Leicestershire crash land

It was amazing to see Trinidad & Tobago lose just two wickets with their opposition namely Leicestershire being able to keep just one wicket in their hand at the end of their innings after scoring 51 runs less than what Trinidad & Tobago could manage. I was just cursing Trinidad and Tobago for having so many batsmen unused when the likes of Daren Ganga, Sherwin Ganga and Jason Mohammed could have proved to be handy with the bat. According to me, the team batting need not and should not care about the number of wickets they have in hand.

The tail end batsmen n any team are meant to just go out and slog it out there and not bother about their wicket being thrown away. The tail end players are more of bowlers rather than batsmen. It should be the ball which should do the taking and not their bat. The first wicket from the Trinidad and Tobago team fell in the first ball of the 18^th over when the scoreboard read 139/0. Nevermind that there was some big hitting toward the fag end of their innings with the last 17 balls yielding 30 runs at the rate of 10.00 runs an over.

Until then, the scoring rate was just above 8.00 runs an over. Had the batsmen taken a few risks, the score might have gone well beyond 180 with 4 more wickets falling (may be). On the other hand, even the bowlers from Leicestershire team did not put in much effort to push the batsmen to take any aerial route in an attempt to clear the ropes which in turn would safely land in the hands of any fielder in the deep. One has to wonder as to why Mathew Hoggard bowled just three overs when he was the most economical bowler of the lot.

Coming to the batting of Leicestershire, there were two batsmen dismissed for duck and two other scoring single digit scores among the top four batsmen. I wish I was in place of James Taylor who was just enjoying his batting at the crease knowing well that no fingers would point towards him and neither could his team win the match after their top order deceiving them. Along with Taylor, even Abdul Razzaq joined the party to be the only two batsmen scoring over 10 runs and played more than 50% of the match. I wonder how come the Leicestershire could not be bowled out with such a dismal batting.

A series of ducks in Ruhuna

Well yesterday the first match of the Nokia Champions League T20 tournament kick started with Ruhuna not only playing Trinidad&Tobago but also having a taste of their first defeat. Needless to be said, Trinidad&Tobago won the match by 5 wickets at Hyderabad. The match was one more instance where the team winning the toss ended up as the losing side and Ruhuna was that unlucky team to have done that yet again. If not for some Dinesh Chandimal, no other player from Ruhuna could really stand up to the occasion. Chandimal scored 50 runs to be the lone half century scorer of the game.

It is confusing to see Jayasuriya still opening the innings when there are so many young legs available who can do the job rather than relying up on a 43 year old guy. Of course, Sanath Jayasuriya has been known to strike the ball hard but those days were over some 4 years back which can be confirmed with Sachin Tendulkar keeping him warming the benches in the IPL 2010. Moreover, Jayasuriya was not picked up by any franchisee for this year's IPL. It is no doubt that Jayasuriya had his ball doing the talking though his bat had to just shut up after scoring 13 runs.

Jayasuriya scalped the wicket of Darren Ganga and returned with an economy of 5.00 runs an over after bowling his quota of 4 overs which made him the most economical bowler of the lot. Anyways, coming to the match, one can see three of the batsmen from Ruhuna scoring or rather getting out after scoring a duck and one player was unbeaten on zero. Another interesting fact of the match would be that the Ruhuna team played their 20 overs losing all ten wickets. That might not be of that importance but the way Ruhuna tackled the opposition was too poor.

Ruhuna had T&T reeling at 6/2 at the end of the 3^rd over but once again left Dwayne Bravo and Darren Ganga to rule them. There have been many matches where a team loses quick wickets initially and end up victorious towards the end and this time T&T need not be considered to be the underdogs. However, the scorecard suggests that until the entry of Sherwin Ganga who scored a quickfire 39* runs from 15 balls that eventually sealed the match for both the teams-with Ruhuna being the losers while T&T emerging the winners. Had Chintaka Perera been given the ball instead of Janoda, something might have worked out for Ruhuna.