Kolkata on a ride

One need not consider the Kolkata Knight Riders to be lucky to have the D-L method being responsible for their win over Warriors last night at Bangalore. Kolkata would have emerged as winners at any cost irrespective of whether there was rain or not. One has to congratulate the Kolkata Knight Riders for coming this far when they were at one stage not even thought to make it to the champions league tournament after being placed fourth in the IPL. Now, the same Kolkata Knight Riders have outraced their competitors namely Mumbai Indians, Royal Challengers Bangalore and Chennai Superkings in the champions league.

A score of 155 put up by the Warriors was far from satisfactory which was easily chasable. In the past in the tournament, the Kolkata Knight Riders have chased down a total of 169 with 9 wickets to spare and few balls left against Royal Challengers Bangalore. Prior to that, they have beaten made 169 against South Australia. Though they lost to South Australia by 19 runs, they managed to go past 150 which was a positive sign. Now, the Warriors had to shed their sweat and blood to reach the total of 155 which was a result of late strikes by Mark Boucher and Colin Ingram.

The Warriors didn't try too many things and settled with a slow ticking of the scorecard. They lost only 4 wickets to do so keeping batsmen like JJ Smuts, Botha and Boje warm the benches. Prior to this match, there was rain which spoiled the previous match between South Australia and Somerset was washed out which gave a hint that the same might happen to the next match as well. Some thinking by the match officials could have made the match a 16 over affair to see both teams complete their innings. There were 29 overs of play meaning, 16 overs per innings was possible with the break reduced appropriately.

Coming to the man of the match debate, it was unfair to give the award to Colin Ingram who scored 61 runs. There is no doubt that his score laid the foundation for Warriors' total but, there were the likes of Kallis and Gambhir whose confidence saw their team total go past the required total by 22 runs. Looking at the way Kallis and Gambhir played, they would have reached the target in just 16 overs with just 72 runs being required off 60 deliveries. The run rate at which the duo were scoring was 8.3 an over and with 9 wickets in hand, the run rate could have only reduced.

Shame for the RCB

Well one would have not even in their dreams would have thought that the Royal Challengers Bangalore would lose to the Kolkata Knight Riders and that too mu such a huge margin making it a one sided contest. All these happened despite the presence of Chris Gayle though the entire Royal Challengers Bangalore's innings didn't consist of Gayle's contribution to much extent. The RCB struggled to cross past 150 when they ended at 169 with a last moment effort from Daniel Vettori. But, the Kolkata Knight Riders chased down the target losing just 1 wicket of Brad Haddin not before scoring 42.

In most of the cases, a total of 169 is thought to be a match winning score but not yesterday when that was not even considered to be a score. When a team like Kolkata Knight Riders can chase down the target comfortably, one can just think about the caliber of the score. For the 1^st time may be that some captain has used his brains in choosing the bowlers who would be bowling their spells out. All the bowlers had decent run ups with Shami Ahmed going in for 10 runs. And Gambhir showed his captaincy skills by removing him after that over.

Though Unadkat went for 11.66 runs an over from his three overs, he was able to capture two wickets. That made sense in using his bowlers which much captains doesn't seem to do quite often. There were 7 bowlers who took the ball in their hands. It was nice to see Kallis, who is more of a one day batsman taking the charge of Kolkata's run chase and emerging successful at the same time. Kallis' efforts deserve praise when he assisted Brad Haddin in his big hitting and then did the same when Gambhir entered the crease after Haddin's dismissal.

This would be a tough job to stand and support the other batsman and for this, it was right in judging Kallis as the man of the match. On the other hand, Vettori's efforts as a captain needs some applause when he stepped in and scored a handy 44 when big guns like Gayle failed at the top. But, later on, Vettori tried everything to contain the Kolkata batsmen by bringing in players like Bhatkal and Kohli to bowl when top bowlers like Nannes and Aravind got belted for 13.00 runs an over. Vettori was the most successful bowler as well returning with figures of 4-0-27-1.

Just for a change..

Well with all tongues cursing the Kolkata Knight Riders for their 9 wicket loss to the Royal Challengers Bangalore, one has to go through their performance in the past with them coming too close to winning the opening game against the Chennai Super Kings when eventually they lost by 2 runs. Following that defeat, the Kolkata Knight Riders won games against Rajasthan Royals and Deccan Chargers though they lost against Kochi Tuskers Kerala. Yesterday's loss places them behind with three losses and two victories. But, this was better than what they could do in the last three editions of the IPL.

