CRICKET TALES

Early 1990s, a period when India was facing a sinking economic condition, the common man was fed up of the corruption in the nation, religious conflicts started growing and India just started facing the ravage of terrorism.

And in these tough times India desperately needed something that they can enjoy. They needed a hero. And the hero was a sixteen year old boy who just debuted in 1989, who later became a reason for the people of this country to smile. He is the God of Cricket, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar.

Sachin was a young guy who carried the responsibility of the Indian team’s batting for many years. “If Sachin is out, turn off the TV”, this was the simple ideology that every Indian Cricket Team fan had in the 90s.

I have heard people say that Sachin was the reason they started reading the last second page of the newspaper (last second page of the newspaper is a sports column). It’s very well said by Harsha Bhogle that when Sachin scored runs, India slept well.

But he not only made India create new habits but also taught them to dream. It was June 25, 1983, India lifted the World Cup for the first time in the Lord’s Balcony. It sparked a cult of cricket in the hearts of many people and Sachin Tendulkar was one of them.

He dreamt of lifting the World Cup in his hands. In 1992 Tendulkar played his first World Cup. India lost in the Round-Robin stage, in 1996 India had a heartbreaking loss in the semifinals, in 1999 India lost in the Super-Sixes stage, in 2003 India again had a heartbreaking loss in the finals against Australia, in 2007 India was out of the tournament in the first round.

Now so far Sachin played five World Cup tournaments without fulfilling his dream. After 2007 critics started saying that it’s the end of Sachin Tendulkar’s journey and now he should retire. But Sachin believed in himself. It was 2011 World Cup ahead in India. Sachin slammed his critics with his unbelievable performances. He scored first double ton by any cricketer in ODI cricket and then finally won the 2011 World Cup in his home town being the highest run scorer for the team in the tournament. Now, isn’t that a fairy tale?

Image credits: NDTV Sports

He faced many challenges in his long career. Many people criticised him, whether that was for poor form or bringing his name without any evidence in the match fixing scandal. He always believed in himself. He faced many injuries including the tennis elbow injury, which made him sit out of the ground for almost an year. But he always faced his challenges smiling and that’s how a hero is.

People had a deep emotional relation with him. He used to be a part of everyone’s life. There used to be a sense of pride in people’s eyes when they talked about Sachin.

And then it was 16 November 2013, one of the saddest day of almost every Indian Cricket fan. There were tears in everyone’s eyes when Sachin walked out of the field for the last time. I wasn’t so interested in cricket at that time but I still remember myself crying.

Sachin’s farewell was a very emotional moment because, after all, everyone was saying a goodbye to their hero. There are many who stopped watching cricket after that day. Sachin’s contributions in the Indian Cricket and in inspiring India can never be forgotten.

So to the great Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar, Happy Birthday and Thank You for everything.

Last week we had lot of discussions about chasing in Chennai. But on Tuesday we had a match between Delhi Capitals and Mumbai Indians, where Delhi chased the target in front of a deadly bowling attack.

What KKR Did Wrong against Mumbai?

In the first week of IPL 2021 we had a match between Mumbai and Kolkata in Chennai where Kolkata was chasing. In the last 30 balls Kolkata needed 31 runs to win with 6 wickets in hand. And guess what, Kolkata lost the game.

Kolkata had a good start with Nitish Rana and Shubman Gill having a partnership of 72 runs. And even after Gill lost his wicket, the game was still in KKR’s hands. But the problem was that they just kept losing the wickets with unnecessary shots.

But another wrong thing that KKR did was that they were not rotating their strike in search of boundaries. Let’s have a look at what happened in last 5 overs.

In the last 30 balls Kolkata had 15 dots (including wickets). Well you can’t give 15 dot balls in the death overs in a T20 game. In the 16th over that Krunal Pandya bowled, they scored only one run and lost a crucial wicket of Shakib Al Hasan.

As Bumrah still had overs left, it’s not a right thing to have dot balls in Krunal’s over. They should have tried for a single on every ball, at least.

But it’s all easier said than done. It’s the players who actually know what the situation was at that time.

What Delhi Did Right?

Delhi vs Mumbai was a somewhat similar game to the above one. Delhi was chasing and had a good start with Dhawan and Smith having a partnership. Dhawan batted in a very responsible way and even scored boundaries at the right time.

