IPL Day 15

Game one, as I predicted even when they had a 100% record, like my phone when in satnav mode, the Deccans are now fast losing their Charge.

Game two, even without Freddie, despite a poor start, Chennai turned the game from the moment Raina pulled off a stunning catch. Yet another last over classic.

What else happened today? The sun was shining, went into town for some shopping. Bit scary, saw first-hand how the deadly virus is spreading...

yes, the religious nutters were on the streets handing out leaflets again.

Mayday

Day 14 of the IPL. Finally Ganguly gets to open the batting for the Knight Riders. Out first ball. Can it get any worse?

Yes it can. Kolkata won't just crumble to a heavy defeat against the mighty Mumbai. Instead, once again the team wrings every ounce of hope out of its supporters, taking it to the final over yet again.

Game two also went down to the last ball, another excellent match, Yuvraj scored a fifty and took a hat-trick but Punjab just missed out. A great game, and a great result for old Kumble.

Aside - in defence of the "strategic time out". Of course giving it that name is as disingenuous as calling civilian death "collateral damage", but the cricket community is a conservative one, and the old brigade seems to hate this enforced mid-innings advertising break (for that is what it is) whatever it is called. But really it's just the test match mid session drinks break with a different name, no big deal at all. In fact the issue is that it is not used properly. Instead we still get adverts between overs - with the same sponsor's message repeated every single bloody time, that is the most counterproductive advertising imaginable.

IPL Day 12

Maybe things are finally going my way. I predicted that the Chargers were over-achieving, that they didn't have the strength in depth - today I was proved correct. Big game coming up next Tuesday, we'll see if form can be maintained till then.

In the second game, another good result. Raina won the match on his own.

By the way, I still get people thinking this is all only about the IPL. At one level it is, but regular readers will know me better than that.

IPL Day 11

Game one, Kolkata lost again. With one ball to spare. I had hoped that the Challengers would finally mount a decent challenge, but why now, why against my home team? The cricketing gods are taunting me. However top scorer for Bangalore was a young chap I'd never heard of called Shreevats Goswami. His home town, Kolkata.

In game two, another nailbiter. RB from Essex failed again but at least scored more runs than SRT from Mumbai, Slinga Malinga justified my prediction that he would be the bowler of the tournament, but Punjab still crept to victory off the very last ball.

An aside, an insight. The IPL gets stick for being crass commercialised corrupted cricket. And it's true that the short boundaries, the incessant sponsorship and the over-excitable commentators do their best to ruin the game. But as a format 20:20 has great attributes. Every ball really matters, and the most successful bowlers have been the canny spinners and the superfast expresses - these are the ones who the doom-mongers said were only good for test matches and unsuitable for the one day game. They were partially right, "traditional" fifty-over one-day games encouraged medium pace trundlers and bits-and-pieces trundlers - but 20:20 seems to encourage specialism and special talent, and long may it continue.

IPL Day 10

OK, so I was wrong again, disappointed again. These are tough and demoralising times.

So time to make some brave predictions.

First game, the Chargers won again, so the commentators say that with their 100% record, they are now favourites for the league title. Just like Alan Hansen always predicts that the team leading the Premiership will win at the end, that the bottom three teams will be relegated. Anyway, they are cowards and they are wrong. The Chargers are overly reliant on just three batsmen (GiGi and Rohit Sharma) and their only real strike bowler is Fidel Edwards. They won't all fire in every match. So despite their 100% record so far, I predict fail.

And in game two, the Indians stuffed the Knight Riders. At least Ganguly was top scorer. But realistically, sadly, it's not looking good for the Bengali Boys either.

IPL Day 9

1. No report today.

2. It was the London Marathon.

3. I got up early to go for the one bit of sport that has become routine, though infrequent.

4. As usual though, I could run for perhaps an hour, then the rest was at walking pace.

IPL Day 8

Stats do not always tell the whole story, and neither do results. Most commentators play a game of post-justification - whoever won deserved to win - that's not a game I play.

For the Chargers won "comfortably" - only three batsmen made decent scores but countless edges went just wide of fielders and they only had three decent bowlers. Yet once again in my opinion Mumbai had the best batsmen and once again Malinga was unplayable. But the breaks went the way of the Deccans, not just from Ojha. So well played to the winners, but if luck evens out in the end, the Indians will still go through.

In the second game the prince of Kolkata might have led the Knight Riders to a thorough thrashing of the Chennai Super Kings, but the match was rained off.

IPL Day 7

Despite my prediction from Day 5, the Royal Challengers failed to rise to the royal challenge of the Kings XI. Though , like my verdict from Day 6, it was another gut-wrenching result.