All would have thought the score of 171 and a target of one run in excess of that would be sufficient to prove the absence of Ganguly as a forgettable one. But, let alone winning the game, even the loss can never be digested by the Kolkata fans whatsoever. I have mentioned many times on the blog that a total less than 180 in a T20 game is just ordinary. But, a little bit of concession can be given to the total of 171 not only for the reason that it is just 9 runs less than the projected total but since that total does not fall behind when it comes to winning matches.

There have been less instances when a team loses piling up a total of 171 and few cases falling otherwise. The batsmen of the Kolkata team never showed any signs of compromise when three out of the top four batsmen scored in excess of 40 runs. However, despite scoring 40 runs, Kallis needs some refinement and someone needs to tell him that he is playing a T20 game and not a one day international. A 40 runs from 42 balls is not acceptable in a T20 game. Pain was evident from the RCB bowlers when 7 of them came in to bowl or rather stop Yousuf Pathan.

But, nothing much could have been done with a batsman of the caliber of Chris Gayle when all the fielders were supposed to do was to collect the ball from the ball boys whenever Gayle hit a boundary and ask the spectators to throw the ball whenever he hit the ball for six. Perhaps! had the audience been payed for doing a ball boy job, they could have gone home with a few pennies in their pocket that could have covered their popcorn costs. As a revenge, even the Kolkata bowlers were made to change the bowler 7 times. Putting it simple, the KKR were Gayled!

Kolkata have their day

Well I just cannot recall whether the Kolkata Knight Riders team had a win in their second encounter no matter against which team they played. Oh! Yes, I just recall the way Brendon McCullum thrashed the Royal Challengers Bangalore by scoring an unbeaten 158 in the very first encounter of the maiden venture exactly four years back. But, the end result of the tournament was that the Kolkata Knight Riders didn't even make it to the semi-finals of the tournament. Of course, neither did the Royal Challengers Bangalore. With that being past, yesterday, for a change Kolkata won the match.

The scorecard reveals a complete team work by the Kolkata Knight Riders' batsmen namely Jacques Kallis, Manvinder Bisla, Manoj Tiway and Gautam Gambhir all of whom scored double digit scores. However, the total of 163 was a little bit below the mark when as I have quoted in my earlier posts that a run ate of anything less than 9.0 runs an over is just below average. But, all that mattered was the fact that towards the end of the game, the Kolkata Knight Riders team were victorious by 9 runs which should be a good sign, given their records in the previous three editions.

The players from Kolkata Knight Riders could have played much better cricket with still to come batsmen like Ryan ten Doeschate, Eoin Morgan and Iqbal Abdulla who could have well seen the score past that ideal figure. Instead, the Kolkata Knight Riders stayed with four batsmen which just gave them a whisker and nothing else. One has to highlight the presence of a player from a lesser known cricketing nation with Ryan ten Doeschate hailing from Holland and still attracting a franchisee. There are so many players from decent countries like Australia who have failed to get their names bid.

And, if a player from Holland has been able to do so, that should be rejoiced for a team is coming up in its own terms. Glenn McGrath was forced to opt out from last year's IPL when the player lost hopes in the Delhi team management too see him bowl yorkers and line & length deliveries which forms a different story. In yesterday's match, however it was boring to read a few names which were never heard before like Ishank Jaggi, Barat Chipli, Dwaraka Ravi Teja etc to name a few. Howevrer, Steyn Amit Mishra and Ishant Sharma have been decent bowlers if not a team with decent batsmen.

What does Sachin and India want to prove?

Hmm..this is for the second time in the tournament that India have lost with Sachin Tendulkar scoring a century. But, as most of the tongues wag, I don't blame it on the maestro keeping in mind various superstitions. When cricket is a team game, leaving something completely upon one player is just stupid and a shameful act as well as cowardly. One can go through the scorecard of yesterday's game between India and South Africa at Nagpur to see what actually happened. If not for the opening duo, no other batsmen really stood to the occasion. Of course, Gambhir did.

