Indian Premier League -IPL-8 Teams, Without Any Players, Only Warriors!

India, as we all know is a diverse nation. Diversity is one thing you would see everywhere, be it the season, or the style of living, or simply a dish which a person relishes at his/her favourite restaurant. There are religions sundry, ranging from Hindus to Parsees. There are places several, from metropolitans to villages. There are people many, from The President to A Common Man. When there are so many different things around, there aren't many games. Yes, we do games like Hockey and Soccer, but ironically, their existence is limited only to newspapers and local clubs. And then there's Cricket- a game which some die-hard fans like me and you follow- be it the score updates following all the way to your cell-phones when in classroom/office, or the sheer passion of watching the match glued to the telly and for a moment forgetting all rest other things. Cricket has almost went on to be a religion here, for there are a billion well-thought opinions as to whom should MS Dhoni choose for the final playing eleven, and most of the opinions are interestingly being justified in an impeccable way, almost faultless. Most of us are dogmatic anyway, aren't we?

BCCI chose this moment opportune to mark the beginning of a new trend in the cricketing world. It was on Friday, the 14th of September 2007, that they formally announced the start of Indian Premier League, a tournament on the lines of Soccer's English Premier League and the National Basketball League of the US. Twenty20 brand of cricket just got its dream start when India won the Inaugural World Twenty20 in South Africa last year in a thrilling encounter against arch-rivals Pakistan, and it was the glory and the success of this event which salvaged ICC's lost pride in the farcical World Cup '07 at West Indies. World Twenty20's encore in South Africa shot out all concerns of Twenty20 biting the dust. And a new chapter of Twenty20 is here now, waiting to write the excitement all over again. April 18 is just round the corner now, and the tournament is on the verge of entering reality, after days of Bollywood Biggies and Business Moguls spending millions of bucks to accomodate the best sixteen under their names.

Never have the Bollywood superstars have had it so much to with Cricket. It was a new sight seeing big names like Shah Rukh Khan and Priety Zinta, along with liquor baron Vijay Mallya arrive at the auctioning of the players. The next days headlines made bold statements of MS Dhoni being paid the highest of them all, with rosters of players being auctioned and stacked millions of dollars against their names.

The 59-game event will kick off at the picturesque 55000-seater floodlit M.Chinnaswamy stadium at Bangalore with the-Vijay Mallya-owned hosts Bangalore Royal Challengers pitting against Shah Rukh Khan and Juhi Chawla owned-Kolkata Knight Riders. Unequivocally, one needs such huge names clashing at each other to set the wheels rolling. The two men at the toss would be the same men who began their careers together at The Lords, way back in 1996 and rose to fame with their careers almost going hand in hand. Rahul Dravid and Saurav Ganguly, the most respected names in an Indian cricketing fraternity, would have a go at each other in a contest which has many other stars on platter, Ross Taylor, Ishant Sharma, Anil Kumble, Nathan Bracken and Chris Gayle to name a few. That must be the contest which would see every Bangalorean and Kolkatan cheer their heroes. Bangalore's been seeing heavy preparations for the last fortnight to kick start the event in a grand way, amidst local election pressures. Cricket enthusiastic kids, with some time off from the school, are having a gala time. Red and Golden Yellow clad Kannadigas are game with the Black and Gold clad Bongs. Indian film stars Deepika Padukone, Katrina Kaif along with locals Upendra and Ramya have been roped in to cheer for the Bangalore franchise while Khan himself will be doing it for his team. While Kolkata has good players like David Hussey, Ricky Ponting, Salman Butt, Brendon McCullum, Chris Gayle, Bangalore has its talent brimming from a pool of players like Rahul Dravid and Jacques Kallis who can grind down any attack, with a hard hitting Australian Cameron White alongside Mark Boucher. Dale Steyn, fresh from his exploits in the season has it in him to hit the right areas and castle the batsmen. Praveen Kumar can bring his leg cutters to telling effect and make life difficult for the men with the willow.




Shifting our focus to Emerging Media-owned Rajasthan Royals, they have hitters like Y Pathan, Graeme Smith, Dmitri Mascarenhas and Younis Khan in their ranks. And with them, they have a world class spinner called Shane Warne who would be leading the squad which has other impressive bowlers like Morne Morkel and Sohail Tanvir. They should make a great team, with the kind of bowling they possess, usually difficult to clear the ropes. Shane Warne himself would be rallying his bowlers well with an intelligent cricketing acumen and expertise, enabling Rajasthan Royals to achieve silent glory, without any icon players as such. They also have got sensible batsmen like Mohammad Kaif and Justin Langer who can arrest any danger with their characteristic calm approach to the game.