Let’s get to the last 5 overs of this match. In last 30 balls they needed 37 runs, Dhawan just went to the pavilion and Rishabh Pant was the new batsman in. Delhi had only 7 dot balls in the final 26 deliveries they played. Here is how it happened.

As Dhawan’s wicket fell Pant scored a boundary in the very next over to release some pressure. Then Pant got out but Lalit Yadav kept one end safe and kept rotating the strike with Shimron Hetmyer.

Then came Bumrah’s two no-balls which came as a gift to Delhi. Hetmyer tried for singles and doubles with Lalit doing the same. And I think that’s what made Delhi succeeding in the chase.

Conclusion

In Chennai it’s very difficult for a new batsman to come and score runs. And that’s what Dhoni used to do in Chennai. He used to take the game deep, till the end and targeted the right bowler for boundaries. And that’s the ‘mantra’ to chase in Chennai.

After a season in UAE, IPL 2021 is being conducted back in India. But due to COVID protocols, the matches will be held only in some stadiums in neutral pitches. But that is making the tournament even more interesting.

So we are in the IPL 2021 with some matches played on the neutral grounds and stadiums because of the pandemic.

Well neutral pitches means that there will be no home-ground for any team. For ex: CSK will not play any of its match in Chennai. They will play five games in Mumbai, four in Delhi, three in Bangalore and last two in Kolkata.

But I think we are having great impact of neutral pitches on the IPL games and if you’ll observe you will get to know that neutral pitches are making IPL even more interesting.

Let’s take Mumbai Indians as an example. Mumbai has a bowling line-up that is advantageous for Wankhede. At Wankhede you need quick bowlers. They have Bumrah, Boult and Jansen who bowl with pretty good pace. But that bowling line up is suitable for Wankhede, not for Chennai. In Chennai you need spinners, not quick bowlers.

Chennai’s pitch works better for CSK and even for DC, RCB and KKR because they have plenty of good spinners. Whereas in Mumbai Indians they have only Rahul Chahar as a leading spinner for them and he turned the game in MI vs KKR in Chennai by taking wickets of Tripathi, Rana and Morgan. He made Kolkata’s middle order collapse (though they threw their wickets).

But one bowler is not going to do wonders in every match.

Whereas take Delhi Capitals as an example. They have Ashwin, Amit Mishra as good spinners. They have Rabada, Nortje and Avesh Khan who bowl with good pace. So they have a bowling side which works good on any pitch.

Conclusion

Yeah I know that pitches don’t matter so much in T20 cricket but at the key moments, pitch matters. And we all know that there are many key moments in the IPL and that’s what makes the league so entertaining.

Note: This blog is a bit too technical so read it only if you like technical stuff.

If you see the Indian regular Playing 11 of any time, you will observe that most of the batsmen stick to the orthodox batting technique.

But there is one guy who used to believe in his unorthodox way of batting, the one who just retired from international cricket, it’s MS Dhoni.

It was 23 December 2004 when Dhoni with long hair came into the international arena with his different batting style. Well he batted one-down at the start of his career but later he batted down the order. And as the requirements for the game changed he changed his batting style slowly. So let’s have a look on how MS Dhoni’s batting technique evolved.

Year 2004-06

So as I said earlier his batting technique was different from others. While having his stance he used to have a higher bat lift and his bat used to be in a continuous up and down movement until he hits a shot. You will understand it better from the below image.

I think this stance helped him generate power for his shots. His shots used to be more based on power and the wrist movement rather than having a ‘straight bat’. He was basically a strong hitter of the ball in the top order.

He even used to have a higher bat lift while hitting the ball. With a higher bat lift he used to wait for the ball to arrive. See the image below.

Year 2007-15

Yeah I know, it is a very long period. This batting technique lasted for almost 7-8 years. Now even the nature of his batting changed. He was a hard hitter at the start but now he was a man of singles and doubles. Now he even started focusing on having a straight bat and timing the ball.

In the above image from a test match we can see him play a drive. He started hitting more drives as his career moved on. But one thing was always consistent: the bottom hand.

But the way he used to hit a six never changed. He always had a very powerful bat swing. Coming from the back and hitting the ball with a full swing of the bat was his core way to hit a six.

Year 2016- Now

Now Dhoni’s nature of batting was to get settled on the crease first and then start hitting the ball which was completely opposite of his nature of batting right at the start of his career.

