Kunal Singh Speaks

Bangalore Royal Challengers have continued their loosing streak. For a change, last two matches were a little close and could have gone either way. Being an optimist one will surely feel that BRC is improving. But, being a realist one will not see too much hope.

There are too many problems with BRC. To name a few:

(1) Pathetic bowling (2) Old legs (3) Zero game plan (4) Out of Form Dravid

Pathetic bowling: The main stream bowlers have failed to deliver the goods. Great jumbo would have changed the match with his presence. Not sure why he is still out the team. Still injured? Zaheer has once again shown his age old problem of straying on the leg side. I can never forget his first over in 2003 world cup final which set the tone of entire match. Some bowlers do have this problem of indiscipline - Zaheer, Agarkar, Sreesanth. Not that they are not great bowlers. On their day, they can decide a match single handedly. But such days are few and even fewer in a 20-20 match. Bowlers like Akhil and Joshi have no clue about what they are doing. I am not sure what Venkatesh Prasad is doing as a coach. Is he the same guy who is Bowling coach for our National team? Guess, Mallya is not taking enough care of him

Old Legs: Fielding is too lethargic and erratic. In every match, they have dropped the catches and given too many unfair boundaries.

Zero Game Plan: Sorry Dravid. I do not know what you are doing as a captain. I see either both the batsman trying to hit the ball for boundaries or all of a sudden both will turn so defensive. You need to have a game plan and make your team follow it. Co-ordination is the key to success in a team game.

Out of form Dravid: Dravid is an introvert who believes in making his actions speak than words. In Cricket you can not do great in every match. But, if you are a captain, your team looks for directions at each single moment of every match. You need to make your words speak. Actions can only supplement them. Something which Dravid will never do. At least he seems to coming back in to action.

Hope they will win next time and I will not feel disappointed one more time.

The ongoing “ICL Edelweiss 20s Challenge” is growing interesting day by day. Last few matches (The two semi-finals and the first final) have been really thrilling. The overall quality of Cricket has been outstanding and the winner was not decided until the last ball was bowled. There was 100% commitment from players, which made the game all more interesting to watch.

On a negative side, there have been a number of dropped catches (some of them easy), but mostly the ground fielding has been outstanding. And overall we got to watch a high quality and competitive Cricket. A catch on the boundary by Sathish <Chennai Super Stars> was the best catch I have even seen in my life. If you love Cricket, you go to watch this catch, this will also give you an idea about how competitive ICL is.
ICL has done a wonderful job under Kapil Paji in last one year <which also was their first year>. Recently, they have managed to get two new grounds (in Hyderabad and Gurgaon) in addition to the initial Panchkula Stadium. This has helped them to take the Game to more people. The “LB Stadium at Hyderabad” hosts a grand appearance and adds more charm to the game <Yes, the surroundings do matter>. Hyderabad crowd has also been spectacular, and has thronged the statium in support of “Hyderabad Heroes” and “Lahore Badshahs”.

Few more areas where ICL has done exceptionally well:
* They have really balanced the teams well <though “Mumbai Champs” and “Ahmedabad Rockets” still look weaker> which has resulted in close finishes.
* The capable coaches, have really helped to raise the overall quality of the game.
* and the Better pitches have resulted in High Scoring Matches.

A few more areas where ICL can do better:
* Give more catching practices to some of their players, who have consistently dropped catches …  Though some players dropped catches, other have been outstanding. The magic catch from Sathish <Chennai Super-stars> tells the story.
* Get more domestic talent to the teams. As of now the local leds have not done too well and most of the matches were decided by the heroics of foreign players. ICL needs to catch hold of more international names from India - as of now Rohan Gavaskar, Hemang Badani, Dinesh Mongial (and few others) are the only names which sound familiar.
* Proliferate - I think that ICL can attract heavy crowd in states like Orrissa, where Cricket has been ignored. They might also do well in Tamil Nadu, as Chennai Super Stars have done well in both the tournaments <held so far>. This is just a gut feel - I know that ICL management must be doing a lot of study and analysis on these things.
* Get more media attention - The media coverage for ICL has been really dis-appointing so far. BCCI has managed quite well so far, as most national news-papers have not given any attention to ICL tournaments. However I hope that a possible “IPL Media Boycott” might do the “ICL” in.
* Upload the spectacular moments of the match (shots, catches, deliveries) on You-tube