Cricket

Which IPL team has the most creative name?

Cricket 2 Comments

I have ranked the IPL teams in the 2011 season by the creativity of their names.

Deccan Chargers
Even without the city name the team name signifies its Southern origins. By eliminating the city name they have made sure anybody from down south can relate with the team. The best name of the lot!

Kolkata Knight Riders
When you have SRK at the helm, creativity is bound to flow. Remove Kolkata and you still have a very strong brand name.

Kings XI Punjab
Another team owned by a woman with brains that has not used a city name since inception. Even if you remove Punjab, the name sounds good.

Royal Challengers Bangalore
Vijay Mallaya is very good at integrating names of his popular sprits in his his other business ventures taking surrogate advertising to a new level! Can’t think of a better name than Royal Challengers!

Rajasthan Royals
They have also done away with city name since the beginning. Broader identity. But if you take the Rajasthan moniker away, you don’t have much left.

Delhi Daredevils
Very strong city identity. And Daredevils just sounds right with Sehwag being their captain.

Kochi Tuskers Kerala
It comes up before the others because of the clever use of the term Tusk, cause Kerala is famous for its elephants. But Why Kochi and Kerala both? Just Kerala Tuskers would have been perfect and I would have put it before RCB.

Pune Warriors India
Pune Warriors is good but why India? Using India/Indian in the name of a local team doesn’t make much sense to me.

Mumbai Indians
My favourite team but I don’t like their name! Mumbai Indians?? What? Are only Mumbaikars Indians? Or is it a team of Indians from Mumbai? Then what is Andrew Symonds and Harbhajan Singh doing in the team? Very very unimaginative name Mukeshbhai!

Chennai Super Kings
Super Kings? This really sounds like a name coming from a B-grade comic strip! Super Kings!!! Who came up with that name? The guy who came up with “Singh is King”?

 

What do you think? How would you rate them?

Cricket unites the nation – India has arrived!

Cricket, History, India 0 Comment

India won the Cricket World Cup last night and what followed that on the streets of Mumbai and rest of the country was just amazing.

People of all strata just poured onto the roads. On bikes, cars, auto rickshaws, trucks, waving flags, shouting, dancing, cheering, high fiving!!! People were stopping cars and congratulating strangers, young boys and girls were popping out of cars, people were sitting in car trunks with tailgates open and car stereos blaring at full volume!!!

It was euphoric! It was unprecedented. In my life of 29 years, I have never seen anything like this. It was something different!

I have never seen so many Indian flags on roads. It was middle of the night and no one was sleeping. There was a traffic jam on all roads and no one was minding. There were no quarrels, no fights, just pure jubilation!!!

Nothing unites this country as cricket does. The sense of Indianness, the sense of patriotism was in the air. Young people of India were chanting Jai Ho, Vande Mataram, Bharat Mata ki Jai and it wasn’t a political rally! It was the Gen X at its best! People were drinking beer, waving flags, whistling, shouting and there were no inhibitions!

I feel this is advent of a new India. We Indians have never been so confident. The celebrations last night were not just for winning a sport, it was a celebration for something much more.

It was an announcement by the India of today that we have arrived! The way team India won the world cup, it was a show of sheer determination. It was the will to fight against all odds. A strong resolve to prove all nay sayers wrong. Team India lead by the charismatic Mahendra Singh Dhoni was out to prove a point. They wanted to win it. Every individual of the team wanted it so badly that they just gave it their all. Everyone wanted to do it for the team, the nation and ONE man that the nation loves – Sachin Tendulkar. This one man has been playing for the country for past 21 years, he has played in the six world cups and achieved almost every glory except the one that matters the most. The young Indian team was determined to do it for Sachin. AND DONE IT THEY HAVE!!!

