Team List:

CHENNAI SUPER KINGS:

Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt.), Suresh Raina, Murali Vijay, Wriddhiman Saha, Ravichandran Ashwin, Subramaniam Badrinath, Joginder Sharma, Sudeep Tyagi, Abhinav Mukund, Anirudha Srikkanth, Ganapathi Vignesh, K. Shri Vasudevdas, Shadab Jakati, V. Yomahesh, Albie Morkel, Michael Hussey, Dwayne Bravo, Doug Bollinger, Scott Styris, Tim Southee, Nuwan Kulasekara, Suraj Randiv, George Bailey, Faf du Plessis and Upul Tharanga.

ROYAL CHALLENGERS BANGALORE:

Daniel Vettori (capt.), Virat Kohli, Tillakaratne Dilshan, A.B. de Villiers, Zaheer Khan, Cheteshwar Pujara, Dirk Nannes, Nuwan Pradeep, Saurabh Tiwary, Mohammad Kaif, Abhimanyu Mithun, Charl Langeveldt, Luke Pomersbach, Rilee Rossouw, Johan van der Wath, Jonathan Vandiar, C.M. Gautam, S. Arvind, Mayank Agarwal, Arun Karthick, Asad Khan Pathan, Abrar Kazi, Ryan Ninan and Bhareth Narayanan.

KOLKATA KNIGHT RIDERS:

Gautam Gambhir (capt.), Brad Haddin, Jacques Kallis, Brett Lee, Eoin Morgan, James Pattinson, Shakib al Hasan, Ryan ten Doeschate, Laxmipathy Balaji, Manvinder Singh Bisla, Rajat Bhatia, Shreevats Goswami (wk), Sarabjit Ladda, Iqbal Abdulla, Yusuf Pathan, Pradeep Sangwan, Manoj Tiwary, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Jaidev Unadkat and Shami Ahmed.

PUNE WARRIORS:

Yuvraj Singh (capt.), Graeme Smith, Mohnish Mishra, Abhishek Jhunjhunwala, Kamran Khan, Harshad Khadiwale, Mithun Manhas, Murali Kartik, Callum Ferguson, Tim Paine, Nathan McCullum, Jesse Ryder, Mitchell Marsh, Wayne Parnell, Jerome Taylor, Alfonso Thomas, Robin Uthappa, Manish Pandey, Harpreet Singh, Sachin Rana, Rahul Sharma, Ganesh Gaikwad, Imtiyaz Ahmed and Eklavya Dwivedi.

DECCAN CHARGERS:

Kumar Sangakkara (capt.), Cameron White, J-P. Duminy, Juan ‘Rusty’ Theron, Michael Lumb, Akash Bhandari, Amit Mishra, Anand Rajan, Ankit Sharma, Arjun Yadav, Ashish Reddy, Bharat Chipli, Chris Lynn, Dale Steyn, Dan Christian, Ravi Teja, Harmeet Singh, Ishan Malhotra, Ishank Jaggi, Ishant Sharma, Jaydev Shah, Kedar Devdhar, Manpreet Singh Gony, Pragyan Ojha, Shikhar Dhawan and Sunny Sohal.

MUMBAI INDIANS:

Sachin Tendulkar (capt.), Rohit Sharma, Aditya Tare, Ambati Rayudu, Dhawal Kulkarni, Rajagopal Satish, Andrew Symonds, James Franklin, Kieron Pollard, Lasith Malinga, Harbhajan Singh, Munaf Patel, Ali Murtaza, Pawan Suyal, Suryakumar Yadav, Tirumalasetti Suman, Yuzvendra Chahal, David Jacobs, Aiden Blizzard, Dilhara Fernando, Abu Nechim and Sarul Kanwar.

KOCHI TUSKERS:

Mahela Jayawardene (capt.), V.V.S. Laxman, S. Sreesanth, Brad Hodge, Ravindra Jadeja, Michael Klinger, Brendon McCullum, Parthiv Patel, Thisara Perea, Owais Shah, R.P. Singh, Steven Smith, Muttiah Muralitharan, Steve O’Keefe, Vinay Kumar, Ramesh Powar, T.M. Srivastava, John Hastings, Raiphy Vincent Gomez, B. Akhil, Deepak Chougule, Gnanaeswara Rao, Yashpal Singh, Kedar Jadhav, Chandan Madan, Sushant Marathe and Prasanth Padmanabhan.