Travelling down South, from Jaipur to Chennai, we enter the land of Chennai Super Kings, led by the dynamic and astute Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who is not new to leadership. It is not for nothing he is the most paid cricketer on the arena, the Indian Cements have shelled out a whopping $1.5 million to bag him, as a matter of fact. Keeping in support with the Jharkhand Blaster is the powerful-in-form Matthew Hayden, who can clear stands with utter disdain, and a smiling ease. In Stephen Fleming and Michael Hussey, they have got calm yet attacking batsmen, who on their day can take any bowler to the cleaners. And there are men like Albie Morkel and Jacob Oram, who have the flair and the left handed bat speed required to hit even good balls. Furthermore, the bowling department looks aggressive with the names itself, men like Muttiah Muralitharan and Makhaya Ntini able do the required damage in no time at all. This is one team which has the potential to bang any other outfit, and with a thinking Dhoni at their helm, it's easier DONE than said.



Did we have a look at Delhi? The Delhi Daredevils have got Multan Marauder Virender Sehwag and another Delhiite Gautam Gambhir, both looking in ominous form. There's South African AB de Villiers, Pakistani Shoaib Malik and young Indian talent Shikhar Dhawan, who can bat according to the nature of the pitch and score freely. Bowlers like Glenn McGrath, Daniel Vettori and Mohammad Asif are unplayables when they get going. Also are allrounders like Tillekeratne Dilshan and Fervez Maharoof who have been doing good for SriLanka for the past couple of years. Delhi has got all the firepower to intimidate the opposition. The skipper is someone who warm the offside region with his gamut of powerful strokes and trademark uppish cuts which can sail all the way over third man. Akshay Kumar is the brand ambassador for Delhi Daredevils, with GMR Holdings being the owners.



Deccan Chargers of Hyderabad. Now here's the information on the team, which, in my view, is the most dangerous team of the IPL. When there's someone like Adam Gilchrist and Andrew Symonds in the side, you actually would not ask for more strokemakers. But add to them players like Shahid Afridi and Herschelle Gibbs and you know you are easily the most famed line up in the batting department. These are natural strokemakers, who are tailor-made for this format of the game, their mantra being "think nothing but hit everything which comes your way!". To buttress the already sound batting line up are Scott Styris, Rohit Sharma and VVS Laxman who are the men to anchor and steady the ship. Vaas is very much an intelligent bowler, with clever variations in pace and length. With Nuwan Zoysa, he has the right support to bowl to his strength. And Styris and Afridi can do the middle-overs job along with Symonds. Looking the most balanced team in the fray, I would not be surprised an inch if this team can go on to win the series. All credit to the Deccan Chronicle to weave such a wonderful blend of energy and experience. Positive predictions aplenty for this team from people and pundits around.

Preity Zinta walked into the auctioning conference with the least piece of information on cricket. But she has found a good mix of cricketers in her Kings XI Punjab. Yuvraj Singh, who has it in him to whack all the six deliveries in an over to six sixes is the Icon Player of this team, and he is well supported in the batting department with the likes of Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene, Ramnaresh Sarwan, James Hopes and Simon Katich. All rounder Irfan Pathan can be handy in home conditions with his ability to move the ball laterally. Brett Lee, who's been in terrific form of late, is backed by bowlers like Sreesanth, Kyle Mills and Piyush Chawla. Sarwan too can prove his mettle with his slow leg cutters which are difficult to get hit out. A sound team woven around power and intellect.



Mumbai Indians, the most expensive franchise of IPL, are lucky to have some of the world's biggest names in their ranks with the batting department consisting of Sachin Tendulkar, Sanath Jayasuriya, Robin Uthappa, Loots Bosman and Ashwell Prince. Shaun Pollock is a synonym for accuracy in the world cricket thesaurus, and he is being fostered by Harbhajan Singh, Ashish Nehra, Lasith Malinga and Dilhara Fernando. Hrithik Roshan is the brand ambassador of the Mumbai Indians and this team will get the best reception at the vociferous Wankhede Stadium. The team has Sudarshan Chakra engraved as its symbol, which denotes victory. If an opening partnership of the dream combine Sachin and Jayasuriya gets going, then there is nothing in the world stopping them. Robin Uthappa, the young batting sensation can derive all knowledge from these stalwarts and can keep batting to his usual tempo, scoring runs at will. Mumbai Indians Team is owned by leading businessman Mukesh Ambani, Chairman, Reliance Group of Industries.


