IPLT20CRICKET.NET

Chennai Super Kings emerged the champions of IPL yet again as they won the IPL 4 final by thrashing Bangalore Royal Challengers by 58 runs. Chennai Super Kings captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni won the toss and decided to bat. Murali Vijay played an awesome knock of 95 runs in 52 balls and was supported by Michael Hussey (63 runs off 45 balls) and Mahendra Singh Dhoni (22 runs in 13 balls) as CSK posted a massive 205/5 in 20 overs. Chris Gayle and S Aravind took 2 wickets each for RCB. In reply, Bangalore Royal Challengers kept on losing wickets continuously and only Saurabh Tiwary (42 runs off 34 balls) and Virat Kohli (35 runs off 32 balls) gave some resistance but they ended up with only 147/8 in 20 overs. R Ashwin took 3 wickets while Shadab Jakati took 2 wickets for CSK. Murali Vijay was awarded the Man of the Match for his brilliant knock.

Paul Valthaty was an unknown name to the millions of cricket fans in India who follow the game very closely till a few days ago. He was included in the Kings XI Punjab team this year but many thought he got his chances in team as there were hardly any established stars in the Punjab team. His overall statistics were also not impressive without even a single first class match, only one List A match and a few T20 matches including a few appearances for Rajasthan Royals in the previous IPL seasons where he hardly scored anything noticeable. So, when Kings XI Punjab faced the defending champions of IPL Chennai Super Kings on April 13, 2011 hardly anybody had any expectations from either Kings XI Punjab or Paul Valthaty and it was expected to be an easy win for CSK. Put to bat first by Gilchrist, Chennai set the Kings XI Punjab a mammoth target of 189 runs to win from 20 overs. But then rose Paul Valthaty who single-handedly took the game away from Chennai as he scored a blazing 120 runs in merely 63 balls. His shots were not just slogs but pure cricketing shots as he became only the fifth Indian to score a century in the IPL. But there were still many who doubted that it might have been just an one-off lucky day for the 27 year old unknown entity who had just rose to national prominence. But a few cricket fans with open ears heard him say in the post match presentation that he got hurt during the 2002 U-19 world cup and his career went for a downhill since then and he was still trying to recover from it. Just three days later on April 16, Kings XI Punjab faced another team Deccan Chargers who had some of the fastest bowlers in the tournament in Dale Steyn and the reinvigorated Ishant Sharma. There was another surprise in stock as Kings XI captain Adam Gilchrist suddenly trusted him with the ball though he had hardly bowled in IPL previously. And he once again rose to the occasion and proved to the bowler with a magic arm as he scalped 4 Chargers wickets for 29 runs as he bowled his full quota of 4 overs. But then that was not what most people were waiting for … can he perform the magic again with the bat ??? But he did not disappoint at all as he scored another blazing innings of 75 runs in just 47 balls as he took the team to victory again and this time with an all round performance to receive his second consecutive Man of the Match award. He has become a household name in all the cricket crazy families of India and proved himself twice at T20 level. But he has got a good footwork and almost all shots in his book to become a successful player though time would tell if he can become one.

Let us now diagnose as to how he emerged suddenly at this level and that at an age of 27 years and why did he not play Indian domestic cricket for all these years. According to former Indian captain Dilip Vengsarkar recollected the day when as an 11-year-old, Paul Valthaty entered his academy calling himself a medium pacer. The boy thought he had settled in well and a stint at the Vengsarkar Academy was just about the right beginning. “It was after five days that I realized that it was not his bowling that was impressive, but his talent with the willow,” said Vengsarkar. Valthaty was stocky, compact and showed a lot of promise. The cricketing great was heading the BCCI’s Talent Research Development Wing (TRDW), and he certainly had an exceptional eye for talent, especially at the junior level. “He showed a lot of confidence in my batting and it sure lifted my spirits,” Valthaty recalled. Then Valthaty was spotted through his big-scoring exploits for Don Bosco School in both the Giles and Harris Shield, and subsequently, he went on to represent Podar College in Central Mumbai, where he was a B.Com student. Cricket, then took over and impressive show in the Vijay Merchant Trophy (national U-16s) for two consecutive seasons, with a follow up in the Cooch Behar Trophy (national U-19s) for Mumbai. So, it was not a surprise that the talented teenager was selected to represent India at the 2002 Under-19 World Cup with the likes of Irfan Pathan and Parthiv Patel. But misfortune struck soon as fate had something else in store for the young lad. On a tour to New Zealand, while opening the batting for India in a game against Bangladesh U-19s, Valthaty was batting on 5, when he was hit on the face (right eye to be precise) by a bouncer from pacer Shafaq Al Zabir and subsequently taken to the hospital and that’s when his progress was halted, and delayed. For the next year or two, his vision was a little disturbed and it was after that injury that Valthaty reportedly lost momentum. Thus, Valthaty’s much cherished dream of pursuing the game suffered a rude shock. He played one one-dayer for Mumbai, but failed to make the cut for West Zone. He was also picked up by Rajasthan Royals but could not catch the eyes of the Royals team management in the few chances he got. So, as he mentioned in the post match interview after his century it was a dream come true for him and a dream of making it to the national limelight through his game came true after a long wait of 15 years.