DELHI DAREDEVILS:

Virender Sehwag (capt.), Irfan Pathan, Naman Ojha, Ajit Agarkar, Ashok Dinda, Umesh Yadav, Venugopala Rao, Aavishkar Salvi, Prashant Naik, Rajesh Pawar, Robin Bisht, S. Sriram, Tejashwi Yadav, Unmukt Chand, Varun Aaron, Vikas Mishra, Vivek Yadav, Yogesh Nagar, Shahbaz Nadeem, David Warner, James Hopes, Morne Morkel, Aaron Finch, Matthew Wade, Roelof van der Merwe, Andrew McDonald, Travis Birt, Colin Ingram and Robert Frylinck.

KINGS XI PUNJAB:

Adam Gilchrist (capt.), Dinesh Karthik, Abhishek Nayar, Praveen Kumar, Piyush Chawla, Bhargav Bhatt, Bipul Sharma, Love Ablish, Mandeep Singh, Nitin Saini, Paras Dogra, Paul Valthaty, Salabh Srivastava, Siddharth Chitnis, Sunny Singh, Vikramjeet Malik, Amit Yadav, Shaun Marsh, David Hussey, Ryan Harris, Nathan Rimmington, Ryan McLaren and David Miller.

RAJASTHAN ROYALS:

Shane Warne (capt.), Rahul Dravid, Pankaj Singh, Aakash Chopra, Abhishek Raut, Aditya Dole, Ajinkya Rahane, Amit Paunikar, Ashok Menaria, Deepak Chahar, Dishant Yagnik, Faiz Fazal, Nayan Doshi, Pinal Shah, Samad Falla, Siddharth Trivedi, Stuart Binny, Amit Singh, Dinesh Salunkhe, Swapnil Asnodkar, Sumit Narwal, Ankeet Chavan, Ross Taylor, Johan Botha, Shaun Tait and Jacob Oram.

Hits:

 Ireland’s victory over England and Kevin O’Brien knock: ICC is making all the noise about dumping the associate nations from the next World Cup. Well if one considers Ireland’s performance in the World Cup, the theory of not allowing the associates for the next world cup will be a grave injustice. Chasing a mammoth 328 to win against England, Ireland won the match and many hearts riding on Kevin O’Brien brutal assault on the English bowlers. Coming in at 111/5, O’Brien went on a rampage to score the fastest century in World Cup history (50 balls) and in the process stunned England. Ireland gave a good account for themselves in almost all matches, coming close against Bangladesh and West Indies. They can return to their homes with their head held high. IF allowed to play next time, Ireland could well qualify for the second stage.

 England-India Tie: All of England’s matches went down to the wire. They lost against Ireland and Bangladesh while they did not lose a single match against the fellow qualifiers from the group, the only team to do from both groups. The England –India match was the most pulsating game in the group stages and a tie was only a fair result. India was well on course to score above 350 before a late collapse saw them dismissed for 338, still a mammoth score. But Andrew Strauss had other ideas and produced one of the best ODI innings to lead England’s charge and at one stage England looked like winning the game easily. India clawed back into the game and at the start of the 49th over, England needed 30 runs with 3 wickets remaining. 12 balls later, the match ended in a tie with the English tail lofting as many as 3 sixes.

Pakistan ends Australia’s unbeaten run: After going 34 games unbeaten, the Australians were finally brought down by Pakistan. Fascinatingly, Pakistan were the last team to beat Australia before their 34 match unbeaten streak. The Pakistani bowler s wrecked havoc as Australia was all out for 176. The Pakistani batsmen managed to overhaul the target with 4 wickets to spare, thus ending an outstanding streak of victories for the defending champion.

Misses:

 Bangladesh: Playing all their matches at their home, Bangladesh was widely expected to give West Indies a tough competition in going through the quarters. Instead, It was one of the most one sided matches in the group stages with Bangladesh being bowled out for just 58.Bangladesh did redeem themselves with a fantastic victory against England, but in their last match against South Africa, a batting collapse saw them being dismissed for 78. The mob attack against the West Indies’ team bus also did not help improve Bangladesh’s image.

 Kenya: In 2003, they reached the semi-finals. 8 years later, Kenya go home without registering a win. Kenya probably deserved to be given the test status even before Bangladesh but with the lack of funds and support from the ICC and the regular members, Kenyan cricket has been on the decline. This In all probability is Kenya’s last world cup. Steve Tikolo, one of the best players from the associate group bid adieu to the game Now my World Team from the group stages.

