India's World Cup squad has quite a few fixed positions -- when you get down to it, 15 men is a very small number for such a squad -- you basically get only 4 reserves, and one of those is a reserve keeper. Given the absence of Sehwag and Gambhir, many folks get to try to make their case in the coming weeks.
A number of those probables are staking their claim here -- Vijay, Kohli (though he has probably done enough to be in), Rohit Sharma and on the bowling front, Munaf Patel. Ashwin, Chawla, Sreesanth and Ishant Sharma, will also press their claims, as the absence of Praveen Kuman opens up the possibility of one of the other players making a big push for themselves.
On the South African front, no van Wyk, though I imagine he must get a go sometime. Tahir is in the squad but hasn't been capped, as both team go with their strongest XIs to begin with -- Yusuf Pathan will probably not play as much in South Africa, but will be quite useful in India.
Bharat
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Thanks to those of you who visited
A bunch of you folks showed up on this blog, some from rsc and some from Cricklinx, and I wanted to express my thanks. Amazingly, there have been over 350 vistors and 1000 page views in the last 2 weeks it has been up (after filtering out my own visits -- irritatingly Google doesn't let you do that automatically). Yes, yes, I know there are blogs with 1000 visits every hour, let alone over 2 weeks, but this far exceeds anything I had imagined by at least a factor of 10. Even ignoring my own visits (about 30 -- irritatingly Google has no way to ignore out my own visits), the results were interesting, so just to share some of the things that surprised me.
Traffic was fairly varied, averaging 15 visitors / day during Durban (when I just started) and 40 visitors / day during CapeTown (60 & 55 on Jan 6 & 7, when Cricklinx linked to my blog).
The bulk of the visits came from the US (250) and India (not much surprise, given the topic and focus of this blog). The #1 city was Bangalore (27 visits) and #2 were US cities (NYC, Edison, San Jose) all above 15 visits. Some of the places that surprised me were Cancun (3 visits), Stockholm (2), and a couple of visits from Brazil & Argentina! The world is truly becoming global.
Bharat
Traffic was fairly varied, averaging 15 visitors / day during Durban (when I just started) and 40 visitors / day during CapeTown (60 & 55 on Jan 6 & 7, when Cricklinx linked to my blog).
The bulk of the visits came from the US (250) and India (not much surprise, given the topic and focus of this blog). The #1 city was Bangalore (27 visits) and #2 were US cities (NYC, Edison, San Jose) all above 15 visits. Some of the places that surprised me were Cancun (3 visits), Stockholm (2), and a couple of visits from Brazil & Argentina! The world is truly becoming global.
Bharat
Very important events in Dubai not generating much interest.
The ICC Tribunal nears its end. The results may well be far reaching.
A "guilty" verdict, could be seen as a big boost to anti-corruption efforts, whereas a mere slap on the wrist will be viewed as "no one cares -- it keeps happening." With big money entering the game in shovelfuls, it is important that not only that the game be clean, that it appear to be clean.
At the other end of the scale is the human element. Three young men stand to lose their entire livelihood, for a crime that (if guilty) they may well have viewed as a no big deal ("I bowl deliberate no balls to intimidate batsmen all the time, so whats the big deal?"), and face public disgrace, financial ruin, or even jail time. Of particular poignancy, is that one is a potentially transcendent talent who is not even old enough to
drive, vote or order a drink in many countries.
The last event of similar magnitude I recall were the hearings where Cronje broke down. Yes these hearing pass with barely a ripple of interest, while the ongoing Tests, T20, and IPL auctions crowd the headlines.
Bharat
A "guilty" verdict, could be seen as a big boost to anti-corruption efforts, whereas a mere slap on the wrist will be viewed as "no one cares -- it keeps happening." With big money entering the game in shovelfuls, it is important that not only that the game be clean, that it appear to be clean.
At the other end of the scale is the human element. Three young men stand to lose their entire livelihood, for a crime that (if guilty) they may well have viewed as a no big deal ("I bowl deliberate no balls to intimidate batsmen all the time, so whats the big deal?"), and face public disgrace, financial ruin, or even jail time. Of particular poignancy, is that one is a potentially transcendent talent who is not even old enough to
drive, vote or order a drink in many countries.
The last event of similar magnitude I recall were the hearings where Cronje broke down. Yes these hearing pass with barely a ripple of interest, while the ongoing Tests, T20, and IPL auctions crowd the headlines.
Bharat
Morne van Wyk makes himself a shedload of money
In the IPL that is. Undrafted in the IPL, after his blitzkreig today (67 off 39) in the one-off T20, he will be in demand for sure. Talking about seizing the moment -- he is only in the squad because Graham Smith dropped out.
So who has cap room left? All the teams, but only significant amounts are Kings & Deccan with $2M each, and Pune with $1M. Kings will probably be cautious given their financial situation. Delhi has $750K and Mumbai $500K. I'm guessing at least $500K for Morne -- timing is everything. Had this game been held a few days ago, he may have been a lot richer.
The World Cup will surely throw up some stars (who will probably get popular in India). The wiser teams have retained some cap room to sign undrafted free agents at that time before IPL4 begins.
Bharat
So who has cap room left? All the teams, but only significant amounts are Kings & Deccan with $2M each, and Pune with $1M. Kings will probably be cautious given their financial situation. Delhi has $750K and Mumbai $500K. I'm guessing at least $500K for Morne -- timing is everything. Had this game been held a few days ago, he may have been a lot richer.
The World Cup will surely throw up some stars (who will probably get popular in India). The wiser teams have retained some cap room to sign undrafted free agents at that time before IPL4 begins.
Bharat
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)