However, in Mumbai circles, Valthaty is said to be a T20 legend, known from his early days for his ability to thump the ball as hard as anyone else, so much so that he’s made the format his own, both in the club and domestic circles for Mumbai. Abhishek Nayar, his close friend and team-mate from Mumbai and Kings XI Punjab told Yahoo! Cricket, “Paul is pretty much a T20 specialist in Mumbai, and his track record in the past two-three years in almost every tournament in that format tells you that he’s done extremely well. Even in the Mumbai Cricket Association T20 Championship in 2009/10 (where Valthaty represented Payyade Sports Club), he was adjudged the player of the tournament.” Nayar added, “It was really heartening to see him do well, given the fact that he’s seen almost all his peers make it big for Mumbai in all formats.” And even as Valthaty was the quintessential journeyman in the IPL circuit if you like, having previously represented the Mumbai and Rajasthan franchises respectively, it was on Nayar’s recommendation that the Kings XI Punjab decided to rope in Valthaty. “After I got picked by Kings XI Punjab, I had a talk with the franchise about giving Paul an opportunity to play for them, and since the past two months, he’s been training really hard and the result is here to see. I am very happy for what he achieved today,” Nayar said.

Many would also argue that Valthaty might have been a Mumbai cricketer born at a wrong time, given that he’s unlikely to break into the first Ranji XI anytime soon — given the strength and class of that batting order, and a faint recognition that First Class cricket might never quite be his cup of tea. But nonetheless he has achieved which very few cricketers have achieved within the span of a few days and hope that he can continue his great and prove himself in all formats of cricket very soon. We wish him luck and hope he climbs the ladder of success very fast.

CREDIT:

This article has been created by collecting information from various sources including

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/sports/cricket/ipl-2011/news/Dream-fulfilled-after-15-years-for-Paul-Valthaty/articleshow/7977183.cms

and

http://blogs.cricket.yahoo.com/posts/2011/04/the-fall-rise-of-paul-valthaty/

All the 10 teams participating in IPL 2011 Season 4 including the two new entrants Sahara Pune Warriors and Kochi Tuskers Kerala have announced their final list of players in their respective teams. Out of the teams, Sahara Pune Warriors is the only team to have registered their full quota of 30 players in the squad. Delhi Daredevils were also close behind with 29 players while Kochi Tuskers Kerala, Deccan Chargers and Rajasthan Royals named 27 players each in their final squads. Royal Challengers Bangalore listed 25 players and Kings XI Punjab 23 players. Kolkata Knight Riders named the least number of players amongst all the franchisees as they went ahead with only 20 players including 7 foreign players.

In terms of spending, Mumbai Indians were left with only $1739 from their $9 million purse after all their player purchases. Rajasthan Royals were the only franchisee to exhaust their full purse while Deccan Chargers had the maximum amount left of $1.49 million after their player purchases followed by KXIP who had $1.46 million (approx) left.

