IPL and my thoughts

this is my first post on the blog. and the topic - IPL. cricket's been my passion right from my childhood, so what better topic than this?

yesterday, the players for the Indian Premier League were auctioned. MS Dhoni was bought by chennai super kings for a mind boggling 6 crore rupees! andrew symonds was the next big buy. the hyderabad franchise bought him for 5.4 crores. was an exciting day yesterday watching all the news channels and reading websites for news, and creating my own orkut community for IPL Hyderabad!

my admiration and respect for vvs seems to go up and up day by day. in this age when players are making hay while the sun shines, getting richer and richer evryday with endorsements and contracts, there's one guy who is still thinking for the team. vvs laxman turned down the 'icon' status which would have made him richer by atleast another crore in the interest of the team. vvs asked the hyderabad franchisee Deccan Chronicle to use the money on spreading the budget and buying better players instead of making him the icon player. there are 5 icon players right now - sahcin, dada, rahul, sehwag and yuvraj and all off them now earn around 4.5 crores compared to vvs laxman's 1.5 crore. a great sacrifice for the team... what a guy he is!

coming to the teams, my personal favourite is the hyderabad team, not just because its my hometown but because of the quality of players it has. andrew symonds, adam gilchrist, shahid afridi, herschelle gibbs, scott styris, rp sigh, rohit sharma, chamara silva, chaminda vaas, nuwan zoysa and one of my all time faves VVS Laxman. T20 needs big hitters, agile fielders and multi taskers. andy symonds is the best ODI player at the moment.. he can blast any bowling attack on his day single handedly. boom boom afridi - the name says it all! adam gilchrist - the greatest wicketkeeper-batsman ever and one of the hardest hitters of the ball, a bowler's nightmare, herschelle gibbs - electrifying fielder, a monster when it comes to hitting the cricket ball over the rope(he hit six sixes in one over in an ODI last year). rohit sharma and rp were instrumental in india's T20 world cup win. they are two youngsters who've shown great pormise. vaas is really stingy when i comes to giving away runs, and a genuine allrounder styris in the lineup is a big boost. chamra silva can play the anchorman innings when the batting fails, nuwan zoysa ia a decent buy too. a special mention for the most stylish batsman i've ever seen VVS laxman. it would be really interesting to see this unsung hero play T20 cricket. he's not the kind of player who would come and blast away a bowling lineup. he's more of a traditional batsman driving, flickng and nudging balls. he is not a dasher like gibbs, afridi, gilly and symonds. a fine sqaud i would say. there is not much promise in the hyderabad domestic circuit, which could be a big setback.

kolkata and chennai are two other teams which are quite strong. kolkata has dada as the captain, gayle opening, mccullum as the keeper, ponting, david hussey in the middle order, akhtar and gul to fire in those yorkers in the end overs and india's new pace sensation ishant in the squad. chennai has dhoni, murali, oram, fleming, ntini, mike hussey and the brilliant hayden in their squad. surely IPL is here to stay. looking forward to this championship.