Cricket T20: Vintage Ganguly in IPL-5!

By -

We have maintained throughout here that the IPL (Indian Premiere League T20) is more of a cricket marketplace than cricket. With glamour and sleaze embellishing it at every step the IPL also has other unique attributes like cheerleaders, strategic timeouts that basically mean more commercial breaks than the customary breaks every over and the weirdest loyalties of ‘home’ team and ‘home’ grounds. For Chennai Super Kings the ‘home’ is Chennai in South India while the team is led by Indian skipper Dhoni who belongs to north India; for Royal Challengers ‘home’ is Bangalore but is led by Daniel Vettori (New Zealand); Sourav Ganguly is inseparable from Kolkata, but he leads Pune Warriors now, while Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) is led by Delhi’s Gautam Gambhir the ‘home’ is still Kolkata. Very tough going indeed for the ‘supporters’!
Always turned off by the business and entertainment concept of IPL the best course I found for myself was to occasionally catch up with the action how the old warhorses had been faring and how exciting stroke makers like Chris Gayle, Steve Smith, Jesse Ryder, Kevin Pietersen, Jaywardene , Sangakkara and more had been doing apart from the Indian counterparts.
I had a gut feeling that one of the most successful cricket captains of India and arguably the most aggressive and controversial, Sourav Ganguly had to get going like he did in his prime time. In those days we used to pray Sourav settle down in any one-day or test innings, because after that the flurry of towering sixes off particularly spinners were a delight to watch and unforgettable. For IPL-5 he had been captaining Pune Warriors India (PWI) well, but doing precious nothing with the bat. Finally in yesterday’s match against Delhi Daredevils (DD) I had my rewards of persisting with Ganguly.
Few lofty shots he played in his innings of 41 off 35 balls reminded us of the glorious days of his career. His career being another wonder; debuting in one-day cricket against West Indies in 1992 and getting dropped immediately for ‘arrogance’, superlative test debut in England in 1996, becoming captain of India in 2000 and getting dropped in 2005 for indifferent form and the ‘fight’ with the then coach Greg Chappell, recalled to the national team in 2006 and finally retiring from international cricket in 2008, joining IPL as captain of KKR in 2008 and getting dropped there too in 2010 and captaining PWI from 2011.
Anyway, Ganguly’s innings and an explosive knock of 86 by Ryder helped PWI to post a challenging total of 192 in 20 overs. In DD’s chase for a target of 193 runs Virender Shewag and Kevin Pietersen started firing all cylinders looking to overhaul the total quite easily. At that tricky moment Ganguly brought himself on as a bowler—first time in IPL since 2010! And lo! His very first ball bowled a bewildered Pietersen. Sourav Ganguly looked then the charged-up skipper of India that he was! He went on to capture another wicket and his enthusiasm inspired the whole team. PWI finally won by 20 runs and Ganguly was the man of the match for his all-round performance.  
With Australian skipper Michael Clarke scheduled to join in later stages things are going to get all the more exciting for PWI and Ganguly. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Bura Mat Suno...Bura Mat Dekho..."!

By -
Image
Long back Mahatma Gandhi advised us ‘Do not listen to bad, do not see bad and do not speak bad’ ( "Bura Mat Suno..Bura Mat Dekho...Bura Mat Kaho" !). Now in modern hyper competitive times we are helpless about the first two don’ts. And persistent exposure to the first two makes us lose the third too! We cannot help but listen to or watch an endless stream of ‘bad’—all around us from home to the streets, in the newspapers and news channels, in the television serials and in the movies and at every act we have to do like walking praying jogging or driving—everyday and every step of our existence. Such continuous barrage of ‘bad’ is fast making us speak and utter a lot of ‘bad’ too. We are becoming doubtful and suspicious of everything around us and we are learning to blurt it out freely and openly. The main ‘bad’ drive comes from politics. We are hounded constantly by all sorts of stories being hammered into us forcing us to form our opinions or go on changing t
Read more

Hindustani Classical Music Living Legend Dr. Prabha Atre Speaks!

By -
Image
The living legend of Indian Classical (Hindustani) Music and the senior most vocalist of the Kirana Guarana, Padma Vibhushan Dr. Prabha Atre celebrates her 90 th birthday on 13 th September, 2022. This is indeed a most significant and momentous occasion in the history of Indian classical music as the complete artiste goes tirelessly on serving the cause of music with her lilting compositions, her sweet and melodious presentations, her scholarly discourses, her progressive outlook, her in-depth research and enlightening books and her devoted role as the most ideal beloved Guru for her countless disciples. Dr Prabha Atre holds the world record in releasing 11 books on a single subject which is music and has been instrumental in propagating and popularizing Indian classical vocal music in the West as the late Pt. Ravishankar did with the Sitar. On this occasion the legendary artiste is also initiating a new chapter with the inauguration of the Kirana Gharana Library and Resource Centr
Read more

Raghu Krishna: Adieu!