Now his stance was more stable. He tried to be stable with his complete batting style actually. Even when he used to do a footwork he tried to let it be stable and focused on the ball.

His batting technique was now more defensive against the spinners. He either blocked the ball before turning with a footwork or pushed it into the gap or defended the ball with a long front foot stride.

Conclusion

Dhoni’s batting technique though changed over the years but he had one thing consistent which was his wrist-work whether it is for hitting long sixes or targeting a gap for a single.

So that’s it for today, if you feel there was anything wrong in the blog tell me in the comments.

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“Cricket is a religion in India”, I think this is one of the most spoken lines in the media in last three to four decades and I don’t see anything wrong in that. Cricket is loved so much in India that it is really an unofficial religion.

But let’s talk about the audience. None of us in the world understands cricket right from the day we are born. We get to learn about it from the storytellers and these storytellers can be your family members, maybe it’s your father, your brother or those commentators who you love listening to.

These commentators and speakers play a huge role in building up the cult of cricket in our minds. You know, Tony Greig has a small role in making Sachin’s Sharjah innings so special. The ultimate commentary he did, (Sachin Tendulkar, what a player!) just makes us filled with energy everytime we watch it.

And so one of the most respected person in the cricket fraternity by the people is Harsha Bhogle. Well, he is not a cricketer. He is just a guy who loves the sport and loves talking about the sport.

Gaurav Kapur once narrated an incident where Ajay Jadeja once said that if we are debating about a topic in cricket and on one side we are having a great cricketer and on the other side if we have Harsha Bhogle then maybe people will listen to Bhogle’s opinion. That is the level of trust people have in him. But there is something in him that makes people trust him.

One thing we can, of course say is skill. The skill he has is just great. The use of words that he does everytime is just amazing. Here are some examples:

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Image credits: ScoopWhoop

He has a great knowledge of the sport. The way he explains everything, we watch on Cricbuzz and other shows is really loving. He even keeps himself updated about what’s happening in the sport all around the world. I remember before the IPL 2020 he said that Devdutt Padikkal is a very talented player from the domestics and the way Padikkal performed in the IPL was great. So he keeps himself updated not only about the international arena, but also about the domestic cricket.

But this was all about his skills and many people have those skills but what makes Harsha Bhogle special? Why is he the most loved cricket speaker?

The credit for that goes to his character. Have you ever seen him criticising any player on his performances. We have seen many other commentators do that (no offense), but we never see him do that. Now that’s what we call being a gentleman.

Another thing we love about him is simplicity. It’s because of the way he speaks and behaves giving respect to everyone he has on the show with him. Even the way he talks with us makes us feel like he is one of us. He looks so down to earth on camera.

And you know from where that respect for everyone comes? That’s because he loves his profession and he loves it. Once he said that, if he is getting paid for speaking about cricket, the thing he loves, he wants nothing more.

And as I said earlier he makes us feel like he is one of us. He creates that connect with us that makes us trust him.

And that’s what makes Harsha Bhogle: the Voice of Cricket, the most loved Cricket Speaker of India.

It is 24 September 2007, Misbah hits the ball in the air and Sreesanth takes the catch to make India the first T20 World Cup champion. But the story doesn’t end here.

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Businessmen, actors, politicians and of course cricketers thought of India’s T20 World Cup win as a huge opportunity. They came together to create a huge business out of cricket that is IPL.

Now we are in 2008. IPL is going to start from April 18. No one knows how it’s going to be and will it be a successful experiment. The first match is between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kolkata Knight Riders.

It’s New Zealand’s Keeper-Batsman Brendon McCullum and Kolkata’s Prince Sourav Ganguly who are going to open for KKR in the first innings for their batting. In the first over none of the batsmen scores a single run. Two runs come from the leg byes and one with a wide and McCullum scored 0 runs after playing 5 balls.

Zaheer Khan is ready to bowl the second over and now McCullum starts his show. He hits Zaheer for two consecutive fours and a six which was a thick edge gone over the third man. 18 runs come from the second over and the crowd is just gone mad.

McCullum scored a 50 in 36 balls and made it a hundred in just 21 deliveries in the 16th over. In the remaining 4 overs Kolkata scored 64 runs! McCullum scored a deadly knock of 158*. The crowd and the TV audience were amazed to see something like this. Shahrukh Khan was literally dancing in the stands. KKR won the match by 140 runs because of the huge target of 222 runs in the first game of the league.

