Charu Sharma fired?

It is reported that, Charu Sharma, CEO of Royal Challengers was either fired or made a graceful exit to Brijesh Patel. This move might be prompted after the drubbing Royal Challengers continuous defeats. I think this is a bit late for this season. This might help them for the next season.

There is a speculation about dropping Venkatesh Prasad as the coach of Royal Challengers.

Would that really helpl the team now?

Top bowlers for Royal Challengers

S.No	Player	Overs	Maidens	Runs	Wickets	NB	Wd	RPO
1	Zaheer Khan	28	0	212	12	0	2	7.6
2	Praveen Kumar	27	1	207	8	0	2	7.7
3	Jack Kallis	23	0	22	4	0	3	9.6
4	B Akhil	7	0	51	2	0	0	7.3
5	Dale Steyn	16	0	105	1	1	7	6.7
6	Sunil Joshi	9.1	0	82	1	0	0	9.0
7	A Noffke	4	0	40	1	0	1	10.0

 

 

Deccan Chargers ran out of charge

This is the first time I have witnessed a match in the stadium and I was not disappointed. Match went down till the last ball and I was expecting a bowl out. It all started when Ramiz Raja said “namaskara Benguluru“. Laxman won the toss and elected to field. Quite rightly so. Chargers did a good job of restricting Challengers to  156 runs. Nobody really excelled from the Challengers. There were very few hits and the crowd were getting edgy when Dravid was batting. Only exception to this is the mexican wave started by the audience. There was nothing exciting happening when Challengers were batting.

Chargers started their innings needing 157 to win and it looked like a easy task. Gilchrist started well with couple of boundaries but he could not carry on. Gibbs, still finding his feet in IPL never looked in control and holed out to Kumble. That brought our Mr. Cool Rohit Sharma to the crease. Laxman and Sharma batted with style and class. Bangalore witnessed some fine batting from the duo. They were totally in control of the match. Laxman brought up his 50 with a single and Sharma followed suit. He also became the highest run scorer of IPL surpassing Gambhir. What happened next is the turning point. That shot to long on was not really called for and Rohit has only himself to blame. Jaffer took a fine catch and that is the starting of the end for Chargers. They still got Afridi but you know him. He is a maverick. Dale Steyn pulled off a stunner to get rid off Afridi. Wickets fell within the next 2 overs and Chargers needed 19 runs of the last 6 balls. Sanjay Bangar came to the rescue. He sent two sixers to bring Chargers home to an ever elusive victory. Then he blundered by not taking a 2 when it was on offer. That was it for Chargers and home team emerged victorious.

Chargers were so close yet so far. They reach the bottom of the table yet again. It is almost certain that they are out of the tournament. They might be playing for pride now on. Some might argue that they still have a chance and they just have to win the next 8 games. That, to me is a miracle. I believe in miracles but not this miracle.

Royal Challengers might fancy their chances to the last semi-final birth along with Knight Riders and Mumbai Indians.

The boundaries are really short. If you look at the number of 2′s in the whole innings you get a sense of what the ground looks like. I think they should get back to where the boundaries usually were. I understand the rationale behind pulling the ropes forward but it gives a false sense of satisfaction for the batsmen and makes the fielders look like jokers.

Royal Challengers win by a measly 3 runs.

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Super Kings are the unstoppables

Defending 178 was never easy. Super Kings did not have the kind of fire power to defend a modest total. Wasim Jaffer was dropped twice, on 7 and 18. Super Kings might have thought that Jaffer would not make any difference and it might be to their advantage if he stays on as few runs will be scored. Jaffer proved them wrong. He pulled off a decent innings and the first half-century of the IPL for him and also for Royal Challengers.

Ross Taylor followed Jaffer for second fifty of the innings to keep Royal Challengers in the hunt. It was not a fluent innings from Ross Taylor as there were few hits and misses, but hits were counted big. At this moment it looked like Challengers has to do not one thing but many stupid things. They did just that.  Taylor was out and then started the drama. They lost 5 wickets in 22 balls.  All they needed was run a ball and an odd boundary. Is that so hard to do in a 20-20 format? Royal Challengers thought so. They lacked the fire to win, the skill to chase and above all the common sense to prevail. They have only themselves to blame and no one else. They were all out with 2 balls to spare and 13 runs to score.

Super Kings win by 13 runs.

This is really disappointing stuff from the Challengers.

Dhoni’s captaincy and Joginder Sharma’s last over miracle are working well for Super Kings.

Oh No! Not another aussie

Not that anything wrong with it, but its getting funnier for the IPL. Standing for Indian Premier League its the australian players who are rooling the roost. The performances atleast. Its Shane Watson who took Rajastan Royals home with 61 runs and 2 wickets and was declared man of the match. Can someone from the Indian team please stand up and deliver. Its high time that has happened. Funny part is australian players whoever are performing are payed lower than their indian counterparts only to be skewed by Andrew Symonds $1.35 million. Thought not paid much other australian players like Mathew Hayden, Shane Watson, Hussey brothers seem to be more professional. Whatever the format is and wherever they play they seem to give their best. Also it seems like all the teams are revolving around the australian players. The australian players who performed so far are :

1. Mike Hussey
2. David Hussey
3. Shane Warne
4. Shane Watson
5. Mathew Hayden
6. Glenn McGrath
7. Brett Lee

It would be interesting to see who will come to the rescue when the australian players (barring few) would leave for their country.

