I must confess I am enjoying being a little part of a quiet new revolution in world cricket; of being in this wonderful and disarming global village. The Airtel Champions League is an idea that is finding its feet and if you measure its success by the quality of cricket and the opportunity it is giving players who were otherwise confined to narrower worlds, it has already worked. Admittedly there are other tools to measure success and the more crucial ones are whether enough people are coming to the ground or watching at home. You can be sure those issues will be addressed because there are large investments at stake, but purely from a cricketing point of view, I am excited.

There is now life beyond international cricket as we knew it and for that alone we must rejoice. There are few things that stir people’s emotions more than nation versus nation contests, and that will never change, but that is a smaller, more exalted world. Sport, indeed any pursuit in life, must allow as many people as possible to display their ability, to parade their skills and a nation versus nation contest can be restrictive.

It could never, for example, allow you to experience the combination of disbelief and joy that we saw with Alfonso Thomas of Somerset. Not many people knew much about him, we knew that he was a cricketer, no more, but against the Deccan Chargers he kept his cool, took his side home and then produced one of the most wonderfully innocent and unrestrained exhibitions of happiness I have seen. “I can’t believe what I’ve done” he gushed and for that moment alone I thought the Champions League was worth it. There are two ways of globalising a game. One is to allow as many countries as possible to play it and the ICC is, very quietly, doing a very nice job. The other is to allow as many players as possible a stage on which to perform. This is what I hope the Champions League, and in course of time all the feeder tournaments, will do.

Somerset didn’t have as good a game when they played Trinidad and Tobago but I enjoyed that game just as much. Trinidad were better than the West Indies team I have seen in recent times and it showed us that Samuel Badree and Sherwin Ganga, to name just two, can play good cricket. Out of the anonymity, and the mess, that is West Indies cricket, here is a team that can play together and dream of a big prize. Our game will grow and will embrace many Read more…

Administrator Champions League T20 Blogs.CMDN.com, Champions League, Chinnaswamy Stadium, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Deccan Chargers, economy, franchises, Harsha Bhogle, ICC, investment, Otago Volts, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Samuel Badree, Sherwin Ganga, Somerset, Trinidad and Tobago

» 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

Three runs! Just three runs deprived him of raising his bat in the inconsequential One-Day International against Sri Lanka in the recently concluded tri-series, after a gap of two long years. But what a sight! Seeing him play in the new Team India ODI jersey gives me a sigh of relief and a feeling that the team genuinely missed him in the middle-order. And that is why, ladies and gentleman, Rahul Dravid is back!

October 2007 was the last time we saw the veteran batsman don the blue uniform and since then, white has been the only professional Team India colour he has graced, by default that is. Well, yes he has always been showered with encomiums for his performance par excellence in Tests, but his exile from ODIs wasn’t something that he ever desired. The young brigade led by MS Dhoni that won the ICC World T20 ‘07 title became the apple of over a billion eyes and selectors noticed. Subsequently, seniors were shown the door and youth was sought after.

When I first saw Dravid play in 90s, I became his ardent fan - why? I really have no clue. But like any other Indian, I believe the religion of cricket was blooming within me and with the game blessed with a deity like Sachin Tendulkar, I could only find myself becoming a staunch follower. And then I noticed this young but serious-looking player who seemed to have nothing but cricket on his mind. My eyes were out on stalks… and that was the beginning of a new phase in my life.

‘The Wall’ on my wall is the first thing that comes to my mind when I recall my teenage days. My school friends used to wish me on January 11 (Dravid’s b’day) and eyebrows were Read more…

Administrator India Blogs.CMDN.com, Champions Trophy, Chinnaswamy Stadium, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, icc world t20, MS Dhoni, ODI, Rahul Dravid, Sunil Gavaskar, Vijay Hazare, Zimbabwe

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