By -
Image
The man in the blue suit He was more of a dear friend than a boss. Raghu Krishna , the former Chief Producer of Films Division, Mumbai and Director of MIFF (Mumbai International Film Festival for Documentary, Short and Animation Films) for 2004 and 2006 versions, passed away today following a brain stroke and coma. I first knew him as a film director in Films Division, Mumbai. As we became close we started playing table tennis. He was an attacking player specializing in smashes. Once I was defeated by a colleague and next game Raghu defeated him. Later, Raghu came over to my room for a fag and told me proudly, ‘I wanted to beat him because he beat you!’ I sensed his love for me instantly. Raghu appeared for an interview for the top post and finally got selected. He joined as Chief Producer in January 2004 and immediately took charge of MIFF 2004 as Festival Director. Till MIFF 2006 I worked under him and enjoyed every bit of it. He showed tremendous faith in me in the role of
Read more

The Celestial Messaging!

By -
Image
It is a fact of life that we keep on getting celestial or divine messages from the invisible world—particularly during times when catastrophes/tragedies happening in or about to befall our family or locality or country and we might as well call these as intuition or premonition or telepathy or presentiment or the like. Most of the times we fail to decipher these in time; sometimes we understand but fail to act upon it and some other time we comprehend enough to prepare well for it. From at least three months prior to my father’s demise I had been having a very disturbing time—wanting desperately to go to him, be by his side; dreaming about him and at times having a hallucination of seeing him around. However, living quite far away from home, I failed to act upon it due to various external factors including a persistent financial strain. As was inevitable, he passed away one early morning and I could reach home only on the sixth day travelling for three days on an ordinary train as book
Read more

The System!

By -
Image
The calls never stop. They’re ruthlessly regular as always even if you’re going through a huge personal crisis or that you’ve been rendered ineligible for most of the offers in circulation due to various reasons. And I don’t blame the ‘casuals’ desperately trying to augment their measly income with the commissions cum incentives that they hope to earn by getting the customer’s consent for a personal loan or a deposit/investment scheme or a pre-approved credit card. In fact, I always have sympathy and understanding for them; that I get angry most of the times is a part and parcel of the hazardous virtual games being played in abundance nowadays. This time, for a change, it was a male voice that addressed me in all possible politeness. But he sounded weary and lazy, perhaps frustrated by the endless calls from his end since morning without any tangible progress. “Sir, I’m calling from the xyz finance company. If you can spare a moment, please!” For a change, again, I decided not to
Read more

Amidst the Rohit Blitz Karthik Had His Moments as India Level T20I Series Against Australia!

By -
Image
Chasing a tall target of 91 runs to win in 8 overs (the second T20I between India and Australia was reduced to 8-overs a side due to rain affected pitch and outfield) captain Rohit played out of his skin remaining not out at 46 off just 20 balls to steer India to a win by 6 wickets against Australia before a packed house in Nagpur. He kept his cool and hit some terrific shots all around the park as he has been known for despite the failures of KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav and Hardik Pandya. For a change, we’ve used ‘India’ instead of ‘Rohit Franchise’ because the team finally looked like a national team with main strike bowler Jasprit Bumrah coming back and batsman-keeper Dinesh Karthik retained notwithstanding what happened in the first match. This is not at all due to India’s win. Of course, one of the main weapons for a national side Bhuvneshwar Kumar was dropped or rested as he’s been giving away crucial runs in his second spell in the last few matches. However, the fact
Read more

Tip of the Humbug!

By -
Image
The tall, smart yet well-behaved and handsome young man did the job beautifully and had taken so much care of me during the process that I got gloated with gratitude and wanted to reward him in my humble way—meaning I wanted to tip him twenty bucks—even though I normally did not do such things in such places. I remembered I had a tenner in my shirt pocket and hoped I could get another one from the change I would get from the final payment.   I thanked him profusely, got up and proceeded to the counter as the young man took his position behind it. “How much?” I asked because it had been after a long time and in the fluid post-pandemic times prices shoot up anytime anywhere. He smiled and said, “The usual sir! Hundred and fifty rupees.”   I gave him a two-hundred note and hoped he’d give the required change. Unfortunately, he returned only a fifty-rupee note, sweetly and simply. ‘In the most typically tipping places the smart operators know how and in what denominations to give b
Read more