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[LosingNow]

SJ on a tear.. Mumbai cruising to a crushing win

[LosingNow]

SJ 100 in 45 balls!!!

[dave_dj]

MI looks like a finalist team now.  If one of SJ and SRT fires, the other team is gone.

[OldPal]

I still cannot fathom how the following represented the country in some form of the game or the other ahead of Badri.  This guy would have been a real deal by now.
Dhoni
Kaif -- Included to show he played more than 120 ODI's to 0 by Badri.
Uttappa
Raina
Rohit Sharma
Gambhir
Venu
Joginder
VRV
And you can add pretty much any one to the list that debuted around or after 2005 to the list. 
How is that possible?

Let us forget about  2005 for now. Seems IYO Badri is in his best form and can overtake all the names.
IMO only genuine names for comparison here are Mkaif,SRaina,RSharma,GGambhir,Venu
Others can be negated for one or the other reason  e.g.  VRV : Why this name is there in Badri's comparison ? When you need a bowler in team , I guess one would look bowler 2. JS : Was picked as bowling allrounder.

GG and RS , I will have to remove as I think both have proven themselves.
Remainng are MKAIF,VENU,RAINA,RUthappa and BADRI
Before any numbers, I think we should agree in fielding Kaif,Raina,Badri,Venu,Uthappa are in similar league.

The current IPL batting stats are as under.

Player Mat Inns NO Runs HS Ave BF SR 100 50 0 4s 6s
S Badrinath 10* 8 4 184 64 46.00 123 149.59 0 2 1 20 8
SK Raina 10* 9 0 203 53 22.55 144 140.97 0 1 0 17 8
RV Uthappa 8* 8 3 217 48 43.40 186 116.66 0 0 0 24 6
Y Venugopal Rao 6 5 2 123 71* 41.00 91 135.16 0 1 0 10 7
M Kaif 9 8 2 95 34 15.83 93 102.15 0 0 0 9 4

There is not much difference in top 4 , apart that venu has played less matches and even SRaina has made more runs than badri, The NO's pust the avg a bit more for Badri. Currently MKaif may not be preferred based on numbers, but we can always argue depending on which position he comes to bat in Rajasthan inngs. Anyway I think Badri may get a nod over Mkaif today.

To make other conclusions, One does have to watch how each of these  batsmen play , that is where most of the objectivity goes for a toss. As Person A feels Dhoni is the best Bat, Person B feels SG is greatest, Person D say RD deserves to be in TT etc.
I had watched Badri in a couple of matches in last season, after JFK started talking high about him, my opinion was as WV pointed out, He has a better test technique. Also he slowed a cople of inngs for his team and that planted a negative feeling about him in my mind, that his approach of getting runs for consideration in national selection may hurt his team.I can go ahead and analyse that innings, but we may agree here that no matter what analysis people do, certain perceptions may not change.
IMO Badri does not come before DHONI,RS,GG even today. The others may be touch and go . Personally I would rate SRaina over Badri, but i may  sound biased.
 

[LosingNow]

They win with 6.1 overs to spare..the NRR should go up dramatically.. DD may drop to 6th position tonight!!!

[OldPal]

MI looks like a finalist team now.  If one of SJ and SRT fires, the other team is gone.

Yep , Uthappa and Nayar can be destructive too. with Pollock , Bravo,Thornely giving cushion.
With only 8 games Mumbai is placed well

[ruchir]

SJ -> 

Never seen such boundaries hit such aesthetically in 20/20 before. SJ is a batsman par excellence. Hats off to him. He is what you would call, a gentle giant.

[dave_dj]

They win with 6.1 overs to spare..the NRR should go up dramatically.. DD may drop to 6th position tonight!!!

Daira Hua devils is still ahead of MI.

[LosingNow]

DD remain on #5 on NRR.

[OldPal]

Poor Guy

Bowling O M R W Econ 
  CK Kapugedera 0.5 0 26 0 31.20

[ramshorns]

I still cannot fathom how the following represented the country in some form of the game or the other ahead of Badri.  This guy would have been a real deal by now.

Dhoni  --- WK's spot. Did enough as batsman in ODI to stick around there.
Kaif -- Included to show he played more than 120 ODI's to 0 by Badri. .... Much before Badri emerged no?
Uttappa   ---- Came in as opener
Raina  --- Supposed to play the (ODI defn) all rounder role. I think he could be decent if given more chances. (also helped by  someone)
Rohit Sharma  ---- Class act
Gambhir ----- Came in as opener
Venu  ---- (Someone's ego)
Joginder  -----  (I Know too little about this guy)
VRV  ----- Supposed to be fast (I would agree in saying so what but you know the answer ... someone's ego)

And you can add pretty much any one to the list that debuted around or after 2005 to the list. 

How is that possible?