It's true that the only Bengali playing was for the Punjab side, but there is something about the Bangalore team that makes them a favourite second team. That something is partially the portly figure of Jesse Ryder, proving that an athletic build is no requirement for an athletic performance. But the main reason is undimmed respect for the underappreciated enthusiasm, passion and technical excellence of Dravid and Kumble. Their combined age is more than 70, but as with Ganguly for Kolkata, they embody the spirit of the side far more than the imported captain. They both scored more runs than KP too.

Still, connections, a game between two sides from India being played in South Africa, and the man of the match was a chap with the initials RB from Ilford, Essex.

IPL Day 6

Gutted. Gutted. A sad day for Kolkata. The worst kind of loss. There was hope till the very end before it was cruelly dashed. Dada did his best, did better than anyone else on his team, but his colleagues let him down. Why do we care?

IPL Day 5

Thought about taking a Budget Break today. Not sure I can afford one.

According to all match reports, the Deccan Chargers comfortably beat the Bangalore Royal Challengers. Well they did win, but in my contrary view it was not so comfortable. I can't believe that Fidel Edwards will continue to outbowl Dale Steyn, that Ohja will continue to outbowl Kumble, that Jesse Ryder and KP will repeatedly fail.

My prediction, the early chargers will soon be overtaken by now latent challengers.

IPL Day 4

Isn't it ironic ...

"the weather was the most important factor" in the decision to move the IPL to South Africa instead of to England.

According to Vijay Mallya, the owner of the Royal Challengers team (and of Kingfisher Beer):

"I guess weather conditions clinched the issue for South Africa. In England, there were chances that matches would have been rained off. Both teams sharing the point affects the competitiveness of the event."

Today the game in Durban was rained off. In England it was bright and sunny all day.

IPL Day 2

Twenty twenty was meant to be a new type of game. Not the traditional cricket we know and love. It was meant to be all about big hitting, slogging, power plays and military medium restrictive bowling.

But it isn't. Stars of the first couple of days are the old dudes: batting legends like Dravid and Tendulkar; bowling legends like Warne, Kumble, Vettori, Bhaji, Murali.

It's not just because these guys are my cricketing idols. It is because they have proved that technique matters, experience matters, style matters.

It is test cricket at its finest. With cheerleaders :)

IPL Day 1

Season two of the greatest festival of cricket in the world (see here, here, here) started today. And it got off to a great start - two fabulous games. Of course you can read the official match reports on Cricinfo, but a few words of alternative insight should be published here.

First game was the clash of the titans - the mighty Mumbai Indians, the most expensive team in the league, up against the Chennai Super Kings, the team who might be named after a brand of cigarette but who are captained by India's captain and feature Freddie Flintoff. It was a high quality match, good batting, good bowling, good fielding, and Mumbai won by 19 runs. My gripe is with the "verdict". They gave "man of the match" accolades and money to Tendulkar. The commentator said the decision was a formality. That was the easy option - he scored 59 runs in 49 balls at a strike rate of 120. And he is the greatest batsman of our generation. But today he was overshadowed by a relatively unknown colleague called Abhishek Nayar who scored 35 runs in just 14 balls at a strike rate of 250.

Yet I don't think any batsman really made the winning difference. Mumbai's bowlers deserved the credit. Harbhajan Singh was the one who kept things tight in the middle of the innings, he bowled slow and clever and conceded only 5 runs per over. But the guy who won the match was a young Sri Lankan called Lasith Malinga. He bowled fast, accurate, swinging, yorkers at the most critical stages of the innings, took 3 wickets for 15 and he looked almost unplayable.

But the easy option is just to give the award to the guy who scores the most runs, particularly when that guy is Sachin Tendulkar.

Meanwhile in game 2, the defending champions Rajasthan Royals were bowled out for just 58 runs, the lowest ever IPL total, chasing a Bangalore score of 133 in which Rahul Dravid scored 68 runs in just 48 runs. Deja Vu.

The Number One Red

David James has reclaimed the position of England's national goalkeeper. According to most pundits, he fully deserved it. According to Match of the Day that is verified.

Talking of Match of the Day, over the last few seasons they have been raving about how consistently superb Brad Friedel has been for Blackburn.

Both James and Friedel were recently released by Liverpool FC for not being good enough. The solution to the problems was to be Jerzy Dudek, the astounding young Polish keeper.

Despite a fine record in saving penalties , Dudek was considered small for a goalkeeper with not enough of a powerful presence. The giant Sander Westerveld was also the regular number one, but he too was let go.

Perhaps Liverpool should look to the future. Chris Kirkland? Scott Carson?

Although they are still playing, and playing astoundingly well, none of them currently plays for the club.

Why do they keep letting their stoppers go? What future has Reina?

Bloody Bombay Bombers

I did actually write a few words here on Wednesday evening but withheld hitting the "post" button. Methinks there was some insight there, but my gut reaction to the attack on Mumbai did not make pleasant reading. One day, when the war is over, then perhaps I'll publish it.

