IPL and water crisis

Many states of India are currently going through a situation of tremendous drought. Adverse scarcity of water is making people walk miles for water or live on contaminated water. Maharashtra is the most most drought affected state in the country. This year there are 20 IPL matches scheduled to be played in Maharashtra, in the cities of Nagpur, Pune and Mumbai. 

To maintain the stadium and pitch large amounts of water is needed. An estimated 6 million litres of water is needed in these three venues. In a state like Maharashtra, where the problem of water scarcity is extremely acute, it is absolutely inhuman to use water to maintain the grounds.

While it is true that not playing the IPL matches in Maharashtra will not solve the water problem of Maharashtra, at the same time one cannot let the precious little water left in the state, be used up in stadiums. The matches scheduled to be played in Maharashtra can easily be moved to places where water is in abundance. There are many venues in India which has no water shortage. Venues like Kolkata, Mohali, Dharmasala etc has no water shortage.

Particularly Dharmasala, this year there is not a single IPL match is scheduled in Dharmasala. The stadium in Dharmasala is ideal for holding cricket matches in summer. The current temperature in the city of Dharmasala is between 13 degree centigrade to 25 degree centigrade. In most other parts of India the temperature is above 35 degrees Celsius. So looking at the weather conditions, it makes sense to shift the IPL matches from Maharashtra to Dharmasala. 

Dharmasala stadium is one of the most beautiful cricket ground in the world. The pitch of Dharmasala is also a good one where one can expect to see high scoring matches. So shifting the the matches from Maharashtra to Dharmasala will be beneficial to IPL as well.

T20 World Cup and West Indies

Sometime back in 2015, I wrote an article about West Indian cricket, how it rose and dominated in the past and how it went down. I also wrote about the importance of revival of West Indian cricket. This year has been absolutely wonderful for West Indian cricket. Till now they have won three cricket world cups first it was the under 19 limited overs cricket world cup, then they won the Women's T20 cricket world cup and now West Indian men's cricket team are the new World T20 champions.

The final was played in very good pitch in Eden Gardens, Kolkata. Batting first England were unable to play the leg spin of Samuel Badree and lost wickets regularly. Although English batsmen played freely, the regular fall of wickets led to the slowing down of scoring rate and at the end of 20 overs, England only managed to get 155 runs. 

The pitch was very good to bat on, England were 30 runs short of a good total on this wicket. West Indies started their innings badly. In the second over captain Eion Morgan tried the off spin of Joe Root. Opener Jhonston Charles was so impatient that the tried to make room in the very first ball he faced and tried to flat bat Root over long on. However the bll took the upper part of his bat and went straight to Stokes at long on. In the same over Gayle tried to hit Root over long on, the ball did not hit the bat in the middle, the ball went up in the air and Stokes took the second catch. 

In a way West Indies gifted two easy wickets to England and made their job much tougher. To add to West Indian misery in the very next over Wiley brought one ball back to Lendel Simmons, Simmons missed the ball and the ball thudded into his pad. The umpire rightly adjudged him LBW. After the first three dismissals Dwayne Bravo and Marlon Samuels slowly built the West Indian innings. Samuels was batting well and was scoring fast, Bravo struggled a bit. In the last ball of the 14th over he fell to the leg spin of Adil Rashid. 

After that wickets of Andre Russel and Darren Sammy fell soon. However Samules was hitting the ball well and scoring fast on the other end he got decent support from Carlos Brathwaite who scored 10 of just 6 balls but the amount of runs they were able to garner till the 19th over was not good enough. At the end of 19th over West Indies were 137/6, needing 19 runs of the last over to win, it was a really daunting task.

Morgan gave the ball to Stokes. The batsman on strike was Brathwaite. The very first ball he faced from Stokes he tried to clear his left foot, but the ball was bowled in the direction of his legs and it was a length ball. Brathwaite just lifted the ball between square leg and long leg, the ball travelled 67 metres without bouncing to give Brathwait the first six of the over. 

In the next ball, Stokes tried to ball a bouncer, but he got the length wrong and the ball pitched a yard or two behind the popping crease. Brathwaite cleared his left leg and then lofted the ball over the head of long on for a 94 meters six. Now the possibility of a West Indian win was withing reach. The Windies needed 7 of the next 4 balls. 

In the third ball Stokes tried another yorker outside off stump, but this one also fell short and it was a nice juicy half volley that Brathwaite hit over long off after clearing his front leg. With this six the scores were level. Most people at the end of 19th over thought that England will win the World Cup, however three sixes in 3 consecutive balls changed the course of the match.

When the third six was hit, Ben Stokes was absolutely devastated. He sat on his knees with hands on his head. He collected himself and went back to bowl the fourth ball of the over, again it was an attempted yorker that fell short and Carlos Brathwaite after clearing his front leg, hit the ball over long on for the fourth six of the over. With this West Indies won the T20 world cup for the second time. 

It was one of the most exciting World Cup finals in the history of T20 cricket, enjoyed by fans across the cricket playing world. The match was played to a full house in Eden Gardens, when the last four sixes were hit, every six was greeted with a huge roar. The West Indies got lot of neutral support in Eden Gardens. 

Hopefully this year will mark a resurgence in West Indian cricket, with more and more youngsters in Caribbean taking up the game. In the Caribbean islands the game of cricket is under threat from soccer and basketball. The world cup of cricket in India has been a great success. People enjoyed the games thoroughly.