Originally posted by: _Vrish_
I have 2 favorite teams - KKR and RR. KKR since I am from Kolkata, and RR b'cos I like the state itself, and some of my favorite cricketers - Warne, Watson, Tait, Botha and Dravid are there. Previous seasons, DD too was one of my favorites, but people @ GNR were obviously smoking something when they decided not to lock in AB, Nannes and Dilshan.
I agree w/ Hindu4lyf - I'm just not getting the idea (and no, I won't switch carriers!!! 😆) of people supporting teams due to its owners. They ain't doing squat, other than putting out the money for the teams to be bid on. Incidentally, this time, some of the owners, like SRK, stayed out of the bidding and left it to the experts i.e. the coaching staff.
Ishaan's POV is typical of the view in Kolkata - people I talk to seem lukewarm about the team, despite the tremendous form of Kallis and KKR's good start so far. I visited the KKR website hoping to get some pics of the new team, but those morons are still stuck on last season. Looking @ the discussions there, it seems to be a flame war b/w Dada supporters & opponents. All that has turned me off from the team's website, if they are going to be such losers that they can't provide pics of the current team after 3 matches, of which 2 are wins. Also, currently in Kolkata, due to elections, most public transport has been hijacked for election duty, so people who do go to Eden to see D/N games have been getting stranded after the match. 😕 Let's see whether the situation is any better tonight, or else, KKR would do well to relocate their home games outside Bengal.
I however disagree w/ him and many Bongs over this issue of Dada. I understand that people are emotional - more so in Mamataesque Kolkata than anywhere else (even though none of these proud Bongs protest over Dada's ad w/ the Election Commission being hung to dry due to complaints about his affiliation w/ one of the parties: personally, I think this is a bigger insult to one of the greatest Bongs ever than his being excluded from a franchise team that rarely has many 'sons-of-the-soil' players - how many Marathis are there in either Pune Warriors or Mumbai Indians, other than SRT?)
Historically, there has been a good deal of argument about whether Dada was respected in the past, and indeed, too many Indians seemed to ignore his achievements in the late 90s b4 he became captain, when in ODIs, he was right up there w/ Sachin, and @ times during Sachin's captaincy, even exceeded him. However, he peaked in 2003 (and unlike Dhoni, he's rarely led from the front). After the world cup of 2003, he ought to have @ least stepped down as captain and concentrated on his game, so that he'd not have been the butt of jokes, such as that maggi joke. At any rate, he did make a comeback after losing the captaincy, but let's face it - while he was a great ODI player, he was a mediocre test player @ best, w/ a few good innings to his name, like the one @ Brisbane.
On Dada's KKR stint, I'm glad that the management bit the bullet and decided not to bid for him, due to a number of reasons:
His age was clearly showing last season, when there were several dot balls other teams would get against KKR while he was @ the crease. Potential twos would be ones, and his partner opposite clearly showed his potential when Dada was dismissed and someone else came to the crease - a Manoj Tiwari, a Chris Gayle, a Pujara. It's fine when he's hitting boundaries, but it's just as important to take singles when the bowling is tight - something that didn't happen w/ Dada last season, since he's clearly slowed down.
- His tendency to select players based on reputation. In IPL3, Charl Langeveld, who had just one match in IPL2, already had proven himself, had a great start, and so did Owais Shah and Angelo Matthews. However, Dada went w/ reputations rather than current performances, which meant prefering Shane Bond over Langeveldt, and Gayle & McCullum over Hodge & Hussey. That's the thing about Dada - he tends to go on reputations, which is good for a player going thru a lean patch, like Harbhajan and Irfan Pathan did w/ India, but makes the team fire on fewer cylinders. But it was frustrating to watch guys like Gayle bomb big time, while guys like Hodge & Hussey, who were doing fine for KKR, were benched. Had Valthalty been a KKR player under him, you can bet that he'd have been benched after a couple of matches in favor of a Gauti.
In this years auction, therefore, I'm glad that KKR didn't bid for him, and in his Bengali program 'Dadagiri', Sourav had already said that he'd only play for KKR if they bid for him, and did tell his audience that he could end up playing for another side. So would the average Kolkatan then switch loyalties from KKR to whichever team Dada was selected for? Does the average Punjabi support MI over KXIP b'cos Bhajji plays for the former? Do you expect a lot of Bangalore fans to start supporting RR over RCB b'cos Dravid has moved?
I am mildly - but just mildly - disappointed that no other franchise chose to bid for Dada. His clout, and ability to pick wrong people would have been much reduced had he been playing for, say, KXIP under Gillie. Reason I think so is that both Dravid and Lakshman - usually test players - are playing sheet anchor roles and negating the surprises an opposition team might try by bringing in spinners early to curb the heavy hitting of overseas openers, such as Baz McCullum and Shane Watson. I think Dada might have played a similar role for some of the other teams, like PWI (which ought to play Ryder one down) or DC. Also, they would not have been under any pressure to play him in every, or even most matches, just the ones where he'd be useful.
But getting back to the excuse I hear from some people - that KKR has no Kolkata players after removing Dada - let's take a look @ the team. It includes Manoj Tiwari, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Shreevats Goswami and Shami Ahmed. Yeah, none of these are famous names, but the current Indian team - test or ODI or T20 - doesn't have a famous name that plays for Bengal. But the uncapped players have clearly been taken from there, and also, all teams are allowed to fish from anywhere for their sides.
This time, KKR did a good job of it, and while the guys they've selected ain't my favorites, I'm glad that it's at least a winning combination. I do think they could have done a better bid on some of their overseas players, by trying to get guys like AB, Ross Taylor and Juan Theron - the middle order players they've gotten, like Haddin, Morgan, Ten Doeschate and Shakib - are weak. Bisla's keeping has been ordinary, and I don't like the idea of Haddin eating up the mid order batsman's slot. And I certainly don't want both Haddin and Kallis opening - Gauti should open if Haddin is in the team. In fact, he should open now, and let either Goswami or Haddin keep in the middle order.
While KKR are my home team, I'm more excited than previous years about RR, which now has Warne, Tait, Watson, and has strengthened its side by bringing in Ross Taylor and Jacob Oram, and letting go of Graeme Smith. They don't seem to have done much for the local talent, though - other than Dravid & Stuart Binny, I don't see how they have strengthened that line-up, and that is 7 of their players. They seem to have made the mistake Bangalore & Chennai made, only worse - they have Warne, Watson, Botha, Taylor, Oram, Collingwood and Tait, of which they can only pick 3 (since Warne is automatic selection). Of the other 3 , Watson is automatic, and so you have 5 of the others battling for 2 spots.
Anupamaa
Naagin 7
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