Here are the full squads of the various IPL teams for IPL 4:

Chennai Super Kings (24): Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Murali Vijay, Wriddhiman Saha, Ravichandran Ashwin, Subramanium Badrinath, Joginder Sharma, Sudeep Tyagi, Abhinav Mukund, Aniruddha Shrikant, Ganapathi Vignesh, K Vasudevdas, Shadb Jakati, Vijaykumar Yomahesh, (Foreign) Albie Morkel, Michael Hussey, Dwayne Bravo, Doug Bollinger, Scott Styris, Ben Hilfenhaus, Nuwan Kulasekera, Suraj Randiv, George Bailey, Faf du Plessis

Mumbai Indians (23): Sachin Tendulkar, Harbhajan Singh, Rohit Sharma, Munaf Patel, Abu Nechim Ahmed, Aditya Tare, Ali Murtuza, Ambati Rayudu, Dhawal Kulkarni, Pawan Suyal, Rajagopal Sathish, Surul Kanwar, Surya Kumar Yadav, T Suman, Yazvendra Singh Chahal (Foreign) Kieron Pollard, Lasith Malinga, Andrew Symonds, Davy Jacobs, James FRanklin, Moises Henriques, Alden Blizzard, Dilhara Fernando

Kolkata Knight Riders (20): Gautam Gambhir, Yusuf Pathan, Manoj Tiwary, Lakshmipathy Balaji, Jaidev Unadkat, Iqbal Abdulla, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Manvinder Singh Bisla, Pradeep Sangwan, Rajat Bhatia, Sarabjit Ladda, Shami Ahmed, Shreevats Goswami (Foreign) Jacques Kallis, Brad Haddin, Shakib Al Hassan, Brett Lee, Eoin Morgan, Ryan ten Doeschate, James Pattinson.

Sahara Pune Warriors (30): Yuvraj Singh, Robin Uthappa, Ashish Nehra, Murali Kartik, Abhishek Jhunjhunwala, Bhuvenshwar Kumar, Dheeraj Jadhav, Ekalavya Dwivedi, Ganesh Gaikwad, Harpreet Singh Bhatia, Harshad Khadiwale, Kamran Khan, Manish Pandey, Mithun Manhas, Mohnish MIshra, Rahul Sharma, Sachin Rana, Shrikant Wagh, Shrikant Mundhe, Imtiyaz Ahmed (Foreign) Graeme Smith, Tim Paine, Angelo Mathews, Nathan McCullum, Callum Ferguson, Wayne Parnell, Mitchell Marsh, Jerome Taylor, Alfonso Thomas, Jesse Ryder

Kochi Tuskers Kerala (27): VVS Laxman, S Sreesanth, RP Singh, Parthiv Patel, Ravindra Jadeja, Ramesh Powar, R Vinay Kumar, B Akhil, Chandan Madan, Deepak Chowghule, Kedar Jadhav, Raiphi Gomez, Sushant Marathe, Tanmay Srivastava, Y Gnanswara Rao, Yashpal Singh, Prashant Padmanabahan, (Foreign) Mahela Jayawardene, Brendon McCullum, Steven Smith, Muttiah Muralitharan, Brad Hodge, Thisara Perera, Steve O’Keefe, Owais Shah, Michael Klinger, John Hastings

Royal Challengers Bangalore (25): Virat Kohli, Zaheer Khan, Saurabh Tiwary, Cheteshwar Pujara, Abhimanyu Mithun, Mohammed Kaif, Arun Karthik, CM Gautham, Abrar Kazi, Mayank Agarwal, Bharath Narayan, Raju Bhatkal, Sreenath Aravind, Ryan Ninan, Asad Khan Pathan, (Foreign) Tillekratne Dilshan, AB de Villiers, Daniel Vettori, Dirk Nannes, Charl Langeveldt, LUke Pomersbach, Johan van der Wath, Rilee Rossouw, Nuwan Pradeep, Jonathan Vandiar

Rajasthan Royals (27): Rahul Dravid, Pankaj Singh, Aakash Chopra, Abhishek Raut, Aditya Dole, Ajinkya Rahane, Amit Paunikar, Ashok Menaria, Deepak Chahar, Dishant Yagnik, Faiz Fazal, Nayan Doshi, Pinal Shah, Samad Fallah, Siddharth Trivedi, Stuart Binny, Amit Singh, Dinesh Salunkhe, Swapnil Asnodkar, Sumit Narwal, Ankeet Chavan (Foreign) Shane Warne, Shane Watson, Ross Taylor, Johan BOtha, Paul Collingwood, Shaun Tait