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The people who watched the match say that it was jaw dropping to watch something like that. McCullum says, “That night changed my life.” Actually, it really changed his life because then he continued with Kolkata for many years and he had a lot of love and support from the fans.

Rahul Dravid, who was the captain for RCB in 2008 says that the only good thing that happened that night was that it (the deadly knock) ended in hour and a half.

Before IPL’s start no one had an idea that this league is going to become so big. McCullum’s knock showed people how entertaining T20 cricket is. Then came a huge fan following for IPL and it turned into a big business. McCullum made the ‘first impression’ of IPL filled with glamour and entertainment.

Maybe without the deadly knock at the tournament opener the league might have not turned so big. And this was how McCullum’s 158* in the IPL’S opening match made the tournament so successful.

“Dhoni finishes it off in style, a magnificent strike into the crowd, India lifts the World Cup after 28 years, the party starts in the dressing room and it is an Indian Captain who has been absolutely magnificent on the night of the finals.” These words are stuck in every Indian Cricket Fan’s mind.

Doesn’t it sound like a fairy tale? A man who has carried a nation’s responsibility for 21 years, never got a honour to become a world champion. But now it’s his last chance to live his dream in front of his home crowd, and his colleagues with a great team effort did it in an outstanding way. Well though it sounds like a fairy tale but it is real.

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Image credit: Freepress Journal

The Background

So the Indian team won the 1983 World Cup beating West Indies and this led to the cricket fever in India. So with a huge cricket following India hosted the 1987 World Cup but couldn’t win it. Then India hosted the tournament in 1995 and the nation hoped that this team has got the potential to become the world champions again with the greats talents playing like Sachin Tendulkar and Mohammed Azharuddin. But again they were not able to do it and this made Indian fans very upset.

In 2003 World Cup, India were the favourites in the tournament because team won against Australia in 2001 in a dramatic style and won the 2002 NatWest series against England too. So everyone knew that India is a very strong side lead by courageous leader Sourav Ganguly and had a star studded squad with Dravid, Tendulkar, Sehwag, Yuvraj, Harbhajan and many more. But Australia shattered every Indian’s dream in the finals.

Now we are in 2007. After the loss of 2003 everyone thought that India will be more experienced side till 2007 and will be a great competitor there too. But now things weren’t same. Ganguly wasn’t the captain now and Dravid was chosen as the skipper. The team’s atmosphere wasn’t good. India was out of the tournament in the league stage itself and lost to Bangladesh which was very disappointing (Just because India was a stronger team than Bangladesh). This all happened because Greg Chappell was appointed as the coach of the team, and many players including Sachin, Sehwag, Zaheer, Harbhajan, Mohammed Kaif and of course Ganguly said that it was a dark phase for the Indian Cricket brought by Chappell.

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After the 2007 World Cup Chappell resigned as the Indian team’s coach. Then India won the 2007 T20 World Cup under Dhoni, the new captain and now Gary Kirsten was appointed as the coach. Kirsten believed in team’s performance to do the talking. India won the 2008 CB series under him and had great period under him.

But now it was 2011 World Cup in India. The nation prayed for India’s win and Dhoni finished it in a great style.

The Aftermath

After winning the Cup India announced to the world that they are one of those ‘strong pillars’ of cricket in the world. And the way we are seeing the Indian team play today, in a fearless and dominating manner; this all actually started in 2011 because it made India confident about their game.

But if you leave the sportive aspect of the aftermath of Winning the Cup, a kind of patriotism was easily visible on people’s face. On the night of April 2, 2011 the nation was celebrating the victory for hours. Just before Dhoni hit that six, the complete crowd was singing Vande Mataram. This all was not just because of people’s passion for cricket it had a sense of patriotism in it, because people were very proud to say that we are the World Champions.

Suggestions: India’s Problem In ICC Knockout Games

So, finally we are back to the test cricket, those five-day long games. We are witnessing The Border- Gavaskar Trophy here between two of the best test teams playing right now.

So let’s talk about the first day of the Day-Night Test that is being played in Adelaide. So first day, there was no Shubman Gill in the playing 11. We had Prithvi Shaw opening with Mayank Agrawal. So the first highlight of the day comes with the exceptional ball bowled by Starc which made Shaw go back to the pavilion. Well interestingly Ricky Ponting just predicted that Starc should bowl him a bit outside the off stump with the perfect seam and that’s what happened the very next ball ( Ricky Ponting was DC’s coach).

