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. 

World Cup T20 till now

World Cup T20 started with hosts India taking on New Zealand. The Kiwis are an excellent T20 side, India has lost all 4 matches earlier it played against New Zealand. The opening match took place between the two teams in Nagpur. The pitch was far from being an ideal T20 wicket. Indian bowlers bowled well, managed to restrict the Kiwis to 126 in the stipulated 20 overs. 

However when it was India's turn to bat things took a wrong turn. The kept deteriorating fast and the amount of spin generated by the spinners kept increasing. Its amazing how New Zealand knew in advance that the pitch would be a turner and had picked three spinners in their side. Although in terms of calibre the Kiwi spinners are average, but the pitch offered so much assistance to the spinners that even low quality spin bowlers were able to turn the ball square. 

The famed Indian batting line up was not able to stand up to the Kiwi spinners on that wicket and were all out for a paltry score of 79. 

The next two matches were complete run feast. The Pakistan batting side, whose performances in Asia cup was below average suddenly came to form this afternoon in Eden Gardens and on that flat wicket, were able to score 201 against Bangladesh's bowling attack. After many days Shahid Afridi got among runs scoring a quick fire 49. Before him Mohammed Hafeez and Ahmed Sehzad scored quick fifties. The Bangladeshis were not able to score the required runs against the mighty Pakistan bowling line up and lost the match.

The second match played this evening between England and West Indies was another run feast. The track in Wankhade was flat one and England scored 183 batting first. It was a good total, but luck was not with England. The dew on the ground was pretty heavy and they were not able to get the wicket of Chris Gayle. Gayle was in wonderful form and he scored 48 ball century today. The innings was a treat to watch as he hit the English bowlers all around the park. 

Gayle hit 11 sixes, some of them were so huge that they ended up in the second tier of the stands. Gayle has tremendous power in his arms and wrists coupled by the heavy bat he uses, it imparts great momentum to his shots. People come to watch cricket matches to see sixes and fours being hit. Gayle is able to provide them in plenty. This explains why he is such a popular cricketer in India. In fact for Gayle, the Chennaswami Stadium in Banglore is his home ground. He is player who is capable of winning not just a single match but tournaments for his team. Dropping such player from the West Indian side was the stupidest decision that West Indian selectors could have taken. 

Looking at the way West Indies have played, they are surely one of the favourites for this world cup. Pakistan are always unpredictable but the are definitely capable of winning the world cup as well, if their batsmen keep performing consistently. 

Soccer(Football) can become popular in India

When you talk about sports in India, only one sport would come to your mind, cricket. Indeed Cricket is the most popular sport in India, the people of the country follow the sport with great passion. No other sport in India comes close to cricket in terms of popularity. Having said this though it is not true that other sports in India cannot do well. 

India has population of over 1.25 billion people. Most of the population is below 25 years in age. In the last few years leagues of other sports have started that includes hockey and soccer. India is ranked very low among the soccer playing nations.

India has enough talent and the sport is quite popular in certain states of the country. India can potentially become a future soccer giant if proper training and exposure is given to young talents. 

Soccer is very popular in the states of West Bengal, Kerala, Goa and North East states of Assam, Sikkim, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya. The combined population of all these states almost same as the population of Brazil.

The state of West Bengal is twice as populous as Argentina. So considering the love that people have for football in this parts of the country, if young players get good training and then get good amount of experience of playing with teams that are ranked higher in FIFA rankings, it can result in India producing a world class soccer team in the future. 

Indian Soccer League, in its first and second season has also given an opportunity to Indian players to play with world class players. The quality of Indian football has also improved. If the soccer talent in the above mentioned states get enough opportunity, the country can produce world class soccer players. 

Soccer is game that can be played by all sections of the society, regardless their income. Unlike cricket, this game does not require any expensive gears. The only thing you need is pair of soccer shoes and some inexpensive shin guards and then you can play the simple but beautiful game that is loved by most people in the world. 

If the game is properly marketed and promoted, it will achieve great popularity among the common masses of India. 

Asia Cup Final

As expected India won the last match of the Asia Cup. However the win was not a cakewalk. The match was shortened by rain. It was only because of the good drainage of the stadium that we were able to get a match. The match was shortened to 15 overs per team. 

Dhoni won the toss and put Bangladesh in to bat. Obviously in shortened matches the side batting second has the advantage of knowing the score that it has to get. Indians bowled well till the 11th over, the Bangladesh scoring was in check. But once Mahmudullah came in to bat , he scored runs fast, right from the word go. He scored a super fast 33 of 13 balls. 