As I stated before, I am going to choose 15 of them. The team is composed of 7 batsmen,2 all –rounders,1 wicket keeper and 5 bowlers.

Batsmen: 1. Virender Sehwag(India) 2. Sachin Tendulkar(India) 3. AB De Villiers(South Africa) 4. Andrew Strauss(England) 5. Jonathan Trott(England) 6. Ross Taylor(New Zealand) 7.Ryan Ten Doeschate(Netherlands) 

All-Rounders: 1. Yuvraj Singh(India) 2. Robin Peterson(South Africa)

 Wicket Keeper: 1. Kumar Sangakkara(Sri Lanka)

Bowlers: 1. Shahid Afridi(Pakistan) 2. Muralitharan(Sri Lanka) 3. Kemar Roach(West Indies) 4. Brett Lee(Australia) 5. Umar Gul(Pakistan)

The opponent was the mighty and invincible Steve Waugh’s troops and India was the first team to wield the bat. I could make out (I was jumping up and down to get a glimpse of them!) the openers walking towards the pitch and the Aussies as well. The crowd, who were very gloomy and downcast a couple of hours ago, was up on their feet, and the ground was shaking to the core, on the sheer weight of the thunderous and resounding applause and chants that was rendered out in the air , greeting the Indian openers… the most pronounced among them were “ SACHIN …. SACHIN !!!! “………

I have been an ardent fan of Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar right from my childhood and I was very much looking forward to the match. I was disappointed initially as he didn’t do great with the bat, but I found a different facet of his cricket on that day. He sparkled with the ball later on in the day, with a great 5-wicket haul, and turned the match around, eventually making it a memorable win for India.

That’s the sheer magic of this great person, always makes his presence felt on the pitch. I don’t think it is necessary for me to go in to the details of the numerous records, his batting stats, etc as this has already been highlighted by the more well equipped cricket pundits around us. Also, by now, every Indian cricket fan would be well versed with most of them, as they are quite difficult to ignore, as the little master has a penchant for knocking and tumbling them down, as long as he is on the field.

The most interesting aspect of his illustrious career spanning for more than two decades, is the immense contribution he has made to the Indian cricketing fraternity. The young minds he has (and is still doing it!) motivated, inspired and enthralled, just has no comparisons. He has shouldered such high responsibilities without a single smirk on his face and that just underlines the master’s humility and greatness. The most experienced player in the team is always looked up to by his younger counterparts and Sachin has lived up to this expectation with the current crop of young bloods in the Indian team.

If one thinks, he has done a great job with the young blokes, the older minds too have found inspiration from the master’s exploits. He has proved that age is no barrier for a sportsman and has, like many other past athletes and sportsmen, proved that one can still perform and give their best at the twilight period of their careers. In fact, Sachin is going through, arguably, his best phase with the bat in his entire career and this surely helps in providing oodles of encouragement to his younger team mates to put in their best efforts.

His attitude, off and on the field, has always been exemplary and an example to everyone. He seldom gets into a war of words with the bowler, even when bombarded with verbal assaults from the opposition and follows the golden rule “Leave the talking to the bat, mate!” . This was quite evident in the little incident involving the master and Henry Olonga when the latter proclaimed he had after all figured out Sachin when he got him out the first time around. I would agree with Olonga, but differ from his viewpoint only slightly, as it was the next match when the master smashed the Zimbabwean attack (particularly Olonga!) all around the park when, truly he had figured out the master!

He has never let success get the better of him and his magnanimity has been the corner stone of his entire career. He has been actively involved in social work as well. I can’t help myself by not mentioning about an article where it explained how he was looking after the education of 200 children of an NGO in Mumbai and this shows a great deal of the man’s character. Yes, I know, people who have money do charity works to enhance their image with the public ; I truly appreciate and revere people who part with their hard earned money to bring a ray of hope in the lives of the ones bereft of the worldly pleasures. But, publicizing a charity work is the worst kind of image security one can choose to opt for and Sachin is clearly one who thinks what matters is the heart and not the money. To provide education is the best gift I can think of giving a person and at least 200 lives would be grateful to Sachin for this incomparable gift rendered out to them by the master. The attack on the Mumbai community brought out the best in him, where he declared “Mumbai belongs to all Indians” just shows how pure his heart is and patriotic Indian was very much evident in him.

