After 4 years the cricket teams have got a shot at the world-cup which has been Australia’s ownership for the past 12 years. Will Australia continue to do so after 4 years or have other teams finaly closed the gap between the invincible aussies 4 years ago by now .Read on to find out
India-Everytime 11 indian players step on to the ground they carry 1.1 b
illion people’s hopes along with them. And being one of the hosts for the world cup, the pressure is sky-high. But in the recent past the Indian players have started to absorb the pressure and have proved their true worth.
India have always proved their strength in home and reached semi-finals in the last two world cups held in the sub-continent. They were top contenders in both these world cups only to see them lose in a bad manner. But this time they will be the team to beat.
The reason is simple. They have the best openers in the current cricketing scenario with sehwag and gambir. A middle order line up consisting of Tendulkar, dhoni, yuvraj, raina .All the four of them have the capability to stabilize the middle order if sehwag and gambir fail so that Yusuf pathan who in recent past has been in his devastating best could savage the bowlers in the end.
When it comes to bowling they have got a good spinner in harbajan and ashwin. Zaheer, Nehra and Patel are showing god forms in the recent past. India’s weakness if there is any would come in the form of 5th bowler and the recent form of Yuvraj Singh. He has not in the best of touches creates a hole in the ship but there are players who can easily close the hole.
In current form, india can easily secure a semi-final spot if they to the true potential and go on to win the world cup and bid the best home-going present to sachin Tendulkar.
Torres banner at Anfield. He will never see such things at Stamford Bridge and must get used to seeing plastic flags.
There have been female referees in football for some time now but this is quite new in the Premier League. Last weekend was one of those rare days on which I felt very lazy to wake up at 4 30 am to watch Liverpool play away against Wolves. Later I noticed friends on Facebook mentioning about female assistant referee officiated that game and Sian Massey did a fantastic job. If I were to believe people who watched the full match and whatever I saw in the highlights she was spot on. Her first match as a Premier League line official was back in December in Sunderland v Blackpool game. Don’t know how that went unnoticed (just me or may other football fans??). Sian Massey was in the news this week because of the controversial “sexist” remarks made by prominent Sky Sports presenters Andy Gray and Richard Keys. The duo were caught on cam before the kick off for making comments such as “what do women know about offisde”. The matter was taken seriously and Sky Sports terminated their contracts.
Coming back to Wolves v Liverpool, Sian Massey could have easily fallen for offside appeal. Instead she spotted the movement well enough to allow the play to continue and that resulted in the first goal. Her decision could have decided the outcome of the match and good that it went the right way. Not to forget how it have been for Mr. Gray and Mr. Keys, may be like a slap on their face 
. Hardly 4 days after that match, in Liverpool v Fulham game, a linesman got it all wrong when Torres was judged offside while he actually wasn’t. Looks like football needs more female referees. Surely they can do better job than Howard Webb and other ducks around. And as one of my friends had commented on Facebook, players wouldn’t argue too much ( F words etc 
) with a female referee and maintain dignity . Way to go Sian Massey!! Hope she continues her good record and sets an example for both male and female counterparts.
Delhi Daredevils-
Delhi Daredevils are the southafrican team of ipl. The reason is, they squander the opportunity of entering the final by any means they can find. They were manhandle by gilchrist in ipl2 , in ipl 1 the batsman suddenly did not come good for them. In ipl 3 they did not qualify for the semifinal due to the fall of team integrity.
It’s ipl 4 and this time they did not retain any of the players except for virender sehwag. Surprisingly enough, Gautam gambir who went for the highest amount in ipl4 and the former captain of dd was not retained. They were pretty confused because of out of field controversy, they did not pick a great team as they had for the first three ipl.
The respectful pickings by delhi were Australian cannonade David Warner ,Southafrican beast Morne Morkel. They opted for irfan pathan and spend a whooping sum of 1.9 million dollars, for a player who cannot find himself in indian world cup team.It is a touch too high. Hope he does the job with the bat and the ball as expected by GMR groups. The other shocking bid was for venugopal who is a very good odi and test player but for t20, he is not a very smart pick. May be they needed some one to stabilize the middle order if sehwag and warner fail. They got highly spoken southafrican colin ingram who is yet to prove his worth in international arena and victorian bush rangers all-rounder Andrew Mcdonald.
In the bowling front they got kkr’s successful bowler Ashok Dinda and veteran Ajith Agarkar. They did not pick a spinner , a surprise in indian conditions and instead opted for Australian all rounder James Hopes. Other notable team members were Australian aaron finch and delhi man for the last 3 ipl’s Rajat Bhatia.They picked royals player naman ohja as the wicket keeper and also Australian Wade.