But, with the likes of Yousuf Pathan, Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh being there in the team and that too in full form, things should have been a lot better. India were at one stage charging in at 267/1 at the end of the 40^th over at over six an over and with ten more overs still to go. The total seemed to be somewhere close to 400 with all the aforementioned batsmen and tail-end batsmen like Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan who can do their bit with the bat at the fag end of the innings. Oh! I forgot to mention Kohli.

With such a strong batting line up and with such a great initial start, something much was expected and unfortunately, the total ended 4 runs less than 300. But still, all was not lost with the Indian bowlers being capable of doing things as expected with Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh and Ashish Nehra being among top wicket takers for the team. They did well initially when South Africa were at one stage 247/6 after at one stage being at 223/3. 13 runs were needed from the last over and my goodness! I wonder how that was possible under that much pressure!

Failures with both the bat as well as the ball should and must draw all sorts of criticism no matter who scored a hundred or who held their nerves to restrict the opposition when there were 6 other batsmen who got out scoring single digit runs or just above the ten run mark and someone like Ashish Nehra who gave away 65 runs from 8.5 overs at 7 and a half an average that included the last over. I don't discourage Dhoni for giving the last over to Nehra instead I criticize him for under-using his bowlers when Sehwag & Sachin Tendulkar could have bowled.

Who gives a damn about Holland?

Well as expected and as usual, yesterday South Africa beat Holland by 231 runs at Mohali to become the fourth nation in this world cup to have registered a 200+ run margin of victory after Sri Lanka, Pakistan and West Indies did it against Canada, Kenya and Holland respectively. Likewise, Holland was the victim of such a batting display for the second time after West Indies did the same to them four days back. It would just be a waste of time to talk about the South African batsmen who notched centuries and a quickfire 40 off 15 balls who was Duminy.

South Africa were facing Holland for the third time in a world cup and all three world cup games have been memorable ones for the against Holland. In 1996 world cup no matter that South Africa under Hansie Cronje did well to beat all five teams in the round-robin stage but their highest team total came against Holland when they ended their 50 overs piling up 328 runs which was one of the highest team total at that time. South Africa won that game by 160 runs needless to be said. Then in their next encounter in 2007, Herschelle Gibbs smashed 36 runs off an over.

This time, the record for the highest victory margins is seen getting better and better as matches go by. First, it was Sri Lanka who inflicted a 210 run defeat on Canada which was followed by but not bettered by Pakistan who did the same to Kenya when they washed them by 205 runs and then there was the West Indies who crushed Holland by 215 runs to better Sri Lanka's record by another 5 runs. Now, that record as well is broken with South Africa bettering that record by 16 more runs when the margin was 231 runs but of little use.

It is not a match that anyone on earth would cherish no matter what the record books have to say. In 2007, South Africa fell just short of making it to the history books for yet another reason when they ended their innings at 353 at the end of the stipulated 40 overs with still 7 wickets in hand. Had there been further play possible, may be the target of 414 runs set forth by India against Bermuda might have been surpassed. In addition to Gibbs' 36 runs over, Kallis had a 30 run over in the 40^th. At the end, with games against England & India yet to come, who cares what happens against Holland?

No2 for India

For the third consecutive time, India have got into the super eights stage of a world T20 tournament without losing a single game in its league stage. In 2007, India had beaten Scotland (taken for granted) and Pakistan while in 2009 India beat Bangladesh and Ireland to reach the super eights of the tournament. Now, as expected by all, India beat Afghanistan a couple of days back and yesterday they beat South Africa to keep the tempo moving. It was interesting too India battle Afghanistan today and face South Africa tomorrow. The games involving India were held back to back.

However, no one complains with India winning both the matches effectively and with it being a T20 game, even if two games involving one team is held on the same day doesn't matter. Indian batsmen never had problems of any sort when Suresh Raina did most of the scoring becoming the first Indian to score a century in a T20 international. Of course, there is no Sachin Tendulkar playing T20 cricket to score a century there. Anyways, with that apart, the match had only notable contributions from Yuvraj Singh and Raina who with the rest only filling the vacancies that were relevant.

It is not anybody's fault with Dhoni hardly getting anything to play and his score was an unbeaten 16 runs off 6 balls with one six and a boundary. Raina and Yuvraj together played 90 balls which was 75% of the match. It shouldn't matter who played with every batsman having his day. Whatever, it was foolish for Smith to stick to the six bowler formula when four bowlers bowled their quota. Whatever, chasing 187 is a tough job though Kallis on the top had the Indian bowlers running for cover when he struck 73 from 54 balls. May be that was too slow for T20 cricket especially when chasing.

