IPL warns Pietersen for showing dissent

Bangalore Royal Challengers skipper Kevin Pietersen has been warned by the Indian Premier League for showing dissent over an umpiring decision during his side’s embarrassing 92-run loss at the hands of Chennai Super Kings on Monday.

Pietersen received an official warning from the IPL for objecting his first-ball leg before wicket dismissal to Sri Lanka veteran spinner Muttiah Muralitharan.

Although Pietersen escaped the charge, match referee Gundappa Viswanath found the 28-year-old England batsman responsible of level one offence after he showed his anger at Australian umpire Simon Taufel’s decision.

Pietersen, who felt that he was unsuccessful as he nicked the ball, displayed a meaningful stare at his bat after the decision.

“I think I got a little nick on it, but such is life,” Pietersen was quoted.

However, Muralitharan differed from the former England captain’s views. “I didn’t think he edged it and nor did Mahendra Singh Dhoni that’s why we appealed. It’s up to the umpire to make the decision.”

Pietersen, thus, became the first player in the edition of the IPL 2009 to have been found at the wrong side of the MCC’s Spirit of Cricket doctrine.

IPL Score Card

Indian Premier League, 2009     Bangalore Royal Challengers vs Chennai Super Kings, 5th match

Venue         St Georges Park, Port Elizabeth, April 20, 2009

Umpires     Brian Jerling (SA) and Simon Taufel(Aus)
Third Umpire     Russell Tiffin (Zim)
Match Referee     Gundappa Viswanath (Ind)

Toss             Chennai Super Kings (Elected to bat)

Match Status         Chennai Super Kings won by 92 runs

Man of the Match     Muttiah Muralitharan

Chennai SuperKings Innings

Batsmen                            Runs     Balls     4′s     6′s     SR
Parthiv Patel         b K Pietersen             30     26     2     1     115.38
Matthew Hayden         run out (R Dravid)         65     35     9     2     185.71
Suresh Raina         c V Kohli b P Kumar         28     29     1     1     96.55
M.S. Dhoni(c)(wk)     c R Bishnoi b P Kumar         16     14     0     1     114.29
Andrew Flintoff     not out             22     13     2     1     169.23
Albie Morkel         b D Steyn             5     3     1     0     166.67
Subramaniam Badrinath
Joginder Sharma
Manpreet Gony
Laxmipathy Balaji
Muttiah Muralitharan

Extras     b – 0, lb – 5, w – 8, nb – 0     13

Total (179 for 5 in 20 overs)           179     Run Rate: 8.95

Fall Of Wickets     1/106 (Parthiv Patel, 10.1 ov.),2/106 (Matthew Hayden, 10.2 ov.), 3/144 (Mahendra Singh Dhoni,
15.6 ov.), 4/165 (Suresh Raina, 18.6 ov.), 5/179 (Albie Morkel,19.6 ov.)

Bowler             O     M     R     W     NB     WB     ER
Praveen Kumar         4     0     37     2     0     0     9.2
Dale Steyn         4     0     35     1     0     2     8.8
Jacques Kallis         2     0     28     0     0     0     14.0
Vinay Kumar         1     0     12     0     0     0     12.0
Virat Kohli         1     0     9     0     0     0     9.0
Anil Kumble         4     0     26     0     0     1     6.5
Kevin Pietersen     3     0     14     1     0     0     4.7
Ross Taylor         1     0     13     0     0     1     13.0

Bangalore Royal Challengers Innings

Batsmen                            Runs     Balls     4′s     6′s     SR

Praveen Kumar         b M Gony             0     3     0     0     0.00
Robin Uthappa(wk)     st M Dhoni b M Muralitharan     20     19     2     0     105.26
Jacques Kallis         lbw b A Morkel             24     19     5     0     126.32
Ross Taylor         c & b A Flintoff         1     4     0     0     25.00
Kevin Pietersen(c)     lbw b M Muralitharan         0     1     0     0     0.00
Rahul Dravid         c A Flintoff b L Balaji     20     18     2     0     111.11
Virat Kohli         c S Badrinath b J Sharma     11     13     0     1     84.62
Rajesh Bishnoi         c L Balaji b M Muralitharan     0     1     0     0     0.00
Vinay Kumar         c M Hayden b L Balaji         5     6     0     0     83.33
Dale Steyn         run out (S Raina/M Dhoni)     0     3     0     0     0.00
Anil Kumble         not out             1     5     0     0     20.00