The young members of the team showed yesterday that they are confidant of their abilities to win against all odds. After loosing the two match winning openers at the start of the game while chasing a huge total in a high pressure game, no one would have given team India a chance. Me including. But the young lads Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir rose to the occasion and showed the nation and the world that they CAN win! The captain of the ship, came on the ground and played the best innings of his cricketing history. He demonstrated to all those questioning his ability and his decisions on the field that he is the master and he knows what he is doing. Dhoni won the cup! He won it for a nation of 1.2 billion people.

And people erupted. 1.2 billion people are sick and tired of corruption, scams, terrorism, inflation and this team gave them a reason to rejoice. It gave them a moment of pride, a sense of Indianness and a really proud feeling that yes, we Indians have finally arrived at the stage. Our victories are not a fluke. It was a show of confidence. It was a show of consistency. Beating World Champions Australia, fierce Pakistan and competitive Sri Lanka on the trot was not a stroke of luck! It was pure brilliance and the way we came back in the final after the initial jolt – it was our moment!

Cricket is the religion in India and Sachin is the GOD. And yesterday the young lads gifted their GOD with the ultimate glory – one for which he had waited 20 years! It was team that paid its homage to the GOD of cricket when they carried him on his shoulders. It was the tribute for what he has done for the people of this nation. And they also demonstrated that they are now capable of winning even if he has an off day. That must be making Tendulkar really proud. That he is going to leave behind a team that is the champion and no more dependent on an individual’s genius.

It was a team effort, and people of India know it. If we can win the cup, we can do ANYTHING.

WE ARE THE WORLD

Takeaway from the Ind-Aus match

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Ponting’s century in the face of all the criticism that he has had to take in lately. Can not take away the fact that it was a brilliant innings on a testing track.

Defiant Aussie nature – the way Lee was bleeding after that ball hit his eye, I thought he wouldn’t come back, but he was back after 2 overs and bowling with fire.

Sensible batting by Yuvi and Raina – After Dhoni got out, I thought it was all over. ANOTHER collapse looked imminent. But thanks to Yuvi and Raina, who batted sensible without taking any undue risks which made sure we got thorough.

Viru, Kohli and Dhoni gave away their wickets on stupid stroke play. Dhoni should have taken a cue from his Aussie counterpart and played a more responsible innings.

Gambhir, well I give him benefit of doubt. It was more of Yuvi’s fault. But he did his job well. All’s well that ends well.

And the GOD! It was GOOD to see GOD bowl after a long long time! Bowl more often sir. We can not get enough of you!

Tendulkar wants fans to react with responsibility and balance! My foot!

Cricket, India 1 Comment

http://cricket.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/t20articleshow/4668306.cms

Tendulkar said he was disappointed with India’s failed title defence but at the same time felt the fans back home needed to show more “responsibility and balance” in their reaction.

“I feel there is very high emotions among the people when they react. But do these reactions help us to play better? Not really. These actually put more pressure on the players. We have got to be mature and be with the team,” Tendulkar said.

Dude since we have high emotions attached with this game, you and your ilk are so rich! Look at players of other sports. We are emotional? Hell yeah we are! you win, we’ll make you god, you lose, we’ll burn your effigies! We are like that. Take it or leave it! You have been playing for 20years, you should know better by now! Don’t teach us how to be good fans, learn to play better cricket!

Spinners rule in Twenty20

Cricket, Fun 0 Comment

Watching India vs West Indies match right now and Yusuf Pathan just got the wicket of dangerous Chris Gayle. India has two more spinners in side – Harbhajan and Pragyan Ojha. Ojha has already won the match against Bangladesh. IPL has proved that spinners are a key in T20. All the spinners, even part timers like Rohit Sharma and Yuvraj were getting bucket leads of wickets in the second edition of IPL. Yuvraj even managed to get a couple of hat tricks! I was watching the highlights of the Aus-Pak T20 encounter that happened in Dubai just before the start of this tournament and even in that match Shahid Afirid – another spinner – was named man of the match.

Guess rein of the spinners is coming back in cricket and that too in the most bang bang version of the game