IPL: Cricket Sans Frontiers

In another world, Ricky Ponting revealing Matthew Hayden’s only chink in the armour to Ashok Dinda could have amounted to treason. Likewise, AB de Villiers tipping off Sehwag on what snaps Dale Steyn’s rhythm could have been a perfect ground to make a Quisling out of the Protea bat.

Thanks to IPL, border – those haphazard scratches on Earth’s lovely round face- stands, if at all, blurred.

I had gone for Delhi Daredevils' practice session yesterday where TA Sekar, AB de Villiers, Rajat Bhatia and Manoj Tiwary were available for media interaction.

Sekar spoke in details how McGrath was mentoring the likes of V Yomahesh, Pradeep Sangwan and even Ferveez Maharoof, teaching them tricks of the trade and secrets of the craft which he learned during the course of his illustrious career.

Sekar said

If you saw the last match, you would remember how McGrath was trying to cool Maharoof who was getting some stick.

de Villiers too made it clear that he would not have any qualms sharing secrets about how to blunt Steyn.

He said

I’m more than willing to discuss the strength and weaknesses of the South African players. I would love to do everything that gives us an edge.

Lambasting IPL is a cottage industry among purists. I too had my fair share of potshots at it, even though I’m neither purists, nor the hoi polloi. But the peep into Delhi Daredevils camp came as a complete eye-opener. IPL has not bowled me over yet but I have to admit that it’s a paradigm shift indeed.

…and you say this is not match-fixing?

It’s getting really difficult to perceive the Indian Premier League (IPL) as anything but a hundred-headed-hydra that has spread its poisonous tentacles to every nook of the cricketing globe to get the best for its Twenty20 extravaganza, whatever be the cost.

Sample this. IPL had the audacity to offer money to two South African teams to play the semifinals and final of the Standard Bank Pro20 tournament without their key players, who would otherwise miss the first week’s action in IPL!

Subsequently, one of the teams turned down the offer, while the other named a compromised squad even though it’s the business end of the tournament.

The South African players in question were asked to go home back right after the Kanpur Test to play in the Standard Bank Pro20 tournament, the final of which is scheduled on April 25. It meant IPL, which kicks off on April 18, would be without the Proteas for full one week.

Realising it may take some sheen off the event, IPL offered USD 100,000 to Cape Cobras and the Titans, asking them to spare the players for the Indian league, even though that meant playing the semifinals and final without their key players!

Titans (Albie Morkel, AB de Villiers and Dale Steyn belong to this franchisee), however, refused to fall for the lure and turned down the offer. But intriguingly, Cobras have excluded Jacques Kallis, Mark Boucher and Ashwell Prince from their team – paving way for their IPL participation right from the start – even though they included Graeme Smith and JP Duminy in the squad for the domestic Twenty20 tourney.

Offering teams money not to field their key players should be reason enough to nab someone on charges of match-fixing and I’m afraid ICC’s connivance with IPL means the governing body itself, rather inadvertently, became the perpetrator of the crime it claims to be fighting against.

Image: Michael Philip Erb

Bloodbath at New Wanderers, what next Mr Speed?

(Gayle sets butcher-the-bowler trend)


It’s not often that you feel sad when your predictions come true. Same must be the case with those who prophesied World Twenty20 would be a bloodbath of the bowlers. ICC’s version of ethnic cleansing kicked off at the New Wanderers, Johannesburg and the results are appalling.

Consider this, 36 fours and 18 sixes—Chris Gayle contributing 10 alone – and this was just the first match of the tournament! In stark contrast, only eight wickets fell. Now if the tribe of bowlers feels like being subjected to something like a state-sponsored terrorism, they can’t be blamed.

The scorecard of the West Indies-South Africa tie was an eye-opener. The strike rate gives you a better idea of the mass slaughter. Of the 12 batsmen who wielded the willow in the match, only one – Dwayne Smith, who scored one run off four balls and is reportedly looking for a counselor to talk him out of depression – had a strike rate below 100. Dwayne Bravo didn’t get a chance to face a ball and remained not out on zero.

Gayle, first centurion in T20 internationals, leads the strike rate chart for his side with 205.26, while Dwayne Smith (102.94), Marlon Samuels (150), Shivnarine Chanderpaul (110), Ramnaresh Sarwan (150) and Denesh Ramdin (150) also went hard after the bowlers.

For South Africa, Justin Kemp (209.09) tops the table, while Graeme Smith (133.33), Herschelle Gibbs (163.63), architect of the win with a 55-ball knock of 90, and AB de Villiers (177.77) used the long handle to deadly effect.

In contrast, the economy rates of the bowlers can melt any heart of stone. South African Makhaya Ntini, number one in ICC rankings till the other day, was not allowed to bowl his full quota of four over after conceding 19 runs in his first two overs. Shaun Pollock (4-0-52-1) got a sound thrashing, even though it was Graeme Smith and Albie Morkel who bore the brunt of the Gayle-storm, going wicketless and conceding 16 runs of their only over.

Among the West Indians, Fidel Edwards managed an economy rate of seven for his three overs which also fetched him a wicket. Daren Powell (8.5) was the other bowler to manage an under-10 economy rate.

But life was miserable for Ravi Rampal (13), Dwayne Smith (18.50), Dwayne Bravo (14.62) and Samuels (10.50) and their nightmares would feature Gibbs and Kemp in lead roles.

ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed’s optimism bordered on insanity when he opined that bowlers would have a crucial role to play in this crash, bang and wallop format. Now if playing the cannon-fodder means crucial in his dictionary, one has no case to go carping about.

Image: Getty Images