Deccan Chargers (27): Shikhar Dhawan, Ishant Sharma, Pragyan Ojha, Amit Mishra, Manpreet Gony, Akash Bhandari, Anand Rajan, Ankit Nagendra, Arjun Yadav, Ashish Reddy, Bharat Chipli, DB Ravi Teja, Harmeet Singh Bansal, Ishank Jaggi, Ishan Malhotra, Jaydev Shah, Kedar Devdhar, Sunny Sohal (Foreign) Kevin Pietersen, Cameron White, Kumar Sangakkara, JP Duminy, Dale Steyn, Daniel Christian, Chris Lynn, Juan Theron, Michael Lumb

Kings XI Punjab (23): Dinesh Karthik, Abhishek Nayar, Praveen Kumar, Piyush Chawla, Bhargav Bhatt, Bipul Sharma, Love Ablish, Mandeep Singh, Nitin Saini, Paras Dogra, Paul Valthaty, Shalabh Srivastava, Siddharth Chitnis, Sunny Singh, Vikramjeet Malik, Amit Yadav (Foreign) Adam Gilchrist, Shaun Marsh, David Hussey, Stuart Broad, Ryan Harris, Dimitri Masceranhas, Nathan Remington.

Delhi Daredevils (29): Virender Sehwag, Irfan Pathan, Naman Ojha, Ajit Agarkar, Ashok Dinda, Umesh Yadav, Venugopal Rao, Aavishkar Salvi, Prashant Naik, Rajesh Pawar, Robin Bist, S Sriram, Tejashwi Yadav, Unmukt Chand, Varun Aaron, Vikash Mishra, Vivek Yadav, Yogesh Nagar, Shahbaz Nadeem (Foreign) David Warner, James Hopes, Morne Morkel, Aaron Finch, Mathew Wade, Roloef van der Merwe, Andrew McDonald, Travis Birt, Collin Ingram, Robert Frylinck.

The schedule for IPL 4 has been revised taking into account the upcoming assembly elections in the five Indian states of West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and Puducherry. Three out of the five states have an IPL team associated to one of their cities. Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) has its base in the capital of West Bengal, Kolkata. Chennai Super King is based in the captal of Tamil Nadu, Chennai while Kochi Tuskers Kerala is based in Kochi in Kerala. The complete revised schedule of IPL 2011 season 4 is as follows:

April 8: 8pm – Chennai Super Kings vs Kolkata Knight Riders in Chennai.

April 9: 4pm – Deccan Chargers vs Rajasthan Royals in Hyderabad. 8pm – Kochi Tuskers Kerala vs Royal Challengers Bangalore in Kochi.

April 10: 4pm – Delhi Daredevils vs Mumbai Indians in Delhi. 8pm – Pune Warriors vs Kings XI Punjab in Navi Mumbai.

April 11: 8pm – Kolkata Knight Riders vs Deccan Chargers in Kolkata.

April 12: 4pm – Rajasthan Royals vs Delhi Daredevils in Jaipur. 8pm – Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Mumbai Indians in Bangalore.

April 13: 4pm – Kings XI Punjab vs Chennai Super Kings in Mohali. 8pm – Pune Warriors vs Kochi Tuskers Kerala in Navi Mumbai.

April 14: 8pm – Deccan Chargers vs Royal Challengers Bangalore in Hyderabad.

April 15: 4pm – Rajasthan Royals vs Kolkata Knight Riders in Jaipur. 8pm – Mumbai Indians vs Kochi Tuskers Kerala in Mumbai.

April 16: 4pm – Chennai Super Kings vs Royal Challengers Bangalore in Chennai. 8pm – Deccan Chargers vs Kings XI Punjab in Hyderabad.

April 17: 4pm – Pune Warriors vs Delhi Daredevils in Navi Mumbai. 8pm – Kolkata Knight Riders vs Rajasthan Royals in Kolkata.

April 18: 8pm – Kochi Tuskers Kerala vs Chennai Super Kings in Kochi.

April 19: 4pm – Delhi Daredevils vs Deccan Chargers in Delhi. 8pm – Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Rajasthan Royals in Bangalore.

April 20: 4pm – Mumbai Indians vs Pune Warriors in Mumbai. 8pm – Kolkata Knight Riders vs Kochi Tuskers Kerala in Kolkata.

April 21: 8pm – Kings XI Punjab vs Rajasthan Royals in Mohali.

April 22: 4pm – Kolkata Knight Riders vs Royal Challengers Bangalore in Kolkata. 8pm – Mumbai Indians vs Chennai Super Kings in Mumbai.

