Stuff that's happened

Friday, May 07, 2010 cricket, dilshan, gayle, hayden, india, preview, random, review, rishabh bablani, sachin, sreesanth, sri lanka, symonds, T20 world cup, west indies No Comments

The T20 World Cup has gone exactly as expected, no surprises have been sprung. The big 'uns have all progressed to the next round. The minnows showed some fight and, being minnows, were overpowered before bowing out. The Afghans were spirited in the field, and despite their pre-tournament fearlessness at facing Steyn, were butchered by the Saffa pace attack before Graeme allowed them a go at Albie. Also, this would have been the perfect time for Dean Jones to be back in the commentary box, but apparently no one saw the opportunity but me. Why am I not an ICC official?

Suresh Raina and Mahela Jayawardene showed us that the IPL is good for something, as both smashed hundreds for India and Sri Lanka respectively.

Sachin Tendulkar joined twitter, and verified his account by posting some geeky pictures of himself to prove that he's human (he's tricking us, don't believe a word of it!). He also already has more than 178,000 followers, and is literally gaining more than one follower every second. Keep refreshing his twitter page to see for yourself. (I am also on twitter)

India and Australia play today in what has the potential to be the biggest game of the tournament so far, though we will be missing Sreesanth, Hayden and Symonds. Harby alone just isn't enough drama. Hopefully Gambhir's stomach isn't runny anymore, so we don't have to open with Karthik again. Seriously, Rohit Sharma is a better option!

The other match is between Sri Lanka and the Windies. It may or may not be a close match, but it'll definitely be boring if Gayle and Dilshan don't score some runs.

I'm also brainstorming for more usage of Billy. Not much else.

Ravindra Jadeja wins a match for India

Monday, December 21, 2009 ajantha mendis, cricket, dilshan, harbhajan singh, india, ravindra jadeja, rishabh bablani, tharanga 1 Comment

Yeah, he did. His first ever match-winning contribution for India, at least one that people can remember.

And what a time to bowl his best stuff, after the Lankans had been rollicking at 165/1, largely thanks to Tillekeratne 'Dilscooper' Dilshan, Upul 'No-real-nickname' Tharanga, and Sanga (because it rhymes).

Harbhajan decided to bowl well on a turning track and Jadeja pulled out a can of whoop-ass.

My image of him has changed. A bit.

I always thought of him as a limited-over specialist spinner, the Johan Botha type who fires it in around off stump, and who can slam the ball a bit.

Now he's a pretty decent all-rounder.

A few months ago we all hated his guts for his really slow innings in a T20. We all wanted him to be dropped.

Now he's a decent all-rounder who deserves his place instead of Yusuf Pathan.

I'm an Indian cricket fan, though. My opinion could only be as constant as the next match.

Mendis got served today, by the way. Remember my post?

Sehwag paints the field red

Thursday, December 03, 2009 bradman, cricket, dilshan, india, lara, rishabh bablani, virender sehwag 4 Comments

I missed out today. Woke up late, thought of checking the score, but decided against it and settled down with a bit of breakfast.

Then I checked my RSS feeds of various websites in search of something interesting to read, and saw this under Cricinfo:

'Sehwag and Vijay pulverise Sri Lanka'. Of course, this would later become 'Virender Sehwag pulverises Sri Lanka'. Rightly so, as no other batsman in this match should even be in the same frame. The Sehwag should get an entire channel to himself.

Anyway, that headline sent me into super-click mode, leading me to the live scorecard, and I ran to catch it live.

Dilshan has become more successful after being said to have gone the 'Sehwag way', which is all crap. Only Sehwag goes the Sehwag way. Dilshan made a quick hundred and got out. What you get with Sehwag is a man who smashes his way past hundred and tries to multiply it by whatever number appears by randomly picking a finger on his hand.

He may be in the company of Brian "I'm-so-angry-my-team's-losing-so-I'll-break-a-record-maaaaan" Lara and Don "My-team's-invincible-and-I-average-a-hundred" Bradman, but he's Virender "I-see-the-ball-and-try-to-hit-it" Sehwag. He batted so well that Vijay's sublime 87 and Dravid's solid 62 seem like nothing more than good starts.

Tomorrow people will be rushing to catch the match right from the morning, in anticipation of whatever Sehwag can cook up. Even if he gets out first ball, he will be the holder of the top three scores by Indians - that is a good enough feat for anyone.

By the way, Muralitharan has taken 5 wickets at 103 this series.

"And I didn't even have to use this!"