Extras     b – 0, lb – 1, w – 4, nb – 0     5

Total (87 for 10 in 15.2 overs)           87     Run Rate: 5.67

Fall Of Wickets:     1/0 (Praveen Kumar, 0.3 ov.), 2/40(Jacques Kallis, 5.2 ov.), 3/47 (Ross Taylor, 6.5 ov.), 4/49
(Kevin Pietersen, 7.3 ov.), 5/50 (Robin Uthappa, 7.5 ov.), 6/65(Virat Kohli, 10.6 ov.), 7/66 (Rajesh Bishnoi, 11.1 ov.), 8/74
(Vinay Kumar, 12.4 ov.), 9/78 (Dale Steyn, 13.3 ov.), 10/87(Rahul Dravid, 15.2 ov.)

Bowler             O     M     R     W     NB     WB     ER
Manpreet Gony         3     0     24     1     0     2     8.0
Laxmipathy Balaji     2.2     0     18     2     0     0     7.7
Albie Morkel         2     0     12     1     0     1     6.0
Andrew Flintoff     3     0     11     1     0     0     3.7
Muttiah Muralitharan     4     1     11     3     0     0     2.8
Joginder Sharma     1     0     10     1     0     0     10.0

IPl 2009 Point Table:

Team        Mts    W    L    Tied    N/R    Pts    NRR

Delhi        1    1    0    0    0    2    3.17
Hyderabad    1    1    0    0    0    2    2.85
Chennai     2    1    1    0    0    2    1.83
Mumbai        1    1    0    0    0    2    0.95
Bangalore    2    1    1    0    0    2    -0.43
Kolkata        1    0    1    0    0    0    -2.85
Punjab        1    0    1    0    0    0    -3.12
Rajasthan    1    0    1    0    0    0    -3.75

Is Two Legend of Indian Cricket facing tough competition in this IPL 2009?

Had it been 10 years back, I would have split it (T20 format) easy,” was Rahul Dravid’s caustic response after a rare Royal Challengers win in the Indian Premier League last season.

In that one line, Dravid probably indicated it all, not just for himself but for his old friend Sourav Ganguly as well. The two stalwarts of Indian cricket, who incidentally are icons of Royal Challengers and Kolkata Knight Riders respectively, are finding out that time has probably run out for them when it comes to T20 cricket.

The two supreme batsmen have just not been able to keep pace with the blitz of T20 cricket and the IPL 2009 has brought in nothing but humiliation, which the two probably didn’t deserve at this stage of their careers.

While Dravid has been replaced as RCB captain by the maverick Kevin Pietersen, KKR coach John Buchanan is adamant that he doesn’t want Ganguly to be the sole authority of his team.

The bottomline is that the two team managements simply don’t want Dravid or Ganguly to be automatic choices in the squad. In the world of ‘perform or perish’, there’s no place for players just because they form an emotional connect with the fans of a particular city.

The tournament being shifted to South Africa has only helped the owners’ cause and a couple of slip-ups on the bouncy tracks of South Africa will surely mean the end of the road in the IPL for Dravid and Ganguly.

The ‘icon’ tag, though, doesn’t weigh so heavily on the Little Master. Sachin Tendulkar was nowhere near his best in the last IPL, nor did his team, Mumbai Indians, make the semifinals. But not a finger was pointed at Tendulkar.

It has probably got a lot to do with the belief that Tendulkar can do whatever he pleases. The Mumbai maestro has made it clear that he won’t play international T20 cricket but there’s bound to be a burning desire within to show the world that this is child’s play for a man with 85 international centuries.

Did fitness lead to Dada’s ouster?

Is it in the fitness of things that Sourav Ganguly has been done away with? After Kolkata Knight Riders decided to announce Brendon McCullum as captain of the team for Sunday’s match against Team Hyderabad in Indian Premier League, talk of Ganguly’s fitness, or the lack of it, and team owner Shah Rukh Khan not being happy with it, has started doing the rounds here.