April 23: 8pm – Delhi Daredevils vs Kings XI Punjab in Delhi.

April 24: 4pm – Deccan Chargers vs Mumbai Indians in Hyderabad. 8pm – Rajasthan Royals vs Kochi Tuskers Kerala in Jaipur.

April 25: 8pm – Chennai Super Kings vs Pune Warriors in Chennai.

April 26: 8pm – Delhi Daredevils vs Royal Challengers Bangalore in Delhi.

April 27: 4pm – Pune Warriors vs Chennai Super Kings in Navi Mumbai. 8pm – Kochi Tuskers Kerala vs Deccan Chargers in Kochi.

April 28: 8pm – Delhi Daredevils vs Kolkata Knight Riders in Delhi.

April 29: 4pm – Rajasthan Royals vs Mumbai Indians in Jaipur. 8pm – Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Pune Warriors in Bangalore.

April 30: 4pm – Kochi Tuskers Kerala vs Delhi Daredevils in Kochi. 8pm – Kolkata Knight Riders vs Kings XI Punjab in Kolkata.

May 1: 4pm – Rajasthan Royals vs Pune Warriors in Jaipur. 8pm – Chennai Super Kings vs Deccan Chargers in Chennai.

May 2: 4pm – Mumbai Indians vs Kings XI Punjab in Mumbai. 8pm – Delhi Daredevils vs Kochi Tuskers Kerala in Delhi.

May 3: 8pm – Deccan Chargers vs Kolkata Knight Riders in Hyderabad.

May 4: 4pm – Chennai Super Kings vs Rajasthan Royals in Chennai. 8pm – Pune Warriors vs Mumbai Indians in Navi Mumbai.

May 5: 4pm – Kochi Tuskers Kerala vs Kolkata Knight Riders in Kochi. 8pm – Deccan Chargers vs Delhi Daredevils in Hyderabad.

May 6: 8pm – Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Kings XI Punjab in Bangalore.

May 7: 4pm – Kolkata Knight Riders vs Chennai Super Kings in Kolkata. 8pm – Mumbai Indians vs Delhi Daredevils in Mumbai.

May 8: 4pm – Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Kochi Tuskers Kerala in Bangalore. 8pm – Kings XI Punjab vs Pune Warriors in Mohali.

May 9: 8pm – Rajasthan Royals vs Chennai Super Kings in Jaipur.

May 10: 4pm – Deccan Chargers vs Pune Warriors in Hyderabad. 8pm – Kings XI Punjab vs Mumbai Indians in Mohali.

May 11: 8pm – Rajasthan Royals vs Royal Challengers Bangalore in Jaipur.

May 12: 8pm – Chennai Super Kings vs Delhi Daredevils in Chennai.

May 13: 8pm – Kochi Tuskers Kerala vs Kings XI Punjab in Indore.

May 14: 4pm – Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Kolkata Knight Riders in Bangalore. 8pm – Mumbai Indians vs Deccan Chargers in Mumbai.

May 15: 4pm – Kings XI Punjab vs Delhi Daredevils in Dharamsala. 8pm – Kochi Tuskers Kerala vs Rajasthan Royals in Indore.

May 16: 8pm – Pune Warriors vs Deccan Chargers in Navi Mumbai.

May 17: 8pm – Kings XI Punjab vs Royal Challengers Bangalore in Dharamsala.

May 18: 8pm – Chennai Super Kings vs Kochi Tuskers Kerala in Chennai.

May 19: 8pm – Pune Warriors vs Kolkata Knight Riders in Navi Mumbai.

May 20: 8pm – Mumbai Indians vs Rajasthan Royals in Mumbai.

May 21: 4pm – Kings XI Punjab vs Deccan Chargers in Dharamsala. 8pm – Delhi Daredevils vs Pune Warriors in Delhi.

May 22: 4pm – Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Chennai Super Kings in Bangalore. 8pm – Kolkata Knight Riders vs Mumbai Indians in Kolkata.

May 24: 8pm – Qualifier 1: First Placed Team vs Second Placed Team in Mumbai.

May 25: 8pm – Eliminator: Third Placed Team vs Fourth Placed Team in Mumbai.

May 27: 8pm – Qualifier 2: Winner of Eliminator vs Loser of Qualifier 1 in Chennai.

May 28: 8pm – Final: Winner of Qualifier 1 vs Winner of Qualifier 2 in Chennai.