the toss a loud round of boos reverberated around the ground. Every appeal by the Royal Bangalore Challengers received a similar deafening response from the 40,000 Mumbai Indians. It was proof enough to suggest Mumbai's fans would be the first to imbibe the true fan culture that has eyes and ears only for their own.