IPL has seen a large share of everything till date. Hypes, controversies, media wrath, celebrity participations, money issues and tremendous public attention. It's time it actually gets into the act and prove its worth. The stage is set. The arrival is anticipated. IPL's first edition will give us a clear picture as to where the game of cricket is heading towards....

The Spirit of Olympics

At the juncture of European, Asian and African continents is situated a country, capturing an area of 50,994 square miles. Surrounded by the Meditterannean Sea, Aegean Sea and the Ionian Sea, this country is considered as the matrix of Western Philosophy, Democracy, Political Science, Major Scientific and Mathematic Principles and literature. Perhaps many would have already guessed it now. Yes, I am speaking of Greece, the most learned country, as one might tend to call it. And it was here in Olympia when the Olympic Games started, way back in 776 BC.

However, Olympics went on for about 4 centuries then, played only in Olympia. A popular Greek myth says that Heracles, the creator of Olympics, started it to honour his father Zeus, the God of Sky and Thunder. It comprised of games, conspicious of religion and sacrifice, in praise of the Gods. Not surprisingly, only men who spoke Greek language were allowed to participate, unlike the modern version. Twenty games were spread over several days and later on, the number of games were increased. Much like the way it is today, Olympics were regularly held once in every 4 years and the time interim was termed as 'Olympiad'. Winners of these games were extolled and praised in honour in poems and they were deified into idols and statues.

But after a few centuries, as Romans conquered Greece and started domineering, Olympics Games declined as the new tyrants saw them against their practices. Greeks had to run the gauntlet and suffer at the hands of Romans, who left nothing unturned in their capture of Greece and denouncing their culture and festivals, and anything native of Greek was deemed as Pagan and against Christianity. That signalled the bitter end of ancient Olympics and heritage of Greece of the pre-Jesus period. Several centuries passed by and Olympics and its glory was only confined to history and ancient literature.

In the year 1859, a rich Greek nobleman by the name Evangelos Zappas sponsored the revival of Olympics. He paid for the renovation of ancient Panathenian stadium and it was in the historic year of 1896, that the first Modern Olympics was inagurated in Athens, the present day capital of Greece. 14 countries took part bringing in 241 participants. Though a small number of participants, this event was the largest international one until then. Greek public and officials are very cheerful and enthusiastic about this tradition and they even proposed to have a monopoly in organizing Olympics, which however was not accepted by International Olympics Committee, an official organizer of Modern Olympics. In 1900, it was Paris which hosted the second version of the event, and this was also the very first time that women were allowed to participate. It took notable contributions from Pierre de Coubertin who founded IOC.

Recently, in the 2004 Athens Olympics, the number of participants stood at a remarkable 11000, coming in from 202 countries. As many as 16000 media journalists and broadcasters were involved, with an estimated 3.8 billion viewers watching the game on television. An increasing size of event and participants poses a huge challenge to IOC. The sheer number of athletes, participants, journalists, media and advertizers makes it a heavy burden on the cities organizing the mega event. An updated budget of 9 billion pounds has been earmarked for the London Olympic Games to be held in 2012, making it the most expensive Olympics to date...! Although United Nations recognize only 193 countries, IOC permits several dependencies and colonies to allow their participants to involve though these athletes and competitors belong to other member nation. Countries like Hong Kong, Bermuda and Puerto Rico are some such countries being allowed to participate as separate entities. The upcoming Beijing Olympic Games has 302 events.

The Olympic Games is best recognized by its famed symbol of Olympic Rings, being adopted in 1914. These five intertwined rings depict the unity of five inhabited continents, with the Americas being considered as a single ring. They appear in five colours of Red, Blue, Green,Yellow and Black bearing in mind the fact that each country has atleast one of these five colours to select in its national flag. The official motto adopted by Olympics is, "Citius, Altius, Fortius", which in Latin means, "Swifter, Higher, Stronger". Prior to the commencement of each Olympic event, the traditional Olympic Flame is lit in Olympia and is brought to the host city by forerunners carrying the torch in relay. This tradition was introduced in 1936. Also introduced later was The Olympic Mascot, which is an animal or a human figure essentially representing the cultural glory of host nation. Misha, a Russian Bear, was one such mascot during Olympics held in Russia in 1980.

The Olympic Games are today, the world's largest pageant of athetic skills and competitive spirit, where all countries take part in the ultimate event of glory and rich tradition. Signing off this post, I would leave you with this special Olympic Creed,

"The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well."