A Bollywood scriptwriter could not have done a better job. Two 12-yearold boys meet in Bangalore as they get their first break for the state.

One is a dasher who has modelled his game on Virender Sehwag, from audacious crisp hitting down to the hop-skip run-up off-spin.

The other idolises Rahul Dravid, cover-drives elegantly and works the ball off his hips like a pro, the perfect foil to the daredevil.

The two then rise through the ranks and open the batting for India in a World Cup.

Meet Mayank Agarwal and K.L. Rahul, the Karnataka boys who tucked into the Hong Kong attack like it was a hot serving of bisibelebhath (a South Indian rice preparation) on a cold, rainy day.

The target was not big and the attack fairly pedestrian, but with the serious threat of rain, the chance that lost points would make India’s match against England a must-win, and a tricky pitch that was up and down, the stage was set. Thankfully, the actors did not fluff their lines.

Agarwal, stockily built and exuding power, reminds you of a boxer waiting for the bell to ring so he can get stuck into his opponent.

As soon as the ball is in his range, and that’s a pretty broad one, he gets stuck in. Driving fearlessly on the up, with the gift of timing, he effortlessly and regularly hits sixes over extra cover, and provided an example on Sunday. His favourite shot, though, is the cut, and it’s easy to see why, given how effortless his strokes look.

“The timing and aggression are a gift I’ve been given by God,” says the student of Jain College in Bangalore, whose alumnus include Robin Uthappa and Manish Pandey.

“Today I just played my natural game. Rahul kept telling me to play the ball on merit and Read more…

Administrator India Bangalore, Blogs.CMDN.com, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Manish Pandey, NCA, Rahul Dravid, Robin Uthappa, Virender Sehwag, World Cup

The Champions League Twenty20 began with defeats for each of the IPL sides in their respective opening fixtures. Champagne corks have been unaffected, but we have to admit that we’re pretty pleased.

It’s not that we’ve got a problem with Delhi, Bangalore or Hyderabad. It’s more that we’ve got a problem with GMR Group, United Breweries Group and Deccan Chargers Sporting Ventures. Yes, cricket clubs are businesses – non-profitable ones if they’re English counties – but the IPL sides are businesses first and sports clubs second.

So many elements of the IPL teams leave us cold because we can’t see them without being aware of the thinking behind them. The kits are fine (it’s Twenty20 cricket – wear a Cher-style fishnet body stocking if you want), but when we see them we can’t help but see some demographic-citing tool asking: “What colour best represents our brand?”

We can’t even look at the individual players without wondering whether they were the subject of lengthy discussions about how their presence in the side would ‘position the franchise for consumers’.

“How does Andrew Symonds represent the Deccan Chargers ideals and values?” they’d have asked. “Do his qualities fit with our image? What’s our official stance on the shoulder-charging of streakers? Do we have one? Why don’t we have one? Let’s say that we’re pro shoulder-charging streakers so that we can sign Roy.”

But to apply a hackneyed cricketing phrase, the marketing men can only control the controllables. They can and will do everything in their power to ensure that their ‘product’ has the best chance of success, but they can’t directly control what happens on the field. Yet you’d hope Read more…

Administrator Champions League T20 Andrew Symonds, Bangalore, Blogs.CMDN.com, Champions League, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Deccan Chargers, Delhi, GMR Group, Hyderabad, IPL

This is the silly season of cricket, so being to the point (literally) and maybe even inane, is quite in. So here’s my take on why the Champions League T20 isn’t justifying the pre-event hype… as yet.

1. T20s… just too blah
Whatever anyone says about the death of Tests or ODIs, perhaps people are finally waking up to the fact that one T20 game is pretty much like the other. Yawn…

2. Where are our He-Men?
We Indians like our desi big brands. Other than a few good men, Dravid and Kumble in Bangalore, or Gambhir and Sehwag (and to a lesser extent Nehra and Karthik) in the Daredevils, there’s not much for Indians to get starry-eyed about. (Except in that cool boat ad). No Sachin, Dhoni, Yuvraj, Bhajji, Ganguly, Zaheer or even poor Ishant.

3. Phoren teams? So what?
When we don’t care about our own domestic cricket (am sure Neo isn’t even asking for the ratings of this year’s Challenger Series) what chance of our caring about cricket or cricketers from clubs most of India has never even heard of?

4. Howzatt! You mean, ‘Who’s that’?
We Indians also like our designer foreign brands. And they’re not around. No Smith, Ponting, Hayden, Flintoff, Pietersen, Warne, Vettori, AB… and no melodramatic Pakistanis! Okay, so we have Gilchrist holding the Deccan flag aloft and Gibbs disappearing before he can say hello for the Cobras. Then there’s Brendon McCullum (traitor!) on for Otago, that quiet Kallis, and a subdued, shorn Kallis. Not enough, mate.