 I think there is another reason. Unfortunately (even though this has some decent meaning for batsmen), people are often grafted into the ODI team first and then having shown their skills there, are taken into the test team. This was a distinct problem for Badri, as a lot of people believed that he was a test player. So he never got the ODI break, which stopped the test break too.  I believe he started changing his style a year or two ago, and while I have not watched him, I follow his scores and they have been fairly impressive. And I have believed he can lend some stability (which I believe it still lacks, our Aus vctory notwithstanding) to our ODI team too. I think one very good thing that IPL has done, is show that he can play the attacking role too. I suppose no one would doubt that anymore.

If all these players played for the country in so many games whatever be the position I think Badri somewhere could have eched out a game one would think.  Hence my list.   Not to show or say others are undeserving.

[dave_dj]

Cricinfo Commentery

11.05 pm local time: Jayasuriya has finished the match with 37 balls to spare and nine wickets in hand. That's a massive massive margin considering that they were chasing a target of 157. The crowds came to see Tendulkar but it was Jayasuriya who was simply irresistible. He scored his hundred off 45 balls, the second-fastest 100 of the IPL, and hit 11 sixes and nine fours. 102 off his 114 runs came in boundaries.
"Sigh! It is unfortunate that Mumbai was chasing. Else, Sanath might have blasted past McCullum's score, and done so quite emphatically," says Dheeraj.

Indeed he may have, this was Jayasuriya at his finest, vintage 1996. He pummeled the bowlers with short arm cuts over point and flicks over square leg. I think Dhoni missed a trick by bringing Murali on well after the game was finished as a contest.

Dhoni gets booed as he comes up for the presentation. He's not fussed and says they [the Wankhede crowd] will cheer him when he plays for India. There's a wry smile on his face. He says they bowled in the wrong areas - either too full or too short. He wants more consistency from his bowlers.

Massive cheers for Tendulkar, he scored only 12 but they love him. It's good to be back he says, and credits Jayasuriya with a "special innings". He says the game against Kolkata on Friday is very crucial and that the team is up for it.

Jayasuriya walks away with two awards today, one for hitting the most sixes - 11 - and he's also the Man of the Match of course. Pollock's spell of 1 for 9 off four overs was terrific too.

Jayasuriya says they needed the win really badly and is thrilled that they've made it four in a row now. He says that opening with Sachin allowed him to play is natural game and he enjoyed the experience.

[cricinfo]

Dhoni gets booed as he comes up for the presentation

thank god , this did not happen in Eden Gardens ...otherwise Nagma would have opened a thousand threads by now ...would have burnt her choli in protest  condemning kolkata crowd behaviour !

[ganavk]

Dhoni played a maiden off Pollock. Now that's news and someone should pass this onto KKKiran!

[dave_dj]

Dhoni gets booed as he comes up for the presentation

thank god , this did not happen in Eden Gardens ...otherwise Nagma would have opened a thousand threads by now ...would have burnt her choli in protest  condemning kolkata crowd behaviour !

Crowd boos our national cricket team skipper and Nagma does nothing to flash.

[ruchir]

Dhoni gets booed as he comes up for the presentation

thank god , this did not happen in Eden Gardens ...otherwise Nagma would have opened a thousand threads by now ...would have burnt her choli in protest  condemning kolkata crowd behaviour !

Crowd boos our national cricket team skipper and Nagma does nothing to flash.

MSD came back with a nice reply. He said that it doesn't matter if the crowd doesn't support him now, because they are supporting their home team. However he is confident that the crowd will cheer for him when he comes back playing for the Indian team.

[dextrous]

Dhoni gets booed as he comes up for the presentation

thank god , this did not happen in Eden Gardens ...otherwise Nagma would have opened a thousand threads by now ...would have burnt her choli in protest  condemning kolkata crowd behaviour !

Crowd boos our national cricket team skipper and Nagma does nothing to flash.

MSD came back with a nice reply. He said that it doesn't matter if the crowd doesn't support him now, because they are supporting their home team. However he is confident that the crowd will cheer for him when he comes back playing for the Indian team.

so, basically, these matches are not important to anyone 

[prfsr]

Dhoni gets booed as he comes up for the presentation

thank god , this did not happen in Eden Gardens ...otherwise Nagma would have opened a thousand threads by now ...would have burnt her choli in protest  condemning kolkata crowd behaviour !

Crowd boos our national cricket team skipper and Nagma does nothing to flash.

MSD came back with a nice reply. He said that it doesn't matter if the crowd doesn't support him now, because they are supporting their home team. However he is confident that the crowd will cheer for him when he comes back playing for the Indian team.

so, basically, these matches are not important to anyone 

No that is not correct. They are not important for established players like Dhoni or for people who like cricket. They are important for fringe players to get noticed and people who like tamashas. 

