Sunday, May 3, 2009

IPL-II: Ball of the Tournament

The credit goes to the young Indian, Sudeep Tyagi of Chennai SK, who missed out on the first IPL due to a stress fracture. Cricinfo has a nice piece on him here. The quality of TV commentary has hit a nadir during the IPL and it is painful to see past cricket legends and ex-players donning the role of peanut hawkers. They were so busy playing vending machine that they spent too little time on this ball (cricinfo scoreboard)

AB de Villiers b Tyagi 0 (1 ball)

AB is probably the best of the young international cricketers who have already made their mark in the tough world of Test Cricket. Coming fresh of his success in previous IPL matches, the first ball he received from Tyagi shaped away, but then hit the seam and came in to rattle the castle. Tyagi of course, had just gotten a wicket the previous ball. An outstanding performance on IPL debut and I hope he is consistent enough to play for India in the future. Dhoni and Warne certainly seem to inspire the rookies.

The second ball of the tournament was also bowled in this match:

TM Dilshan b Jakati 13 (13 balls)

- this time by Indian spinner Shadab Jakati, who took out TM Dilshan, another in-form batsman. Both these players were clean bowled on defensive strokes in a T20 match. Good cricket is still alive! Too bad the third-rate commentary (except Bhogle) is too busy selling everything other than the many good cricketing moments (To to be precise, 'many' is relative to IPL-I that was played on flat Indian tracks with no bounce). 'DLF Maximum Swindle' and 'Citi Moment of Madness' would be apt for these two morally and financially bankrupt IPL sponsors. sigh.

Home team Bangor, err, i mean Bangalore, has risen from the ashes and has smartly picked an Indian-South African combination. 7 of the 8 teams are now within a point of each other, so its a dogfight. With classy Indian test players in the form of Kumble and Dravid, B'lore may still make it to the semis - but they will need to win 4 of their remaining 6 contests. For this, they have to keep their current hot streak alive...

And finally, Buchanan must resign. Its not the same without Warne, McGrath, and Gilchrist, is it?

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