Another Final, Another Loss!

Pakistan re-grouped after their thumping on Tuesday to score a clinical and convincing win against their nemesis  and favorites India in the finals of the Kitply cup in Bangladesh today.

Just when everyone was expecting the tri-series to meander to an end and were wondering if the intensity of India-Pakistan encounters have diminished due to both an overdose of such contests and the recent decline of the quality of Pakistani cricket, this loss for India has brought back in to focus its bugaboo for the last few years - losing finals!

Once again, India's weak bowling came apart at a crucial time when assaulted by aggressive, attacking batting. Instead of dismissing the loss attributing it to the bowlers having an off-day, India should seriously re-think its team composition.

India has always tended to counter its weakness in bowling by bolstering its batting. I have never been and probably never will be a fan of this strategy. I mean, can anyone remember the last time when the seventh batsman made a difference in a game for India? On the other hand, there has been plenty of times (especially finals) when the fifth bowler - the lack of one - has adversely affected the team.

Instead of going in with just three specialist bowlers, one bowling all-rounder (Irfan Pathan) and making up the fifth bowler with batting all-rounders, India should always go with five bowlers. We have to trust our formidable batting line-up and beef up the bowling by bringing in another specialist bowler. After all, this five bowler tactic did prove worthy in the CB series, when India beat Australia to win an ODI series final after a very long time.

India XI for the Kitply Cup

Except for Tendulkar missing in action due to injury, the Indian squad for the Kitply Cup in Dhaka is mostly the same team that tasted success against the Australians earlier in March. Here is my playing XI for the series in batting order:

• Robin Uthappa
• Virender Sehwag
• Gautam Gambhir
• Yuvraj Singh
• Rohit Sharma
• MS Dhoni
• Irfan Pathan / Yusuf Pathan
• Manpreet Gony
• Piyush Chawla
• RP Singh
• Ishant Sharma

Kitply Cup - anybody interested?

A rather inconsequential ODI tri-series involving India, Pakistan and Bangladesh begins today in Dhaka. With the teams themselves treating the series as practice matches for the upcoming Asia Cup, not too many are interested in the Kitply cup. Nevertheless, it could still provide answers to some questions arising on the heels of the IPL Twenty20 extravaganza.

After being used to weeks of hectic Twenty20 cricket, will fans find the ODIs slow paced?

Will the players be able to adjust their style of play for the longer version?

With the IPL being a hit in Pakistan and the Indians having cheered Tanvir and Akhtar, will an India-Pakistan encounter evoke the same partisan passion as before?

With Tendulkar injured, Dhoni for the first time gets a chance to field a team of youngsters for a full series. Can the youngsters impress?

Will Yusuf Pathan and Manpreet Gony, drafted in to the team based on their excellent performances in IPL, prove skillful in the 50-50 format?

Well, we don't have to wait long to find out.

IPL - Players review

With the Rajasthan Royals capping their impressive run in the IPL Twenty20 cricket tournament with a thrilling last ball victory against the Chennai Super Kings in the finals on Sunday, it is time to look back and analyze the performance of the players involved.

Icons and Superstars
Among the icons and superstars of Indian Cricket (Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid, Laxman, Sehwag, Yuvraj, Dhoni, Kumble, Harbhajan, Zaheer) only Dhoni and Sehwag had any real impact in the tournament. Dhoni impressively led his team to the finals while also scoring over 400 runs with an average of over 40. Sehwag's 400 runs and his consistent opening partnership with Gambhir went a long way in taking Delhi to the semis.

As for the other batsmen, Laxman and Tendulkar missed most of the matches to injury; Yuvraj could not live up to his big hitting expectations; though Dravid topped his team's batting statistics, he could not really motivate or inspire his team mates; Ganguly played a couple of incredible knocks, but they were just too little and too late.

Among the bowlers, none left a mark, except Harbhajan's slap on Sreesanth's cheeks!

Former Stars
None of the former stars (Kaif, Agarkar, A Nehra, L Balaji, Parthiv Patel) performed well enough to get noticed, though it is heartening to note that both Balaji and Nehra have both recovered from injury.

Twenty20 Champs
Some of the new generation Twenty20 cricketers - Gautam Gambhir, Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma, Robin Uthappa, Venugopal Rao, Irfan Pathan, Sreesanth, Piyush Chawla - performed consistently well and enhanced their reputation as the future stars.

The rest - Munaf Patel, P Kumar, VRV Singh, Joginder Sharma, Ishant Sharma, Dinesh Karthik, Wasim Jaffer - seemed to have lost their mojo. Ishant Sharma in particular was disappointing considering the high price that Kolkata paid to get him and Dinesh Karthik missed an opportunity to get back in to the selectors radar.

Foreign Recruits
Most of the big names in international cricket - Shaun Marsh, Shane Watson, Jayasuriya, Sohail Tanvir, Shane Warne, Graeme Smith, Sangakkara, McGrath, Maharoof, Ntini, Albie Morkel, Adam Gilchrist, Mike Hussey, Hayden, McCullum - were spectacular. Especially Marsh and Watson, who emerged as the two best performers in the IPL.

Pollock, Muralitharan, David Hussey, JR Hopes, Stephen Fleming, Jayawardene, Bravo and Umar Gul did not exactly set the stage on fire, but had a few good performances.

Mark Boucher, Kallis, Salman Butt, Gibbs, Symonds, Kamran Akmal, Ponting, Cameron White, Akhtar, Vaas, Asif, Chanderpaul, Shoaib Malik, Afridi, Fernando and Steyn were abject disappointments.

Emerging Talent
This was an ideal opportunity for some of the local boys to showcase their talent and a few - Manpreet Gony, S Dhawan, SA Asnodkar, Goswami - managed to shine through, but none better than Yusuf Pathan who had a wonderful tournament capped by a man of the match performance in the final.

Overall, the Foreign Recruits ensured the high quality of cricket throughout the tournament and played a huge part in making the IPL a success. The biggest disappointment has to be the performance or rather the non-performance of the Icons and Superstars of Indian Cricket.