With such a new team which will take time to bond, delhi would need sehwag and warner fire from all cylinders if they have any chance to secure spot in the semi-final. They still have money in the bank and if they are able to procure some good local talents ,it would be interesting to see. But for now delhi is not the team they were in previous three ipl’s
My Delhi X1-Sehwag, Warner, Naman Ohja, Venugopala rao, McDonald, Irfan pathan, Hopes/Finch, Agarkar, Dinda, Morne Morkel, Spinner Please.
After a disastrous performance in the first edition of ipl, RCB pulled up their socks, changed the captain and put up impressive performances in the next two editions. When asked about retaining players, to everyone’s surprise they retained Virat Kohli while they had Kevin Pietersen , Dale Steyn ,Cameron White. But their decision has so far proven wise as Virat Kohli is ominous form.
The captain of the two previous editions Anil Kumble choose wisely to become the manager of the team and his decision was widely reflected in the auction when some players did not get bids or got bids for lower value. Let us now see what team they have got.
In bowling front they have considerably strengthened the line up, They got india’s best fast bowler Zaheer Khan, slinging Nannes, good swing bowler in langveldt and one of the most economic spinners in Daniel Vettori. In addition they have also got local talent abhimanyu mithun , a budding fast-bowler and also southafrican van der wath..
In batting department the young hero Virat Kohli, last year’s ipl find Saurabh tiwari, Cheteshwer Pujara. They also managed to bid successfully for srilanka’s dashing opener Tillekaratne Dilshan, Australian left hander Luke Pomersch bach and South Africa’s most successful batsman AB De Villers. If they are able to procure Manish Pandey then they seem to have the most balanced side in this years ipl.
My RCB X1- Virat Kohli(C), Saurabh Tiwary, Manish Pandey, Zaheer Khan, Cheteshwar Pujara, Abhimanyu Mithun, Dirk Nannes, AB de Villiers(Wc), Tillakaratne Dilshan, Daniel Vettori and another local batsman.
With such a balanced side they surely are one of the main contenders of the cup and have the side which can go al the ways to the final. The only thing to watch out for is, who will be serving as captain .will it be vettori or zaheer khan.That would be interesting to watch out.
Tendulkar and Pollard helped Mumbai Indians reaching the finals of the last year which they lost out due to some batting line up errors by SRT. This year they would not be enjoying the exclusive serices of pollard like last year as he has some international commitments.And with this in mind they picked another player who is the only player who could justify the role Pollard plays in the team. They picked Rohit sharma for a whooping amount of $2 million. Rohit sharma has always been a very good ipl player.It is only in the international arena he has failed. So he is a really good addition in strengthening the middle order which was given a dent as they no more get the services of saurab tiwary who was bought by RCB. There is no jp duminy also and neither does shikar dawan fail in the line up. So it is in the hands of symonds and rohit to strengthen the batting line up.They also got flourishing austrlain batsman aiden blizzard.
Mumbai Indians Logo
It is the bowling that had made them the strong team in previous ipl.But this time they were not able to procure in Zaheer Khan as RCB got him also. So they had to strengthen the bowling line up very heavily. They still have the services of Bhajji and Malinga the slinger.They bought Munaf Patel in place of Zaheer Khan. I dunno how efficiently he would be able to perform Zaheer’s job. They also got australian fast man cint mzkkay but it is tough for him to find place in the team. They got davy jacobs , a highly rated south african who is yet to shine in the international arena.
They also got back Moises henriques who has never fogured in the previous playing X1 of MI, but still they got him. James Frankin, a New Zealand bowler who suddenly took up the role of All rounder for the kiwis in the recent past was also bought.
In addition they also have the services of local talents in Dhawal kulkarni , Rajagopal Satish, Ambati Rayudu. It would be interesting to see whether they will be able to retain them back.
Overall Mumbai has a very strong team but it is the middle order that needs a tightening up.Otherwise Tendulkar as usual would have to play a very powrful role in building up the team just like he has been doing it for the past 20 years for India.
Final X1
SRT, Sathish, Sharma, Symonds/Pollard, Davey Jacobs, Rayudu, Bhajji, Munaf, Malinga, Kulkarni, Local Allrounder/Batsman or Blizzard.
If both pollard and symonds is available the last slot would not be needed to be filled.
Will continue about the rest of the teams in my forthcoming posts.