Those in the Khan camp say they have no idea about the exact reason why Ganguly has been sidelined. But they are ready to bet their money on the fact that it is Ganguly’s fitness that irked the owner and coach John Buchanan the most.

This is not something new, though. There were signs last year itself, just that it never came out in the open, said the official.

However, Indyalive had learnt of Khan giving his team members a pep talk on phone earlier and two days ago in person about how Ganguly would remain the leader and that the players needn’t worry as to who they would be playing under.

However, Friday’s decision came as a shocker for the former India captain who, say sources, had no clue about it.

Khan apparently became a McCullum fan from the day he cracked that 158 in Bangalore in the Season 1 opener. Since then, says an official, the Bollywood superstar had set his eyes on the wicketkeeper batsman and his abilities as a key Twenty20 performer.

Ganguly is not getting along with Buchanan and that is the worst kept secret in IPL 2009 circles. However, why Khan too made his discontent public with his latest decision has come as a surprise to even his own officials.

IPL 2009 opening ceremony held today

The opening ceremony of the most expected the IPL 2009 second season is going to hold today night. The Cape Town is fully prepared to celebrate the lightning ceremony but the matches will be kicked off on April 18, 2009. Tomorrow, the inaugural match will be grounded between IPL Mumbai vs IPL Chennai and IPL Bangalore vs IPL Rajasthan  Newlands, Cape Town. The viewers can watch it in TV channels from diffrents parts of the Globe.

Nine floats, one for each of the eight teams plus one for the IPL cricket, made their way along one of the main streets, accompanied by energetic Indian dancers and brass bands drawn from the local community.

More than 150 cricketers were in attendance, as were Bollywood stars Shah Rukh Khan, Preity Zinta and Shilpa Shetty, part-owners of the Kolkata Knight Riders, Kings XI Punjab and Rajasthan Royals respectively.

The final match will be held in Johannesburg on 27 May just a few days of the second season of the ICC Twenty20 world championship 2009 that will he inaugurated by England this year.

IPL seek bullet-proof buses

Cricket’s lucrative Indian Premier League is shopping for bullet-proof buses and cars to protect its star players even as the fate of the tournament remained uncertain on Friday.

The Times of India said a South African private security firm hired by the multi-million dollar Twenty20 league had approached a local company to buy 16 special buses and 64 armored SUV’s – worth roughly 3.1 million dollars in all.

The scramble for additional protection came last week in the wake of the deadly attack against the Sri Lankan team in Pakistan on March 3, which killed eight Pakistanis and injured seven players. But the paper pointed out that with demand high from Indian politicians campaigning for next month’s general elections, the IPL may be unable to buy shielded vehicles at such short notice.

The report comes as the IPL remained embroiled in a row with the Indian government over security. Less than a month before the scheduled opening on April 10, the home ministry has still not cleared the tournament because it clashes with parliamentary elections.

The IPL is due to be held April 10 to May 24, while the elections take place across the country in five phases from April 16 to May 13, with counting of votes on May 16.The government wants the 59-match schedule to be adjusted in such a way that states hosting games do not have to pull out security forces on election duty to guard the tournament.

Indian Premier League

Now it is confirmed that Indian Premier League (IPL) will be held outside India for this season. The schedule has been announced as well for the season 2009. Even many people disappointed due to change in venues from India to South Africa. Is this move a clear one? Were there any open options available with IPL committee to carry out this six weeks event India? What does that mean to India and rest of the world? While thinking about the whole story, a number of thoughts floated over my mind regarding cricket, which is a religion in this country and here is an excerpt of those.

The first thought coming is the IPL committee uninformed of General Elections while planning for season 2? That can’t be a possibility; Indian media has been producing tons of programs about this major democratic event in the world for over a year now. Even if they had thought about the timing, did they fail to estimate the security concern?

Now second thought that national interest should be given priority. Does that mean we don’t have enough security forces in India to manage both electoral process and sports event? In my view, it would be wrong to politicize sports related issues. The money spent by IPL team franchisees is Indian money but the returns will be reaped by South Africa now. It is indeed a huge blow to Indian market and couldn’t have come at the most awful time.