IPL Bangalore Royal Challengers v/s Kings XI Punjab

NO COMMENT. The way this team from Bangalore has been thrashed, being based out of Bangalore I dont want to write about this match.

IPL - Chennai Super kings defeated Kings XI Punjab

In the 31st match of the IPL Chennai Super Kings showed that they are definitely super and defeated the kings from Punjab. In the first half of the tournament, Hussey single -handedly took the match away from Punjab Kings XI. After the 3 international stars, Hayden, Hussey and Oram, left the Chennai Super Kings they lost 3 straight matches and Dhoni had to do something different. Dhoni took few matches to try out different things especially at the top order. He has finally been successful in coming up with a winning combination. They have won now 6 matches in 9 matches and stand second the points table.He has also improved his batting average in the tournament and is placed 3rd in the list of top scorers in the tournament. He has also started to show glimpses of his cool and composed captaincy that he showed in the world cup.
The competition for the top 4 is really hot now with 6 teams in the fray: Punjab Kings, Rajasthan Royals, Chennai Super Kings, Delhi Daredevils, Kolkata Knight Riders, Mumbai Indians.

Deccan Chargers and Bangalore Royal Challengers would have to win all the remaining matches to have a chance of qualifying and that is looking very difficult now.

First Hat-Trick of IPL

Ever smiling Laksmipathy Balaji took the first hat trick of IPL. His victims who helped him to get the feat are Irfan Pathan, Piyush Chawla and VRV Singh. He had the final figures of 24-5 in 4 overs.
His other victims include Shaun Marsh and Ramnaresh Sarvan.

Harbhajan to be banned for one year

After slapping Harbhajan Singh with a ban of 11 IPL matches, there is every chance that he might get a severe ban from BCCI. It has been difficult for BCCI to handle Harbhajan Singh from the beginning of his international career as there have been numerous complaints against him from all quarters.

Recently he was involved in a Monkey-gate scam where he got timely support from his team members especially Sachin Tendulkar. People wonder why Sachin supports Harbhajan so much. He even preferred Harbhajan Singh over seasoned campaigner like Pollock for captaincy of Mumbai Indians. The irony is that under the captaincy of Pollock only Mumbai Indians have shown some resilience and spirit to win matches.
Coming back to the behavior of Harbhajan Singh on-field and outside the field has been nothing but shocking and embarrassing for the home board and the national team that has always supported him in all the situations. I feel the recent slap-gate case against Harbhajan Singh should be handled very carefully as this incident has made a mockery of BCCI in Australia with Australian media bringing to frontline the incidents that happened in the recent Indian tour of Australia and the way they were dictated by the cricket-power house, BCCI. It is high time that BCCI takes a tough stand and sends out a strong statement that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated any more. A ban for a year will be more than welcomed by all quarters of cicket loving people.

IPL- Is Saurav Ganguly still afraid of fast bowlers ??

Even after playing cricket at the highest level for over a decade, the captain of IPL Kolkota Knight Riders is afraid of fast bowlers. He made sure that he has almost all the bowlers currently in the game who can bowl over 150KmpH in his team - Shoaib Akhtar, Ishant Sharma and to some extent Umar Gul.

He also very well knew that players from Australian team will be leaving early to prepare for the tour of West Indies so he will not have to face Bret Lee in any of the match and players from South Africa will be joining in late so he will miss Dale Steyn. Quite smart I should say :)

How many of us remember the way Saurav Ganguly danced to the music of Shoaib Akhtar when India played against Pakistan at Mohali in 1999?

Saurav Ganguly made scratchy 57 in more than 90 balls and was hit on his helmet and chest more than once by balls hurled by Shoaib Akhtar.

Shoaib Akhtar spell in that match read

Shoaib Akhtar 10 1 18 2

IPL Bangalore Royal Challengers v/s Kings XI Punjab

Today's match is going to decide if Bangalore Royal Challengers are going to pose a threat to teams like Rajasthan Royals, Jaipur and Delhi Daredevils in the current edition of IPL.

Only if Bangalore royal challengers can defeat Kings X1 that it can continue to hope to qualify for the semifinals in Mumbai. For Bangalore Royal Chanllengers bowlers hold the key with Dale Steyn, Praveen Kumar and Zaheer Khan showing good form in the previous match against Deccan Chargers. If they are able to control the run flow from the likes of Marsh, Sangakarra and Yuvraj, Royal Challengers will have a good chance of winning the game and climbing to the third position from bottom.

Shoaib Akhtar to join the Kolkata Knight Riders

The hearing of Rawalpindi Express has been postponed by a month and he is available for IPL now. This news will give a ray of hope to supporters of Kolkata Knight Riders lead by Saurav Ganguly.
Shahrukh Khan, who owns Knight Rider, has surely played a big role in getting this decision. He is badly missing extra fire power but does the inclusion of a maverick who has not played a single match for last few months boost the prospects of Knight Riders in the IPL. Will he really make an impact?