For now I'm going to try to think of some softer material for a few days till the dust settles and the red mist clears.

My Most Embarrassing Moment

Celebrity interviews often ask that. I am no celebrity, but I do comment on the pathetic banality of celebrity interviews.

I was at a sports centre where we played five-a-side football. After the game I took off my kit and glasses, picked up my towel and stepped out of the changing room which had one door leading out to the shower area and another back out to the gym's reception. Obviously (because otherwise I would not be writing this) I stepped through the wrong door.

It's perfectly true, as a few colleagues from the football team and a slightly shocked receptionist can testify. But it was not really embarrassing, even at the time, it was just funny. However it is one of those anecdotes that is easy to regurgitate if ever asked to "reveal your most embarrassing moment".

Actually real embarrassment is when you simply say slightly the wrong thing in a social situation, the premise of the best British comedy of the decade. Real embarrassment is not when you make an honest mistake, it is when you do accidentally reveal a personal prejudice. But you don't admit to those.

Faster Higher Stronger

The Olympic motto is "Citius, Altius, Fortius" - Latin for "Faster, Higher, Stronger".

Note that it does not say "Faster, Higher, Stronger, X"

where X is "scored higher by judges for those they think looked most elegant while prancing around the arena"

Also, it's not "who has the most money". The UK has invested heavily in cycling, bikes that cost thousands and velodromes that cost millions. And it has reaped many rewards. But in addition to Pursuit and Sprint and Madison and Keirin, if there was an olympic cycling competition to determine who could carry the most family members on a single iron bike while navigating heavy traffic on potholed roads, I think the developing world would stand more of a chance.

Six and Out in Melbourne and London

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms.

That's today's quote from Google. One thing about George Orwell, he certainly had courage.

It's not only the likes of Sherry Jones and Taslima Nasreen who have shown courage. Scott Adams gets it too. But it would be too easy to just relate tales of Jon Swift and Lenny Bruce and Monty Python and a long history of comic subversion. Let's turn to cricket instead. There are many lessons for life in The Art of Captaincy and Opening Up, but most autobiographies are dross. And in CricInfo yesterday we are back to Orwell:

Upon hearing of the bugs squashed on the wallpaper of the hotel opposite his, young kitchen hand George Orwell did not beseech the bugs to write his book for him. Down and Out in Paris and London is no less grisly or educational a read for the lack of bugs' insights. Yet in cricket we see the bugs everywhere, furnishing us with their bug's-eye perspectives, and not just any old bugs but former top-level bugs.

But those "bugs" that Christian Ryan refers to are some serious big names in the world of cricket. So there goes his chance of getting any exclusive interviews with them. That was brave too.

Buying Gold

Why does India win so few Olympic medals? So asked Marginal Revolution and a billion Indians.

Firstly, congratulations to Abhinav Bindra for winning India's first ever individual gold. But looked at in the national medal tables , we are slightly behind Mongolia and Kazakhstan. In fact, on a per capita count, scaled to population, we would do even worse.

Not everyone dares to suggest genetic factors. I do. But these factors primarily apply to average performance in particular pure athletic disciplines. There surely must be some events where focus and investment and dedication can bring results, even with a largely fixed genetic pool. The enormous strides made by China, and even by the UK, since the last games prove this.

The usual glib answer is "get cricket into the games". That's only partially true, even if India's most popular sport were to be included, presumably in one-day format, there's still a good chance we'd be beaten by Australia (or Sri Lanka, like today).

There are better candidates, more guaranteed to get us a medal. Billiards. Chess. Kabaddi. And with enough "pressure" any sport can be included in the games. And by "pressure" perhaps we just mean money. According to a BBC investigation: if you are careful enough and clever enough and you really want the golden Olympic ticket for your sport, there is every reason to believe that you can get your event onto the podium.

Yet I still ask, given a developing nation's other priorities, is it worth it?

The Ministry of Silly Games

The Olympics continue to ask plenty of questions for our brave athletes. As always, Monty Python continues to provide answers.

I understand the point of a competition to determine who can run the fastest or jump the highest or swim the fastest - but the ministry of silly games has decided that just seeing who is quickest across water from one bank to the other does not give enough scope for lanky Americans to pile up the medals. So we have backstroke and breaststroke and butterflystroke and sidestroke and sunstroke and heatstroke.

But this is unfair on athletics, the original olympic sport. We have various distances but only two basic kinds of track race, "freestyle" and "silly walk". There needs to be another race where you run backwards. Another race where you run with your legs splayed out to the side. Another race where you run, in honour of John Cleese, in full "goose-step" style and you are disqualified unless your leg stays perfecty straight reaching up at least to shoulder height on each step.

That's what they do in the pool. Alternatively, ditch the silly walks and return to olympic ideals.