Mahmudullah is in excellent form and one can't help thinking that he is batting too low in the order, he should have been given more overs to bat, Bangladesh would have scored much more runs if he had batted at number four or number five. Mahmudullah scored lots of runs of Nehra and Pandya's bowling. Bhumrah bowled beautifully, he gave only 13 runs of his 3 overs.

For the first time in the series the pitch was a complete pata wicket. The bowl swung for the first few overs when Indians were batting other than that it was simply a batting paradise. In this match for the first time in Asia Cup Dhoni decided to open the bowling with Ashwin.

The first five balls that Ashwin bowled were great, a few of them were his newly developed slider that he balls of one finger. The slider swings a lot in air. The last ball of the first over was also an attempted slider, however it ended up being too full outside the off stump. Batsman Saumya Sarkar was able to hit that ball for a boundary. Ashwin was the other economical bowler in this match. He conceded only 14 of his allotted 3 overs. 

Indian start was not good. India lost the wicket of Rohit Sharma early in the second over. After a first few quite overs Dhawan and Kohli went after the bowling and were able to bring down the asking rate from around 9.5 runs per over to 8. The Bangladeshi bowlers bowled pretty well but the class of Shikhar and Virat made sure that India managed to keep up with the asking rate. Kohli played some crisp cricketing shots for boundaries, he scored runs very fast without taking too many risks. 

Shikhar took a few calculated risks and scored 60 of 44 balls. He was out caught brilliantly by Saumya Sarkar at point, had Sarkar missed the ball it would have gone crashing into the boundary. Dhoni came in to bat at 99/2 in 12.4th  over. In the next two balls 3 runs were scored. India needed 19 runs of the last two overs. This is when the Dhoni show began, Al - Amin(whose bowling action seems suspect) came in to bowl. The first ball that Dhoni faced was hit over wide long on for a six. 

In the fourth ball of that over Dhoni was on strike again, he hit the ball for a one bounce boundary over wide long off. Now India needed 5 runs of 7 balls. Dhoni hit the next ball for a six over mid wicket. Thus India won the match by 8 wickets with 7 balls to spare. 

It was a wonderful final which saw the best two teams competing in the final. Bangladesh has outplayed Sri Lanka and Pakistan in this tournament. Bangladesh can be proud of their performance. Their performance has been at par with the best since the World Cup. There is immense passion for cricket in Bangladesh and it is great to see that the nation is emerging as a power house of cricket. 

Alternative if Pakistan does not play the T20 Cricket World Cup

There is some controversy regarding Pakistan refusing to send a team to play the T20 cricket world cup. The less we talk about Pakistan's recent performances the better. The batsmen and fielders performances have been really pathetic(The only thing that has saved Pakistan from disgrace is their bowling unit).  So even if Pakistan does not play the T20 World Cup it won't make much of a difference.

In a situation where Pakistan indeed does not play the World Cup, how can ICC make up for it? Every country has players who are good enough to play for the national side but they are unable to make it to their national squads. So ICC can consider creating a cricket team out of all players of the Test playing nations who are currently not a part of the their respective country's playing XI.

We can call such a team World XI. It would not only make up for the absence of Pakistani squad, but it would also give an opportunity to the lesser known but talented players. It would be wonderful to see players from different countries playing together in a World Team.

The players in such a team would be pumped up since that would be a wonderful opportunity for them to prove that their respective boards have done a great mistake by not picking them in their national teams. If the World XI does manage to win the world cup , it would be an achievement that the entire cricket loving world would cherish. 

ICC and BCCI should not give into dirty and pedestrian publicity tactics of PCB. The World Cup can happen without Pakistan.

Asia Cup final

Tomorrow India and Bangladesh play the final of the Asia Cup. It promises to be an exciting match. India won all four matches in the league stage of the Cup. Bangladesh lost to India but it was able to beat the other three teams that  included Pakistan and Sri Lanka. 

The league match between Bangladesh and India was won convincigly by India. India lost early wickets in that match however after Rohit's catch was dropped, he went hammer and tongs after Bangladeshi bowling. On a lively wicket, Indian were able to score the higest total of the tournament. 

Bangladesh is a highly spirited and improved side. India cannot take it lightly, but India does stand a good chance to win the match looking at its current form and performances, of the last 9 matches India played, it has won 8. Tomorrow's match promises to be thrilling encounter, although Bangladesh will have home advantage, India will go into the match as all out favorites.