Arm Ball

Every time he [Chanderpaul] gets runs he never fields,” Pieterson told the Daily Mail. “There’s always an injury or something. That has really got on my nerves here. It leads me to think he plays for himself.

That’s true partially. But no doubt today Shiv is one of the most valuable but underrated batsman for West Indies. He doesn’t have flair, but he is dogged and he is rock solid. In the end of the day runs matter in the scorebook. And not only he has scored in Tests, but also in ODIs. Ask India. They made him the star he is. Forgot 2002 series? 3 Hundreds in 5 test series, the last India played. Since then his conversion of 50s to 100s has remarkably turned around. The dude has now got 8200 odd runs in Tests and 8000 runs in ODIs.

KP forgot that when he had ego tussle with Peter Moores, he was having it for himself. It wasn’t healthy in the team cause. So may be what KP says for Shiv, the same holds true for KP too. Unfortunately they both are the best batsmen of their team. KP hasn’t been able to win matches for England, as he should have been. At least in ODIs it holds true.

Boy, Flintoff is playing today. I thought he has returned to England and is waiting to fly to South Africa for playing in IPL.. But he is patriotic Englishman. Wow. And boy Harmi boy is playing too and he has been hit for a six. I wonder why is he even playing now? That’s his record: “”In, in, out, out, in, in, out, in, out, out, in, out, out, in, in, out, in””

Wonder what Poms would have done had they won the Test series in WI? Hey Bring the Aussies on. We are ready for the fight. And win the Ashes.

Meanwhile there is a criticism of IPL schedule released by Lalit Modi. Being a Modi in India is a sin. Be it Narendra Modi, Lalit Modi (IPL) or Himanshu Modi (ICL). Do whatever, you are gonna whipped. Now IPL schedule was released and I got to read one post on one of the blog where the schedule was criticized. More than that the timings were questioned. Is there any doubt that IPL is Indian event and players all over the world are dying to play in it and get their booty? So much so that the skipper and vice skipper of a team fight with the Board chief to play in the glitz event and cancel the TEST tour. And so the timings of the IPL would and should be suited per the Indian audience. Big fat Indian middle class. Deflating economy.

The post says “A key feature in the original IPL was that almost all matches drew huge attendance figures, largely through cheap tickets that were given away and the matches being at favorable times in the late evening just after work.“

Cheap tickets if that means the 1^st season of IPL? Cheap tickets? When from? I mean kab se? 5000 bucks for a ticket is not cheap in Indian currency for an average Indian middle class person. Watching IPL is even related to the ongoing economic downturn. I don’t know the intent of that post, but that seems biased and one viewed. I don’t know how IPL-2 would figure out, but for sure it wont be as pessimistic as its made out to be. And contrary to the popular opinion when ICL came in, the IPL is gaining prominence and seems to be making a decisive strike to the ICL. The slowdown has made ICL shut its shop, IPL has shifted its shop though.

And going forward I wont be as critical as I would have been here. And not more intense than this. Lets see how it goes.