Kallis stood for nine overs scoring at less than 9 runs an over which is quintessential in T20 cricket. Guys who came in later namely AB deVilliers, Morkel and Boucher scored quick runs but not enough ones to secure a victory. It was because of those batsmen that South Africa crossed the 170 run mark with the margin of victory limited to 14 runs. Towards, as there would be a man of the match who is responsible for his team's victory, there would also be a man who would be solely responsible for his team's defeat and it was Kallis in yesterday's match.

RCB ahead of KXIP in all aspects

Well hardly anyone on earth would have anticipated the Royal Challengers Bangalore to not only win the match against the Kumara Sangakkara led Kings XI Punjab but also chase a mammoth total of 204 runs by losing just 2 wickets in the process. Such a match can hardly be found anywhere in the history books concerning cricket. The Kings XI captain Kumara Sangakkara was found bringing in 7 of his bowlers, none of whom could settle things for his team. This I heard was just the second time that the Royal Challengers have won a match against the Kings XI Punjab in the history of the IPL.

And, the way they have done it is just superb and nothing else. None of the 7 bowlers who had the the ball in their hands from the Kings XI Punjab were found bowling their full quota of 4 overs. That was the fears that Jacques Kallis injected in the minds of the bowlers of Kings XI Punjab. It was a more or less a one handed effort from Jacques Kallis that ensured not only of a Royal Challengers win but also ensured that the Kings XI Punjab team will go into the next match without a win in their hands in the current edition of the IPL.

One has to indeed raise his eyebrows for the coincidences that are found taking place in the match. If there were a team in Kings XI Punjab who are yet to win a match in the current edition of the IPL as stated above, there is a batsman in Jacques who is yet to lose his wicket in the current edition of the IPL. If at all someone os to be blamed for the debacle of the Kings XI Punjab as far as their match against Royal Challengers is to be considered, it has to be only the fortune of the KXIP team and no one else.

The Kings XI Punjab batsmen did each and everything they could to ensure that they stay on the top by piling up a mammoth 203 runs on the board losing just three wickets en-route. But, not only did they end up as the losing team but also, could not take more than two wickets off the RCB batsmen. The pitch no doubt was a paradise for batsmen but, had that been the case, the Kings XI captain Kumara Sangakkara should not have chosen to bat first after winning the toss. And, with a batsman like Kallis there in the opposition, nothing good can be guaranteed.

South Africa requires improvement

Yesterday, the most experienced South African cricketer-Jacques Kallis asks for some improvement from the South African players who could all do is to take home a consolation win in their recently concluded one day series against India after winning the third and inconsequential match at Ahmedabad by 90 runs. This was against an under powered team India which didn't have the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan, which South Africa made use of to the fullest extent at Ahmedabad. A victory was more than less guaranteed for South Africa than expected. This was without Graeme Smith to head RSA.

However, even though the series against India be sidelined, South Africa have hardly anything to justify by its side in one day cricket. The last time South Africa won a one day series was in January last year against Australia (excluding all the under rated teams like Zimbabwe which is fresher than the one under discussion) . That was also an under rated performance which saw the Proteas gasping for a 3-2 finish in the 5 matches that it played. Prior to that, South Africa had defeated Australia in Australia by a margin 4-1 in the former part of the Commonwealth Bank series.

Since then, South Africa has hardly played any international one day series in 2009. And, whenever South Africa played an international one day series, it was found crashing unpredictably. South Africa couldn't even make it to the semi finals of the ICC Champions Trophy after losing to Sri Lanka and England, at a time when everyone thought it would be South Africa to emerge at the top of it group. South Africa gave no fight to either Sri Lanka or England against which it lost in a one sided manner. All the aforementioned developments happening when South Africa hosted the ICC Champions trophy.

And then, South Africa played their next one day series after the ICC Champions trophy only after a gap of 2 months when it faced England. But, the result was no different for South Africa. For, South Africa yet again lost the five match series to England unexpectedly by a margin 1-2 with the remaining matches being washed out. This was followed by the recently concluded one day series against India, the result of which is needless to be highlighted specially whatsoever. Despite being a strong outfit, South Africa's run in ODI cricket is fairly below par compared to the expectations that it draws from the cricketing world.

