Rajasthan Royals had a warm up match against Cape Cobras today named “Clash of the Champions” . Cape Cobras are the South African domestic T20 champions and Rajasthan Royals were the winners of IPL season 1 and so it was marketed as the clash of the the winners. The match started interestingly with Cape Cobras winning the toss and deciding to bat. The Rajasthan Royals team was mainly filled with the Indian domestic players of Rajasthan Royals. The Indian pacers of Rajasthan Royals started out well with Amit Singh, Trivedi and Kamran Khan. Kamran Khan was more prominent of the lot although he bowled only a single over giving only one run and taking a wicket. His pace was good and he was also extracting good swing from the wicket. The Cobras struggled against the Indian pacers and were 65/5 after 11.5 overs. But then their batsmen started hitting well and the Cobras ended at a respectable score of 142/8 in their allotted 20 overs.
The Rajasthan Royals batsmen were quite impressive initially with Victorian batsman Rob Quiney (34 off 22 balls) hitting the Cobras for fours and sixes. But then the rest of the Royals batsmen got out cheaply with some very good bowling and fielding performance by the Cobras. Shane Warne (21 off 19 balls) tried to save the innings but it was too late. At last they got all out in 19 overs for 115 runs and the Cobras won the match by 27 runs.
However, the positives of the game for Rajasthan Royals was that their international players looked in good from with Quiney, Warne and Henderson looking good. The other good thing was the Indian bowlers in RR squad bowled some good spells too especially Kamran Khan and Amit Singh.
The Rajasthan Royals squad are looking a good unit though they do not look as powerful as the other squads and I doubt if they would be able to retain their title this year. Let us hope that the Rajasthan Royals squad performs well when they play their full side in the IPL T20 season 2.
Now, IPL management and Lalit Modi has decided to introduce a carnival before the start of the Indian Premier League. This will be perhaps the first carnival in cricket and it would take place at 12 noon on April 16. All the players participating in the IPL and various Bollywood celebrities will take part in the carnival. It will be a grand parade on the streets of Cape Town with all the IPL teams with their own floats and there would be music, Bollywood celebrities and cricketers in this great extravaganza. Lalit Modi said that this will be a unique experience where all the 200 top cricketers from the world would be present in the parade at the same time.
It seems that IPL T20 season 2 has been marketed very well in South Africa and hope that it turns out to a huge success again as the last year. Cricket and Entertainment seems to be mixed very well in this year’s IPL extravaganza too. The ticket sales have also been quite good till now and it seems that Lalit Modi will again have the last laugh.
Former New Zealand captain and Chennai Super Kings team member Stephen Fleming will take over as the coach of the IPL team after Kepler Wessels’ contract was not renewed by CSK team management. Last year, Rajasthan Royals became the first team to appoint Shane Warne as their captain-cum-coach and the results were tremendous with RR winning the title last year. Maybe this has led to CSK management also think of appointing Fleming for the coach-cum-player role though M S Dhoni will still lead the side. Though Fleming did not have an exceptional IPL season 1 but the Chennai Super Kings management has praised his tactical insight.
However, he added that he will take inputs from Mahendra Singh Dhoni in his job as he thinks him to be a great captain. He said that they helped each other in IPL 1 and they will work together in IPL T20 season 2 too. He said that the most difficult part of his job would be to choose the best four for each game as they have a great bunch of international players. But when asked about Buchanan’s multiple captaincy theory, he said that it sounded too ‘complicated’.
What are your opinions on this decision. Is Fleming the right man for the coaching job?
West Indies has a bilateral series with England starting from 6th May onwards including two tests and three ODIs. However, if reports are to believed then there was a dispute between the players and the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) as this England tour conflicted with the IPL matches. And the main concern of the players were that they were not consulted before fixing this England series suddenly following the withdrawal of Sri Lanka whose players wanted to play in the IPL instead. And now few of the West Indies players have decided to play in the IPL T20 season 2 although they will not boycott the England series completely. West Indian all-rounder Dwayne Bravo will miss both the tests of the England series and will play in the IPL T20 season 2 instead. He was ruled out of the test series as his ankle is still not good for tests. But he has decided to play in the IPL as he believes he is fit enough for T20 cricket. He said that everybody knows the importance of test cricket but his health is not fit for test cricket. Other West Indies players like Chris Gayle and Fidel Edwards will also be playing in IPL 2 but they are set to arrive in England before the first test. However, WICB has kept 17 players in the squad to England as a precautionary measure.
Dwayne Bravo plays for IPL team Mumbai Indians, Edwards plays for Deccan Chargers and Chris Gayle for Kolkata Knight Riders. Hope that from the next year, cricket boards around the world arrange the fixtures in such a way that it does not clash with the IPL.
