Thursday, April 29, 2010

My Dream Fantasy team - IPL 3

As with the last IPL, here is a composition of my Dream team of 11. It consists of players who have impressed me in one way or the other this season.
First the list of players, then a little about my selection and those who almost made it and then the final line-up.

Batsmen:
The only Orange cap contenders (Sachin and Kallis) throughout the tournament earn their place right at the top of the order. Sachin is the only player to have scored 600+ in a single IPL so far. Well we can always keep talking abt this guy day in n out.
Surprisingly Kallis wont be opening the innings. It will be Sachin's mate Dada who scored nearly 500 this season @ 47 opening for KKR.
Raina, the best ever IPL batsmen earns the call after scoring 520 @ a SR of 140+
Pollard and Symmo have been the pick of the all-rounders this season with Symmo failing in small patches and Pollard being excellent towards the end of the tournament.
Those who almost made it:
M Vijay (huge transition from tests to T20s), Jayawardene and S Tiwary were in close contention. Rohit Sharma and I Pathan were the next best as all-rounders.
Bowling:
Ojha, the Purple cap holder is an automatic choice. Mishra is a tough omission, but Bhaji had the edge with a little help in batting, not to mention his 17 wickets this season @ an economy of 7
Fast bowling is not complete without 'Slinga' Malings these days. The choice of next pacer was very tough. It was a toss-up between Dougie and Harris. Bollinger makes it coz of his better Econ rate (6.6)
That said Kallis, Raina, Pollard and Symmo should be pretty handy with the ball too.
Those who almost made it:
Fast: Harris should have made it. Others were Zaheer, Vinay kumar (a good young talent) and Steyn (little patchy this season).
Spin: Mishra, Kumble and CSK's find of the season Ashwin. He has it in him but just that he has to play more games.
Wicket-Keeper:
Dhoni is the only guy who came to my mind. He doubles up as my Captain too :) (No.. am not being partial here. Seriously considered Sachin/Ganguly for the role. But Dhoni has that lucky charm to lead the sides)
Those who were a bit close were Sangakkara, Gilly and Uthappa (only for his batting)

Here is the batting line-up with the 2 stalwarts opening


It's quite odd that only Raina and Malinga made it to the current team from last year. Biggest disappointments from last year were Yuvi, Hayden, Gilly and ABD
Lets see how the season is, next year with more teams and more players :-)

Saturday, April 24, 2010

The Cup of Joy!!

It was The Judgment Day at the IPL season 3 yesterday which decided who is gonna have the last laugh (Ok.. enough of the Clichés)
















It's no secret anymore. It was Chennai who came out in flying colors :) CSK entered the finals as the under-dogs given Mumbai's consistent performance through out the tournament. They were the side to beat and hence the pressure of winning was obviously on them and this proved decisive when they had to chase a decent enough score on a tricky pitch.
The eve of the match rendered a slight blow to CSK's camp. The news was that Sachin was fit and will be playing in finals and leading his team to win the ever elusive Championship. It was bad news for Kallis too as his Orange cap was under threat (eventually Sachin scored much more than those 2 runs reqd to pluck the cap out of Jack's head)
Raina's innnings was a cherry topping to his already illustrious carreer at the IPL so far and he along with able support from others made sure Chennai reached a score that was defend'able.
When Mumbai came to bat and were struggling for the 1st half scoring at less than 6 r.p.o, they still had hope in the form of the man of the tournament 'Sachin'. But when he was gone and when MI were busy deciding whether to send Pollard ahead of Malinga or after him, you know the game was done and it was too late even for the big hitter.
CSK's fairytale ending was amazing and I was absolutely speechless and spell-bound after the match. Just think that we had to score 44 runs off 3 overs even to make to the semis exactly a week ago at Dharamsala. The BIG turnaround for CSK was Chennai's (or rather Dhoni's) last over win against Punjab. That set the tone and the rest is history!! :-) It has been a long way from there.
Feel sorry for Sachin.. but he lacks that eeny weeny bit of luck required to grab a big trophy. On the other hand, Mahi has been CSK's lucky charm. Winning both the Championship and the Fair Play Award (We had a perfect 10/10 for all the 14 matches) just goes on to show the kind of hard and fair cricket this team has been playing throughout.
And needless to say Chennai has been the most consistent team across all the IPL seasons. Here are a few numbers to drive home the point.

No. Teams IPL '08 IPL '09 IPL '10 Net worth
1 CSK 7 5 8 20
2 DD 5 6 4 15
3 RCB 2 7 6 15
4 DC 1 8 5 14
5 MI 4 2 7 13
6 RR 8 3 2 13
7 KXIP 6 4 1 11
8 KKR 3 1 3 7

The points are allocated as below:
8 pts for the Tournament Winners
7 pts for the Runners-up
6 for the winner of 3rd place play-off or the one higher on the Points Table
5 for the other losing Semi-finalist
4, 3, 2 and 1 for the rest of the teams according to their positions in Points table
The Net Worth will be the summation of points across the IPL seasons

Numbers speak for themselves.. Do I need to say anything?
Hoping for more success for the Lions in the forthcoming seasons too :-) Fingers Xd.

Friday, April 16, 2010

PVR | Be there


Well, at last its here in Chennai after such a long time. It's quite weird as how long it took for them to start screening in one of the metropolitans whereas they have screens in almost all of the prominent cities around the country. Well, am not complaining, better late than never.
We now have a nice alternative to the biggies of Chennai (Sathyam and Inox). So coming back to the question 'Does it live upto its biggest competitors?'. I would say, Yes it does, at last it appears to do so at the first look.
Location: It's a 7 screen multiplex located at a pretty nice spot, the Skywalk mall in Aminjikarai. Its easily accessible from Annanagar, Shenoynagar, MMDA, Valluvar kottam n many other residential/commercial places.
Picture/Sound: The picture quality of the screen was very good. The screen seemed little smaller compared to others. But the auditoriums are somewhat small and you cant have screens any bigger. Sound was pretty good too. The surround effect was predominant. Ppl actually turned back a couple of times hearing music at the background :)
Ambiance/Seating: The trademark red provides a nice ambiance to the movie hall. The seats are well-cushioned and all have nice push-backs. The leg space is just enough (could been a little wider for people have grown a little more than the normal like me ;)
To improve: One worrying thing would the pagal kollai at the parking lot. Usually malls that have movie screens charge a different flat rate for movie goers. But, here they charge on a hourly basis and I had to shell out 30 bucks for a 2-wheeler parking. That's 25% of the movie ticket cost. Too bad. Hope they do something about it.
Also they don't have the Gold class tickets, as TN govt has a cap of Rs. 120 as a max for movie tickets. So we Chennaites may not get a chance to check that out at all.

Overall, it was fine movie watching experience for me at the PVR and I would say that the PVR is here to stay.