5. Big-ticket event doesn’t equal big crowds
Basically, despite the tournament being cricket’s richest prize, the BCCI-IPL is treating the event just like they treat domestic cricket in India — with disdain. Outside of the corporate Read more…

Administrator Champions League T20 AB, Bangalore, BCCI, Bhajji, Blogs.CMDN.com, Challenger Series, Champions League T20, Cobras, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Daredevils, Dhoni, Dravid, Flintoff, Gambhir, Ganguly, Gibbs, Hayden, IPL, Ishant, Kallis, Karthik, Kumble, McCullum, Nehra, ODI, Otago, Pietersen, Ponting, Sachin, Smith, T20, Vettori, Warne, Yuvraj, Zaheer

» Inaugural match thrills 50,000 crowd in Bangalore
» Duminy’s unbeaten 99 stuns Royal Challengers

There were 30,000 inside the Estádio Nacional in Lisbon on September 4, 1955, when Sporting drew 3-3 with Partizan Belgrade. There was no glitzy opening ceremony or a global TV audience of more than half a billion when the European Cup got under way, but more than half a century on, Lalit Modi hopes that the Champions League Twenty20 will revolutionise cricket in the same way that Gabriel Hanot’s brainchild did club football.

Close to 50,000 watched the opening game at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore, and after kung-fu-fighting Shaolin monks, a laser show and Shaggy of In The Summertime fame had primed the crowd, the hometown Royal Challengers, without Kevin Pietersen, were ambushed by a dazzling unbeaten 99 from JP Duminy, the hero of last year’s MCG Test. Henry Davids, Justin Ontong and Ryan Canning kept the strike ticking over for the Cape Cobras, and Duminy did the rest as the Royal Challengers’ slow-bowling duo of Anil Kumble and Roelof van der Merwe were taken for 69 in eight overs. Kumble dropped a tough caught-and-bowled chance when he had 74, but otherwise, it was an accomplished innings.

The Royal Challengers’ innings was built around half-centuries from Robin Uthappa and New Zealand’s Ross Taylor. Charl Langeveldt had given the visitors the perfect start, having Jacques Kallis caught behind, but with catches going down in the murky atmosphere and lofted hits falling into gaps, Uthappa and Rahul Dravid wrested the initiative.

Langeveldt went off with a jarred shoulder after dropping a catch and in the final stages, his team-mates had no answer to Taylor’s aggression. Monde Zondeki and Rory Kleinveldt bowled far too many full tosses and Taylor (53 off 24 balls) blazed away for 33 in the last two Read more…

Administrator Champions League T20 Anil Kumble, Bangalore, Blogs.CMDN.com, Champions League, Charl Langeveldt, Chinnaswamy Stadium, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Deccan Chargers, Duminy, Henry Davids, Herschelle Gibbs, IPL, Justin Ontong, Kevin Pietersen, MCG, New Zealand, Praveen Kumar, Ross Taylor, Royal Challengers, Ryan Canning, van der Merwe

Twenty20 cricket is the fastest growing new sport in the United States. And Indians, including some from Bangalore, are behind it?

Hold your breath. Cricket could be the next big thing in the United States. The gung-ho T20 format appears to have the caught the imagination of white, black and Hispanic youngsters across campuses and neighbourhoods in the US. And Indians, from places like Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai, apart of course from the influential diaspora, are proving to be the catalysts.

Venu Palaparthi, co-founder of DreamCricket.com, which runs a full-fledged cricket academy in the US, said: “Earlier, there used to be the notion in the US that cricket was played over many days, and produced little or no result. Every American allocates finite time for sports and leisure. These are still early days, but T20 is definitely making an impact in the US. Americans are willing to try new stuff.”

BANGALORE CONNECTION
There are a couple of Bangaloreans who are batting hard for cricket in the US. Venu Myneni is CEO of Radiant Info, the firm which organises and sponsors cricket tournaments in the US in a big way. Then there is Aravindan Pararajasingham, another co-founder of DreamCricket.com. There are a couple of Bangalore players too. Aditya Mishra, who represented Karnataka in a single Ranji season, is part of the New Jersey Daredevils squad, which participates in the American League, while 30-year-old Aditya Thyagarajan, a former Karnataka player, went on to don the Team USA national colours.

GRASSROOT PROGRAMME
The US already has 200 domestic leagues. In the state of New Jersey, there are five leagues, comprising some 200 teams, for hard ball cricket and another league for soft ball cricket. The growing popularity of the game can be gauged from the fact that 200,000 people Read more…

Administrator USA Afghanistan, Bangalore, Blogs.CMDN.com, Canada, Chennai, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Hyderabad, ICC, IPL, ireland, Kenya, Mumbai, Netherlands, New Jersey, New York, Scotland, Staten Island, T20, UAE, United States, USA, USACA

Karnataka Premier League is drawing big money. What’s the game?

You know something’s up when you see a gathering of netas, film stars, real estate barons and even a reformed underworld don. What’s up in Bangalore is interest in T20 cricket, and this motley crew had gathered for a no-holds-barred auction to grab a team for the upcoming Karnataka Premier League (KPL), an Indian Premier League (IPL) clone dreamt up by the Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA).

