IPL, its way...

If you think I am going to write about Shane Warne, you are wrong. This picture looked different and thought it would suit my title at one point i.e. IPL.

I am looking forward to watch, atleast the highlights of IPL this year. With IPL around the corner, some form of news comes surprising everyday. Kaif being ruled out, my favorite Laxman paving his path to Gilli, 'The Wall' Dravid giving his role to Pietersen (another favorite of mine ;)), Ganguly's captaincy has been knocked out and Mccullum being appointed as captain of KKR and the big controversial debate of multiple captaincy concept put forward by John Buchanan, venue changed from India to SAfrica...all these tells me that this year's edition of IPL is going to be bit different than last year's, especially in terms of fans support. It would have been great if it was held in India. And I have already charted out my top 3 favorites for the first 3 places of this shorter version of game this year. Fingers crossed :)

Photo courtesy: Sify.com

The Smashers...

201 in 23.3 overs is not an easy target even after keeping the pitch in mind. India did it again y'day with a swashbuckling century by Viru and the supportive wall Gambir. And the Ranchi man has proved his worth as a boss again.

Here's a statistical highlights of the fastest century makers in the short version of the game.
1. Shahid Afridi (Pakistan) 37-ball 102 against Sri Lanka (1996)
2. Mark Boucher (South Africa) 44-ball 147* against Zimbabwe (2006)
3. Brian Lara (West Indies) 45-ball 117 against Bangladesh (1999)
4. Shahid Afridi 45-ball 102 against India (2005)
5. Sanath Jayasuriya (SL ) 48-ball 134 against Pakistan (1996)
6. Sanath Jayasuriya 55-ball 130 against Bangladesh (2008)
7. Virender Sehwag (India) 60-ball 108* against New Zealand (2009)
8. Mohd Azharuddin (India) 62-ball 108* against New Zealand (1988)
9. Sanath Jayasuriya 64-ball 157 against Netherlands (2006)
10. Yuvraj Singh (India) 64-ball138* against England (2008)

Each one in the category has done it once except Sanath Jayasuriya who has proved his mettle thrice breaking his own record.
Courtesy: Sify

IPL, Drooling factor and SK

While I was grazing through news today, I saw this face. Hmm..He's not Sharukh Khan as anyone would have guessed it from my title. This guy who was compering in the IPL matches and everytime I see him in TV or online replays, I used to drool thinking whoz this guy? None of my friends knew his name or his identity when I asked them and here he is now in the news site on doing a show about men :) Ha..ha..Then I started reading the details of his show out of curiousity. And I started remembering how smart he looked in his red shirt when he was anchoring the IPL match and conversing with Krish Srikanth. Being a fan of cricket, I would not have missed even one IPL match and when you have another factor like SK being the host of the highlights, I did end up in watching lots of highlights rather than the actual matches. And I did claim as the time constraint though :) BTW, SK is Samir Kochhar :) Now, it's all your duty to google him and find how he looks (esp. girls) Just be tall and well dressed...Tats my main drooling factor, sorry it's to be drooled upon factor :)

The 'Will'ower!

The picture says it all!!! A boon to India and to the world of cricket, he is!!!

And here's his stats:
http://scores.sify.com/match/player_profiles/25.html

Courtesy: Sify & NDTV

My Team

Am out of touch from Cricket for a while and thought this would help me to revive. With the first test against the mighty Oz around the corner, if someone asks me (actually Sify did before the entire hoi polloi:)) what would be my choice of team for both the long and short version of the game, my answer would be this:

Saurav Ganguly
Virendra Sehwag
Sachin Tendulkar
M S Dhoni (C/WK)
S Badrinath
Gautam Gambhir
Suresh Raina
Yuvraj Singh
Irfan Pathan
Zaheer Khan
Harbhajan Singh
Piyush Chawla

The reason behind choosing this set is I would love to see a blend of oldies, the goldies with a plethora of experience and the youngsters with josh and passion. With MSD's management techinques, three S's experience (Sach, Saurav and Sehwag), the allrounder attitude of Yuvi, Batting techinques of Raina, Gambhir and Badri, Swingers of Zaheer and Irfy, Spinning sense of Bhajji and Piyush - I guess this would make it a 'wholesome' team.

Will the actual team drive the Oz crazy? Will they create a history? Let's wait n watch!

Cricket Vs Dance

'Ek Khiladi Ek haseena' - I just saw this TV show promo in youtube. This show is about to be premiered in Colors TV (I did not know that there was one such existing) from Sept 26. It will be aired on Fridays & Saturdays at 9 P.M IST. What a combo to anchor - Wasim Akram and Sushmita Sen. And the six teams comprises of Sreesanth with Surveen Chawla, Harbhajan Singh with Mona Singh, Irfan Pathan with Ashima Bhalla, Dinesh Karthik with Nigar Khan, Nikhil Chopra with Barkha Bisht and Vinod Kambli with Shama Sikander. I don't know any of the lady pairs here except Ashima since she acted in a Tamil film with our PK Vijayakanth. As Sreesanth is a good dancer, it will be good to watch him performing here. But I am curious to watch one man here - Irfan Pathan as I am a great fan of him. Irfy, will you serve swingers in your dance too? ;) With a passion for cricket and dance, I am not going to miss this show. And here is the youtube promo video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V6ewCpKWns

IPL stats & thots...

Although I am a great cricket fanatic, I did not watch any of the on-going IPL matches live. But I do follow whatsoever is happening with these matches. When IPL started, I was having a conversation with my friend and I told that I wish Kolkata Knight Riders win because I have lot of trust in Ganguly's captaincy. Slowly, when KKR started losing matches and I did see Dhoni's and Gony's flamboyance in match winning, I tilted towards Chennai Super Kings. Then, I liked the spirit of Delhi Daredevils but stopped inclining to particular team by seeing just a day's performance. I was totally surprised to see Chargers not winning as expected by most of the people. Out of all the teams, the chargers batting line up is the robust. Also, my favourite VVSL is leading the team :)( I was just going through the statistics and was surprised again to see the not so well-known team of Rajasthan Royals topping the charts. Out of the 26 in the RR squad, I just knew 9 of them (Huh..my cricketing knowledge is getting poor)and most of the players are young and new to this cricketing world. But Royals have been rocking so far..Most of us will be excited if this young group wins the cup...But anything can happen in cricket...Noone knows! But for now, I am excited because I can see these matches live when I am in India. Looking forward to it....:);)

To Ricky Ponting...

When the names Symmonds, Sledging and Monkey Business have become a part of newsmaking, here comes the latest one - 'The obnoxious little weed'. Sources claim that those are the words Hayden used against Bhajji. I don't know why the Oz always target on Bhajji and indulge him into controversies? Are they afraid of Bhajji's spin action? It's not good on Oz management to sit and look at all these. What's the team captain and management doing? Ricky, you have to do something about this, man (atleast after reading the below letter from an Indian cricket fan).

This is an interesting letter from an Indian cricket fan and I am sure all Indian cricket fans will love it. Whatever the Indian cricket fans would have thought, this letter captures all that. This is a good read which is written in a very decent manner.

Do read it here:
http://www.cricketndtv.com/cricket/ndtvcricket/cricketstory.aspx?id=SPOEN20080042445