Just some time ago, Sachin scaled another unconquered peak of 50 centuries in test and I watched interestingly his reactions after reaching the milestone. The fire in his eyes, the jubilation, and the ecstasy on conquering the record was immense and this underlines the commitment and effort he always puts in his work.

His commitment, the amount of preparation that he puts into his game, is just outstanding. At the start of every game, he walks up to the pitch and analyses the ground and the pitch thoroughly. I imagine he would have run the whole match in his mind already during that brief stint on the pitch. Once it is his turn to bat, it would be just like deja vu, I guess! His level of adaptability and planning was very much evident in the knock of 241 against Sydney where, as rightly pointed out by Sehwag, he didn’t play even a single cover drive as he purposefully urged out the desire to play the shot as he used to get out frequently to the same. The cover drive is a shot which comes naturally to a batsman, and resisting the desire to play the shot is downward commendable, to say the least!!

One might feel he has already done his duty for India, traveled and, still traveling, a long winding path, already filled with instances of sorrow and joy, which might culminate after the World Cup next year (I said “might”, as I know nothing can be foretold when Sachin is concerned!), but I think Sachin is the right person to decide the best time to call it a day, the correct manner in which he signs off the pitch for the last time.

He still has the mileage to go beyond and afar, doing the thing he does the best, stretching our imagination to the maximum, kindling our expectations as always. But the image of Sachin, his amusing gear adjustments before a ball is bowled to him, his elegant stance when he takes guard at the wicket, his amazing poise just after playing a cover drive, his jubilation of joy and jumping up like a kid after taking a catch, raising both his hands to the sky in gratitude on reaching a century and many more…. will surely remain etched in my mind for a very long time.

Semi final Summary-IPL2010:

In the first semi-final Mumbai Indians successfully dodged the Royal Challengers attack.Kieron Pollard turned out to be good buy for Mumbai, he grabbed the man of the match with a 11 ball 33 and three wickets with a good average of just 4.3.The victory was convincing with 35 runs.But the match witnessed a severe blow to Mumbai with the skipper getting injured.Hopes and prays he will be ready for the final knock against CSK.

In the second semi-final Chennai Super Kings struggled to get a 140 plus score, but the ballers did a wonderfull job for Dhoni and the result was a grant victory of 38 runs.Doug Bollinger was superb with the ball, it was 13/4 in four overs, which is exceptionally good number in a T20 match and was awarded man of the match .

At the moment, the race to the semis is still on. Only one of the 4 slots in the semis seems to be booked – by Mumbai  Indians. Also, the Kings XI Punjab seems to have cemented the final position in the standings table. Apart from these two teams, each of the other teams stand a chance to make it or break it. There are some Aussie and New Zealand players joining their respective franchisees after their international duties, and those teams stand to gain. The Delhi Daredevils will have Daniel Vettori joining, Ross Taylor will strengthen the Royal Challengers Bangalore, but it would be difficult to fit him into a batting order in which everybody is performing exceptionally well. Rajasthan Royals will have Shane Watson, Chennai Super Kings get Michael Hussey and Doug Bollinger. Yusuf Pathan, Jacques Kallis, Murali Vijay, Manish Pandey, Robin Uthappa, Harbhajan Singh, Sachin Tendulkar and many more have been the otstanding performers in the IPL so far. There is still a lot of cricket to be played in the IPL this season. The purists may write off this format of the game, but the IPL does have it’s charm for sure. Here is the points table at this stage.

Cine director Priyadarshan and superstar actor Mohanlal had planned on a cricket team from Kerala for the next IPL season, to be titled as ‘City Cricketers’. They had also roped in Shashi Tharoor, the new Union Minister of State for External Affairs, as the chairman of their team and had the full support of the KCA(Kerala Cricket Association). The Director of the City Cricketers is believed to be Robin Singh. But, recently news came out that the deal did not go through and the city will not feature in the IPL. However, here comes official announcement that Kochi and Pune are the new entrants into the IPL 4. The Sahara Adventure Sports Group had the highest bids for three cities – Ahmedabad, Pune and Nagpur – but they were told to settle for one, and it eventually opted for Pune. Going by the current format, inclusion of two new teams mean that from next year onwards, the IPL will now feature ten teams playing 94 games.

