16 Conclusions after the WC final

I love the idea of 16 conclusions after each football weekend (mostly the big ones) on football365 and I thought it is worth doing one after the biggest thing in cricketing history for India. Here it goes....

1. Sachin, thank you for bringing it at last. You might have failed in the final match. But it was under your guidance that the chaps could pull it off

2. Kirsten, You are just Legen....wait for it.....dary

3. Gambhir, Salute, what an innings..but next time apply some thought to personal accolades too. Now you've lost a massive chance to tell your grand children about that one century

4. Zak, You are still the best bowler we have had in the past decade. It's ok to leak a few runs like you did towards the end. You gave the dream start anyways

5. Do not call for a review again in your life Mr Sehwhack, unless Sachin tells you to.

6. Virat, you have the class. We are waiting for your time to come. You will take center-stage one day.

7. Dilshan, you took a brilliant catch, but then stop shouting those dirty things. Takes the class out of that brilliant moment when you grabbed it.

8. Sang, Kudos....you were a gentleman, unlike Shahid, who blew it after reaching home.

9. Malinga, try a hair cut...might work out for the next final. Your team can't lose three in a row.

10. Mr Srikanth, Never ever pick Mr. Santhakumaran for a one day cricket match.

11. Ashwin, I like your down to earth approach. Do not get heavy anytime and there's future.

12. Yuvi, you were the most aggressive in this tournament. You were just loved and I am sure your roster of female fans is going to reach the size of the 2G scam initial report that the CBI have submitted for the judges to read (80000 pages)

13. Captain Cool, Don't listen to Musharaf. See, it paid off....(P.S : I ve turned gay since April 2, 2011 after that six and that head tonsure.)

14. Indian team, Our domination has just begun. The country wants to keep this going for longer than the Australians kept it with them.

15. Virat Kohli's statement about carrying the master on our shoulders was the best of all reactions that day. Goosebumps...Really!!!

16. Readers, we've bleeded really light blue...and that has worked...time to bleed yellow now...Bring on the bharat bandh!

Season 3 Preview

With the auctions just behind us, it is time again for Season Three of the money-rich Indian Premier League. Unlike last year's transfer market, this year didn't bring in too many big names for bidding. Kieron Pollard was the pick of the lot. With his masterful performance in the recent KFC Big Bash and his heroics in the Champions League Twenty-20 last year, he is pipped to be a massive hit in the coming season. As expected ( with two players worth $1.5m in the aquad already), Chennai Super Kings were one of the bidders for the 22 year old West Indian All Rounder. Other bidders were Mumbai Indians, 'unsurprisingly' (because they had an all rounder void in the line up) and Deccan Chargers, 'surprisingly' (because three of their overseas player are all rounders). But at last, after a tie on the $750000 ceiling, an impressive $2.3m bagged the coveted prize of IPL3 for the Ambani's.

With the teams and players availability almost confirmed, there seems to be no surprises for most of the teams. Mumbai Indians is the team I want be backing this time around. Albeit not just because of the new arrival. The team has appealed to me over the last two years. The only weak link being some sporadic sub-standard captaincy. The team is a well shaped bunch of promising faces. A Jayasuriya-Harbhajan-Duminy-Tendulkar-Zaheer force (Pollard not included) is unquestionably formidable. Having been a staunch Super Kings fan for the last two years simply due to nativity reasons, this time I have decided to back India's cricketing God for once in his last few years at cricket's helm. I reckon he will lead the team better and overcome those minor hassles that they've come across in the last two seasons.

I bet nobody predicted a Hyderabad-Bangalore final in season 2. And going by the same logic, I am sure one can not write off any team (including KKR :-) ). On the viewership front, though season two was an extradited affair, viewership showed a 10% increase from its first season numbers. Given that it is back to India once again, i am sure it is going to be a massive hit for the advertisers. Personally, I am not looking forward with much excitement or some such thing to this IPL 3. But all around me, there has been an overflow of chitchat in the past two days about the auction and the event as such. Hence the post.

Nevertheless, what's in store this time?
Mumbai Indians for the trophy!
Loads of money for the already rich bureaucrats and advertisers!
Some fun for us viewers!
And if one wants to witness the event from the stands, a small hole in the purse.

Om Criketaya Namaha!!!

Season Two- Unveiled

There has been a lot of talking about IPL Season II moving to South Africa making way for a safe and secure Election process. The debate and discussion about the shift in venue is well over now. Questions about the eccentricity and the enthusiasm for this second edition of the tournament have been coming through. Now that the season 2 has got off to a start, it is time to find out what has changed and what has not from the inaugural edition of the tournament. The start did make a success story. The newspaper headlines had the catchy slogans. But is the cricket fan satisfied? What does he feel about watching all this from a distance?

For a start, i would like to analyze how big a fan i am of this highly spoken about version of the game. This shorter version has always been interesting. The fervour and passion was sure to come right from the inception of this form of the game. Season 1 was really interesting. The teams did not manage to accrue passionate fanatics supporting them die hard. The cricket lovers were more enthused by the very nature of this form of the game and did not resort to wildfire regional supporting tendencies. I was one of the kind too. I did manage to cross my fingers for Chennai Super Kings sporadically during the first edition and i would owe that gesture to the feeling of local support being a long time dweller of the city. But as the build up for season 2 started, the passion increased. I wanted to own a yellow jersey to support the team through season II. I decided that i would watch a few games at the stadium too. Those hopes were dented by the decision to move the tournament overseas. With so much homework from my side done, i geared up for the inaugural match. But at last i ironically managed to miss the match in view of my last minute plans to go to Bangalore. I learned about the results late in the night though.

Fellow supporters told about the loss to Mumbai Indians on the opening day. Surprisingly it did not create any hard feelings for me. May be it was too late in the night for me to fret and discuss the sad story after all for co-supporters would've done the post match analysis which i missed citing personal reasons. I thought i would catch up with the tournament in full swing and with complete ecstasy from the next match day. But the interests were not sustained. As i returned to work on Monday, i could just not think about it with the backlog items at the workplace daunting me after a tired weekend. I watched a couple of slog overs in the CSK-RCB match late night after i got back home.

I noticed the same dip in the passion levels with my fellow fans not knowing the reason though. But whats quite clear is that the move overseas has brought down levels of interest as one cannot enjoy the ecstatic atmosphere in the stadium if the tournament had stayed in India. The idea of screening the matches at multiplexes was welcome during the build up to the season. But nothing materialized at the end, lowering the hopes for a sizzling month of IPL fever. Watching the matches this season i reckon would just be more of a time pass activity rather than being a fervour. I do support the decision to move the tournament away from the country for security reasons, but i somehow feel the passion and enthusiasm which showed positive signs during preseason have died down nevertheless.