[kban1]

Simmering Jayasuriya finally boils over

Cricinfo staff

May 14, 2008

Sachin Tendulkar's return from injury was the biggest draw in the build-up to the clash between Mumbai and Chennai. He was expected to bring further luck to a team that had strung together a hat-trick of wins after enduring four straight losses and his partnership with Sanath Jayasuriya at the top of the Mumbai Indians' batting line-up was a much awaited spectacle. However, he was completely overshadowed by his partner Jayasuriya, whose scything blade cut Chennai down swiftly.

Jayasuriya has had a quiet tournament, getting off to starts but failing to carry on. His seven innings preceding the blitz against Mumbai read 29, 20, 1, 18, 18, 34 and 18. The 34 against Delhi's Glenn McGrath and Mohammad Asif was filled with intent but he disappointed. You could see him walking back each time with discontent writ large across his face because he knew he hadn't even got started yet .

Perhaps the presence of Tendulkar at the other end gave him comfort for Jayasuriya expressed himself fully against Chennai. "It's the best day of my life to open with Sachin," Jayasuriya said after the game. "The advantage he lends is that he lets me play my own game." In previous matches, Jayasuriya had paired up with the Australian Luke Ronchi and the local man Yogesh Takawale. The partnership with Ronchi was unsuccessful and although Takawale managed to provide a couple of decent starts, the responsibility fell on Jayasuriya for he was the senior player and perhaps that had an impact on his stroke-play.


Today Jayasuriya cut loose and the effect of his approach was devastating. Mahendra Singh Dhoni strove to curtail his progress but he might as well have just admired the spectacle unfolding in front of him.


Jayasuriya had already shut Chennai out by the end of the Powerplays for Mumbai had scored 78 after six overs. He caused severe damage with the short-arm jab, both over point and square leg, and scored majority of his runs behind square: 33 on the leg-side and 31 on the off. He struck as many as 11 sixes and won his duels with every bowler.


Even Muttiah Muralitharan, Sri Lankan team-mate and long-time friend, caused no problems for Jayasuriya. When Dhoni, desperate for a wicket, placed two slips for Murali who was spinning the ball across the left-hander, Jayasuriya chose to hit the ball towards the gaps on the leg-side. He even attempted to reverse-sweep Murali, twice.

Murali's introduction into the attack, though, was well after the game was up. When Chennai's inexperienced new-ball pair of Manpreet Gony and Albie Morkel were bleeding runs, Dhoni seemed reluctant to take them off. He would have done well to remember how Tendulkar had made frequent bowling changes to unsettle the batsmen. Only Shaun Pollock was given three consecutive overs while the rest were rotated constantly.


Chennai's medium-pacers, on the other hand, allowed Jayasuriya to settle by feeding him in his favourite areas - short and wide outside off, or full on his pads. Dhoni admitted that the inconsistent lines and lengths had proved extremely costly. "They either bowled too full or too wide and against a batsman like Sanath if you do that you will get badly hit", Dhoni said.

For batsmen like Jayasuriya, the hunger to succeed comes from the occasion. Mumbai needed to keep their momentum going into a crucial match against Kolkata on Friday, a game that is vital to their semi-final aspirations. Pollock was the inspiration behind their hat-trick of wins, and today it was Jayasuriya's turn. Even Tendulkar acknowledged that "It was nice to watch him."

http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/ipl/content/current/story/351047.html

[poondu]

Simmering Jayasuriya finally boils over

Murali's introduction into the attack, though, was well after the game was up. When Chennai's inexperienced new-ball pair of Manpreet Gony and Albie Morkel were bleeding runs, Dhoni seemed reluctant to take them off. He would have done well to remember how Tendulkar had made frequent bowling changes to unsettle the batsmen. Only Shaun Pollock was given three consecutive overs while the rest were rotated constantly.

http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/ipl/content/current/story/351047.html

As I said earlier pathetic captaincy by Dhoni today

[ramshorns]

Simmering Jayasuriya finally boils over

Murali's introduction into the attack, though, was well after the game was up. When Chennai's inexperienced new-ball pair of Manpreet Gony and Albie Morkel were bleeding runs, Dhoni seemed reluctant to take them off. He would have done well to remember how Tendulkar had made frequent bowling changes to unsettle the batsmen. Only Shaun Pollock was given three consecutive overs while the rest were rotated constantly.

http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/ipl/content/current/story/351047.html

As I said earlier pathetic captaincy by Dhoni today

First it was Laxman, then it was Dravid, then it was Ganguly for a while then WN's of the world went gaga over Dhoni as some great 20-20 wizard and slowly included Sehwag in that list after 2-3 wins demeaning these other players.  Then the world came to a screeching halt.  All these guys showed they are nothing in this game of 20-20 as captains unless luck plays its part. 

What an old fashioned butt kicking Dhoni and team got today.  Jayasuriya the old horse has it still in him.