Rajastan Royals win their encounter comfortably with Royal Challengers.

Man of the match : Shane Watson

 

Royal Challengers reeling at 121/7

With all the controversy about Harbhajan Singh slapping incident, I almost forgot that there is a match happening. Royal Challengers are reeling at 121 and looks like they can reach 160. This might not be a good score for the Bangalore pitch. Remember Brendon McCullum‘s Innings?

 I should really commend Rajastan Royals. They are the cheapest team ($67 million) by value in the tournament. They have the weakest team or the underdogs when this tournament started. They took a drubbing from Daredevils which supported the earlier view. Then came the twist. The magic of Shane Warne. This time its not only his leg spin magic but his captaincy and coaching. This has been a phenomenal comeback by the aussie and his team. He also backs it up with his performance be it taking wickets or scoring runs. 

If there is one captain who backs his team and leads the team with his performance in this IPL, it is Shane Warne. MS Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh, Saurav Ganguly, VVS Laxman (least effective), Rahul Dravid all failed to impress. Virendra Sehwag has come up with a brilliant performance the other night and it is too soon to judge him yet, but he takes the match away from you in minutes.

Did I miss anyone? Oh Yeah, Harbhajan Singh. I really dont want to talk about it here. That guy slaps if he looses. Good that they have suspended him but, Deccan Chargers team almost thought of arranging security for their next match with Mumbai Indians tomorrow.

 Anil Kumble is back in the Royal Challengers side. Can he create a magic? Challengers really need it.

Mumbai Indians might find it too easy

Mumbai Indians might find that Royal Challengers are no match for them even though they are missing Sachin Tendulkar and Lasith Malinga. With the likes of Robin Uthappa, Sanath Jayasuriya, Shaun Pollock and Harbhajan Singh, Royal Challengers might find it too hard and might have to re-think their bidding selection. Being a local boy I am not sure why Mallya did not shell out money for Robin Uthappa. That was a grave mistake I guess.

Dwyane Bravo replaces Lasith Malinga which is a blow to the Indians but they still have enough firepower in their batting that they can beat Royal Challengers. After seeing the Royal Challengers match Tendulkar might skip this match and let his injury heal.

It would be interesting to see who will captain the side in Sachin’s absence. It also depends on the captaincy is chosen on captaincy skills or on your nationality. Either way here are the the four potential players who can captain today respectively in that order :

1. Shaun Pollock
2. Sanath Jayasuriya
3. Robhin Uthappa
4. Harbhajan Singh

I am not expecting a close finish for this match. Mumbai Indians should win this match comfortably.

Royal Challengers in deep trouble

At 38-4 and needing 185 to win from 75 balls there is little the Challengers can do. Well its 38-5 as I was typing and the ball was sent high in the air only to be caught by Murali Karthik. It really looks one-sided match and there is only one winner now : Knight Riders. Shah Rukh is ecstatic. So is Juhi Chawla. The proud owners for Knight Riders.

The body language and the fielding performances shown  by Knight Riders looks like they will be one of the four semi-finalists. The are charged up. Really charged up.

Who will get the the 7Kg golden helmet? No goodies for guessing that its Brendon McCullum.

Its 38-6 and I quit.

Another one bites the dust

That’s what Ravi Shastri has to say about Royal Challengers. They do not seem to be challenging anything. The American cheerleaders could not help except for training the soon-to-be Indian cheerleaders. The score reads 44-7 and not a happy reading for a Royal Challenger fan. But today Knight Riders are the better team.

Going by the camaraderie shared by the Knight Riders team they are already playing like a team and Challengers are not. Knight Riders are gonna be in semi-finals and from there it depends upon how Deccan Chargers and Super Kings play. Not sure who will be the fourth semi-finalists but I am sure its not gonna be Royal Challengers.  

Who will be the getting the 7KG golden helmet from Shah Rukh? No goodies for guessing that. Way to go McCullum

Score reads 51-7 and I quit.

Brand Ambassadors for Royal Challengers

Vijay Mallya does it in style. He has cash to burn and uses it to entertain audience. SRK can take a leaf out of his book but can he match Dr. Mallya’s cashburn. Mallya has roped in the following celebrities as ambassadors and has spent around 5 crores for the celebrations.

1. Katrina Kaif (hottest star in bollywood and one of my favorites. By the way, she cannot dance but tries really hard.)
2. Shilpa Shetty (hot body| Doing well in the second innings)
3. Saif Ali Khan (Developed a great sense of humor | Doing well in his second innings)
4. Upendra (You should watch his movie named :A)
5. Ramya (Hot. Period)

There will be musical performances by Shankar Mahadevan, Ehsan Noorani, Loy Mendosa.

If you thought that is it then think again. There are some imports from the US because of dearth of local talent for this particular skill : Cheer Leading. No, Rakhi Sawant cannot do it.