But after that we see ‘The Wall’ coming in. And Pujara starts batting the way he always bats. Agrawal and Pujara actually started the innings for India but that Pat Cummins’s perfect ball with perfect line and length bowled Mayank.

Kohli is in the Town

And then ‘the man who loves Adelaide’ comes in. It’s Virat Kohli on the crease now. So Pujara is batting in his usual way but here today we saw Kohli playing really really slow right from start of his innings. Pujara and Kohli were creating a good partnership there after the return of both the openers. Though they were batting very slow but yes they were bringing India back from the early lost wickets.

Now some will say that it doesn’t matter even if they play slow in test matches. But actually it matters. Now what if Pujara and Kohli bat slowly and then you have a fall of wickets. The team will neither have runs nor the wickets, so sometimes you need runs in test matches with But the team was doing well here.

But Nathan Lyon was a bit troubling to Cheteshwar Pujara. He was batting in an old school manner by using his pads to make the ball dead. But Lyon was bowling perfect lengths. And at last Pujara got out. Still Rahane and Kohli took the responsibility and played nicely.

The Kohli-Rahane Story

And then after a break Rahane and especially Kohli started hitting the ball hard. Both of them increased the run rate. They played really good cover drives to Lyon. Kohli was then attacking to Bouncers after the break. Pulling them hard while he was leaving them before the break. Because he knew that the new ball was going to get available after some overs and that was the right time to attack.

But then came a nightmare for India when Kohli departed because of a run out. Well many people will talk that it was Rahane’s call and that made Kohli get run out. But mistakes happen. Even Kohli didn’t say anything to Rahane because regret of getting the skipper out was easily visible on his face.

The Fall

Well I know many of us had huge expectations from Hanuma Vihari as he performed very well in the practice matches. But here is the main part; The Aussies are now having the new ball and this made the pacers trouble the batsmen. Then Rahane who just lost his concentration a bit as he was himself regretful in his mind of Kohli’s run out, lost his wicket.

Vihari lost his wicket too and now Saha is having the responsibility to take team forward. In last six to seven overs of the day even Ashwin batted well but if Vihari might have survived till the end of the day, they might have had time for planning of next day. And especially we might have had two batsman playing the game tomorrow.

But now the responsibility is on Saha to take team beyond 280 atleast, I think it’s difficult to take team at 300 according to the current situation but let’s see what will happen tomorrow.

So that’s all for today, we will meet tomorrow with another Cricket Chat only Cricket Tales.

So far the IPL has been a good season. We have seen exciting super overs, nail biting contests and big totals getting created but there is a good news for Indian Cricket too.

Youngsters have really surprised everyone this season. The way they are absorbing that enormous pressure of such a big stage is unbelievable. Yeah it’s true that there is no crowd pressure nowadays but still it’s not easy to face Bumrah or bowl to Virat Kohli.

But still we have seen great performances coming out. You take Devdutt Padikkal giving balance to RCB, scoring runs for them in the powerplay. You see Rahul Tewatiya finishing matches single handedly for Rajasthan. You will see Agrawal’s outstanding batting performance IPL and those unforgettable classy shots from Sanju Samson. These all players are youngsters and they are making their teams win matches single handedly.

Even if you take the SRH VS RR match. Rajasthan has got Buttler, Smith, Stokes, Robin Uthappa but who finishes the match? Riyan Parag and Rahul Tewatiya.

This is actually a good news for Indian Cricket as the youngsters perform you get a balance in the future team too.

Thats the reason we are watching tough matches this season because even the small players are not losing their hope and the are performing good even under pressure.

Agree or not but these players show what value IPL has not only with the buisness angle but also with pure cricket angle.

Thanks for the read.

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CSK has never been in a situation like this before. I am a CSK fan and this situation hurts me a lot but the remaining four games are important for CSK.

Everyone knows it now that CSK can’t qualify for playoffs so this is the time to plan for future. They must bring in the young boys. Once CSK gives them a chance the franchise will get to know that are these youngsters performing well and if yes then they can buy them in auctions for future IPL journey.

They have Jagadeesan, they have Ruturaj Gaikwad and many other youngsters too so once you get them in you will get what results these youngsters can give. Even those youngsters will have no pressure of entering playoffs now so the franchise can get good outcome out of it.

The next Auction is going to be very important so this is the time to test your players.

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