Sunday 19 April 2009

God Says Yes But Dog "No"

Many a times, in case a cricket match has to be stopped, it would be solely because of the bad weather whom we refer to as "rain gods". However, this time the rain gods never had any problems but still the game had to be halt because of a dog that was found wandering in the pith for almost 10 minutes. All would have seen players diving towards the ball be it for fielding or for a catch. But, in Cape Town the other, one could see a man dive towards the dog in an attempt to catch it and chase it away from the pitch but unsuccessfully. This is one more circumstance that the second edition of the IPL can boast of.

The first match between Mumbai Indians and the Chennai Super Kings was really a grand opening not only for the dog show but for the way Sachin Tendulkar could stand throughout the innings scoring 59 off 49 balls. Not only was it a captain's knock, but also a splendid show by a man who is known for his great batting display over the decades. Not to forget the drop catch by Mathew Hayden at first slip when the batsman was at 10. Tendulkar was one among the two international players along with veteran Sanath Jayasuriya who posted a decent score of 26. The other decent scores came from lesser known players in Abhishek Nayar who set the stage with his quickfire 35 off 14 balls.

Well however, as mentioned in the earlier post, this is just the beginning of a long journey before the actual winner of the tournament emerges. Not only for Chennai Super Kings or for the Mumbai Indians, but for all the nine teams batting it out there. But, some things that have to be kept in mind before is not to drop catches especially of those big guns who can make you repent for that deed. It was fantastic to watch the 22 run over bowled to Abhishek Nayar by Andrew Flintoff. It just made me wonder as to whether experience really matters before practice?

Since the last and the first edition of the IPL, names which have hardly been heard in the world of cricket like Swapnil Asnodkar, Ravindra Jadeja, Abhishek Nayar, Virat Kohli and much others have been found to do much more than what fellow experienced players like may be say Mathew Hayden, Andrew Symonds, Sourav Ganguly have found doing. But all these performances have been restricted only to the bat and not with the ball. Hardly can one come across a bowler who is a leser known name in world cricket. It has always been someone like Harbhajan Singh, Sohail Tanvir who had the best bowling figures of the 1st edition which still today stands unbroken. Jayasuriya being the contributer with both the bat and the ball equally.

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