Shane Bond, who had recently quit test cricket to concentrate on the shorter forms of the game, saw his value rise the most, from a base price of $100,000 to the cap of $750,000. Kolkata Knight Riders and Deccan Chargers went into the secret bid, and KKR won bidding an undisclosed amount. Kieron Pollard, the explosive West Indies all rounder, also found himself bidded to the cost cap, from a base price of $200,000. He was eventually signed up by Mumbai Indians, who beat off Chennai Super Kings, Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kolkata.

The two other notable signings were Kemar Roach, the West Indies fast bowler, who was bought by Deccan for $720,000, and South Africa’s Wayne Parnell, bought by Delhi Daredevils for $610,000. Eoin Morgan, the England batsman, was picked up by Bangalore for $220,000. Offspinner Graeme Swann was one of the players in the first auction pool but he did not get any bids at his base price of $250,000. Mohammad Kaif, the only Indian up for auction, went unsold in the first round of bidding but was later signed up by Punjab for $250,000. Only three of India’s Under-19 players, priced at Rs. 800,000 each, were eligible to play in the IPL and they were chosen by a draft system. Bangalore picked U-19 captain Ashok Menaria, Deccan went for Harmeet Singh and Mumbai opted for Harshal Patel.

Later on, the Pakistani players, cricket board and even the government expressed anger and disappointment at being cold-shouldered in the IPL auction. The IPL has said it was the franchise’s decision to decide on whom to bid for and have stated the availability issue as a reason for the non-selection of the Pakis. Lalit Modi, the IPL commisioner, explained the snub in these words “Franchises are no more ready to spend $7-8 million on someone who won’t be available for the tournament. It not only exhausted their purse but also wasted slots. They want only those players who would be available for the tournament. They are spending money and they want to get the results.” One can only say that even before the first ball has been bowled for the IPL 2010, there has been more than enough dosage of drama. Hopefully, we can get on with cricket!

The deal would ensure that internet users would be treated to the amazing spectacle of 60 T20 matches broadcast live, spread across 45 days, starting March. “There will be delay of five minutes between TV broadcast and live streaming on YouTube in India. Our aim to take IPL globally will be fulfilled by this partnership,” Modi said. Other than the US, the service would be available everywhere else. Shailesh Rao, Google’s managing director in India and for media and plaforms in the Asia Pacific region, said: “We are thrilled to have the IPL as our global partner and bring to the YouTube community around the world and here in India an interactive, unique experience building greater awareness around the world for the sport.”

We at three2tango feel this is a step in the right direction. It would bring in more revenue and also promote the IPL to YouTube’s huge audience. There are already reports that the sponsorship deals offered are huge. As far as the common man in concerned, you can catch all the IPL action at www.youtube.com/ipl.

The 2009 edition of the T20 World Cup reached its conclusion, and this editions winner is Pakistan. Being 2007 World Cup’s runners-up, Pakistan are desrerved winners this year having peaked at the right time in the competition. Once again, it was proven that teams from the sub-continent dominate world cricket, in the shortest format of the game. The final was again a showdown between two Asian super-powers – Pakistan and Sri Lanka(Last edition’s finalists being India and Pakistan). Cricketers in the Indian sub-continent are brought-up with a healthy dose of ‘gully cricket’ and for them, T20 cricket needs no adaptation. It’s the form of cricket they have been playing right from their childhood.

For Pakistan, the stand-out performers were Shahdi Afridi, Umar Gul, Shoaib Malik and Saeed Ajmal. Sri Lanka were served by a potent bowling atttack which included Lashith Malinga, Ajantha Mendis and Muttiah Muralitharan. However, the Lankan batting didn’t come good at crunch-time and that cost them dearly in the final. Tilekaratne Dilshan did well with the bat and was declared the Player of the Tournament. Shahid Afridi won the Player of the Match.

Here is a dream-team hand picked by the three2tango team. The team features the best performers in this edition of the World Cup. Packed with power-hitters, all-rounders and a destructive bowling attack, Kumar Sangakkara would love to lead this bunch.

1. Tilekaratne Dilshan

2. Chris Gayle

3. Shahid Afridi

4. A B de Villiers

5. Kumara Sangakkara(c & wk)

6. Yuvraj Singh

7. Dwayne Bravo

8. Wayne Parnell

9. Lashith Malinga

10. Ajantha Mendis

11. Umar Gul

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