The eight winners walked away with five-year team franchises after paying a whopping Rs 35 crore. The top three teams were bought by realtors that spent nearly Rs 17 crore among themselves. The Bangalore Urban team was bought for Rs 7.2 crore by Brigade Developers; the Bangalore Rural franchise was bagged by Melmont Constructions, a Puravankara group company, for Rs 5.5 crore; and the Mangalore team was snapped up by coastal builder Fizza Developers for a little over Rs 4.2 crore.

Then, there is Mantri Developers throwing in Rs 7.7 crore to play main sponsor. The live telecast rights have been sold to a regional channel owned by the Sun TV Group.

According to Srikanta Datta Narasimharaja Wadiyar, a scion of the Mysore royal family who now heads the KSCA, “We are thrilled that we are the first in the country to start such a tournament.” Brijesh Patel, KSCA’s honorary secretary, is also thrilled to bits with the mega deals. “We had held a T20 tourney much before the BCCI fell for the idea,” he says.

All this, despite stiff opposition from former Test captain Anil Kumble and ‘Mysore Read more…

Administrator Indian Cricket Anil Kumble, Bangalore, BCCI, Blogs.CMDN.com, CH Ambarish, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, IPL, Javagal Srinath, Kannada, Karnataka Premier League, KPL, KSCA, Mangalore team, Mantri Developers, Melmont, Puravankara group, Sun TV Group, T20

India’s cricket fans don’t know it, but they’re facing a test of sorts. For long now some of us have argued that a majority of Indians who watch cricket don’t really care about cricket, but rather, are obsessed with the few celebrities in the Indian cricket team. Now, before you are outraged, please hear me out.

Not long ago I was at a promotional event at a mall in South Delhi that featured Yuvraj Singh as the star attraction. When the event ended Yuvraj was so badly mobbed that he had to be escorted out via a private exit by four very tough looking security personnel. Fans – boys, girls, men, women – desperately wanted to reach out and touch Yuvraj.

Not a month later, the same Yuvraj is playing a tournament in Bangalore. It’s being played under lights, in coloured clothing, is limited overs and on television – supposedly the precise formula that the Indian public love. The Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore is one of the more peaceful venues to watch cricket from the stands and tickets have been priced as low as anything in recent memory. You can watch Yuvraj and Suresh Raina and Rahul Dravid and many others for as low as Rs 50 per game and even the most expensive tickets can be yours for Rs 200.

And yet, the Indian fan is completely uninterested. There’s barely a crowd at any of the games. Just how does one reconcile this?

If you put the players in trendy clothes and have them mouth inane thoughts at a mall, they’re mobbed. They’re displaying the very skills that made them famous in the first place, Read more…

Administrator Indian Cricket Avik Choudhurys, Bangalore, BSNL, Chinnaswamy Stadium, Indian Cricket, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj, Yuvraj Singh

Javagal Srinath, India’s second most successful pace bowler, has joined another legend Anil Kumble, in criticising the Karnataka State Cricket Association for “rushing” to promote T20 cricket, while ignoring KSCA’s own proposed cricket academy, which would have nurtured young talent.

The Karnataka Cricket Academy (KCA) recently acquired legends Gundappa Viswanath and Syed Kirmani as directors, but long after it was first conceived, it is yet to become operational.

Srinath, always a respected cricketing voice, is now an ICC match referee. The Mysorean has seldom been hesitant to call a spade a spade, though he has often steered cleared of making cutting remarks on a public platform.

While acknowledging that Twenty20 cricket has perhaps come to stay, he is more than a little perplexed by the Karnataka Premier League. “It’s a great format, helping the game reach newer audiences,” he admitted, then shed the initial reluctance and opened up.

“But you have to orient kids towards the longer version first, then introduce them to T20. Don’t make these kids out to be professional T20 players aged 17 and 18. Money at this early stage is very difficult to handle and has a different meaning.”

Echoing Kumble’s views on KPL, Srinath said, “It would have been prudent if the KSCA conducted the event on its own, and then went to sponsors with proper data points. If the Read more…

Administrator Indian Cricket Anil Kumble, Bangalore, Blogs.CMDN.com, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, ICC, Javagal Srinath, KCA, KPL, KSCA, T20 cricket

Though India got knocked out of the World Cup, it can still boast of being the inventor of IPL. In many ways, the IPL is the reverse image of the World Cup. While the World Cup is all about nationalism, the IPL is about internationalism.

Along with the Internet and other transnational inventions, IPL, which puts club above country, could represent yet another step taken towards the eventual emergence of a borderless world. In that sense, IPL is a product, and also a facilitator, of what American science writer Michael Shermer calls 'evonomics': a synthesis of Darwinian evolution and free-market economics as outlined by Adam Smith.

Darwin's theory of natural selection sought to replace the top-down idea of a divine creator, or God - through whose 'intelligent design' (a concept greatly in vogue even today in the US and other parts of the Christian world) all created things were formed - by a bottom-up approach which proposed that species evolve through successful adaptation to the environment. In other words, it's not God but genetic competition ('good' genes survive, at the expense of 'bad' genes) which makes us what we are. Read more...

Jug Suraiya Twenty20 Adam Smith, Bangalore, Blogs.CMDN.com, Charles Darwin, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, IPL, IPL, South Africa, The Wealth of Nations, Twenty20, World Cup T20