Selection only partly responsible for India's loss

Well the moment India lost their first test match to South Africa, the first person to whom all the fingers pointed towards happens to be the selection committee, followed by the captain and in some cases the coach. I don't think that anyone reading this post needs to be reminded specially that cricket is a team sport unlike badminton and table tennis. It was of course not a good selection when someone like Saha, Badrinath and Abhimanyu the included in the squad. If the scorecard of the match is given a close look at, Badrinath and Saha did play upto expectations and Abhimanyu was not included in the playing XI.

Not much was expected from Saha and Badrinath but, they did live upto expectations when Badrinath scored 56 in the first innings that included a 40 run partnership along with Sehwag in the first innings. Later on in the second innings, Saha had his say when he scored 36 runs and stood for 150 balls or 30 overs and almost 2 hours at the crease. All these despite not guaranteed a place in the coming test. Even Murali Vijay was pretty decent with the bat when he scored 32 runs in the second innings. Most of the damage was first done by the bowlers when they let the South African bowlers cut loose.

It is justified the way the Indian bowlers despite playing in the home conditions could allow the South African batsmen not only to pile up 556 runs on the board but also allow a 300+ run partnership between Hashim Amla and Jacques Kallis. If there were no Laxman & Dravid in the squad, there were Sachin, Sehwag, Dhoni and Gambhir who could have solved the issue related to batting. Of course, Sehwag and Tendulkar came up with hundreds in the 1^st and the 2^nd innings respectively. But, Dhoni and Gambhir were absolute failures with the bat in the Nagpur test.

In the bowling department, if not for Zaheer Khan's first spell in the first innings, even he was not upto the mark and so were the other bowlers viz Harbhajan, Ishanth Sharma and Amit Mishra. The bowling department indeed requires some or a lot of refinement. For, someone like Sehwag had to bowl as a full time bowler and that too in a test match under the conditions where the South African batsmen were in full bloom. Luckily Sehwag got a wicket which is a different issue altogether. No matter what the first test squad had to say but, the inclusion of someone like Raina and Sreesanth would be just another blunder for, the former is a new comer to tests and the latter battles injuries most of the time.

South Africa Too Bad A Hosts

Well it was the same Sri Lanka way back in 2003 that spoilt all hopes of South Africa making it to the second round of the ICC World Cup in South Africa. There it was Marvan Atapattu who blasted 124 that was aided with 18 hits to the fence off 129 balls, that was well supported by Aravinda De Silva who added another 73 runs, that too aided with the help of 6 fours and 2 huge sixes. That match was a real nerve tester for the Proteas after their initial loss at the hands of West Indies and New Zealand. South Africa were just 1 run short of the victory target which was 230 and a wrong signal from the dressing room ended up in such debacle.

Otherwise, there was good work done in by Herschelle Gibbs who scored 73 (88 balls) and an unbeaten 45 from Mark Boucher. I guess, from then onwards, the South African team, in addition to 15 players, a coach and a manager would have included an abacus or a calculator to avoid such disasters. That was also a rain hit match like yesterday's which imposed a Duckworth Lewis total of 262 runs from 37.2 overs. Not a bad target or an unachievable one for South Africa but, Sri Lanka was too strong for the Proteas to overcome. Sri Lanka's efforts shouldn't go unrewarded?

One has to indeed pity the South African captain Greame Smith who along with ace batsman Jacques Kallis put up a strong foundation for the South African chase. As the Duckworth Lewis method always does, this time as well the run rate shot up from the previous one at 6.4 to just below 7 runs an over for South Africa. And what better can South Africa do with no recognized batsmen in the side to lead the batting? More than pointing fingers towards South Africa, one has to really appreciate Sri Lanka for outplaying South Africa in all departments of the game.

This was the first ime that Sri Lanka beat South Africa in an ICC Champions Trophy. Sri Lanka had lost to South Africa in the inaugural edition of the ICC Champions Trophy in a league stage match which in that tournament was a knock out one, meaning a team that loses its first match will have to wind up from the tournament which is not the case in these days. Sri Lanka lost their match to the proteas under Hansie Cronje when they were all out for 198. South Africa went on to win the series. Then in 2006, Sri Lanka yet again lost to South Africa in the league stages of the tournament held at India.