Cricket: Squandered Chances

Cricket in any form is a game of glorious uncertainties. I will review four matches. There are couple of test matches and couple of them are IPl matches. These are namely :-

• Mumbai Indians vs Rajasthan Royals.
• New Zealand vs England.
• Australia vs West Indies.
• Kings Punjab vs Kolkata Night Riders.

Mumbai Indians vs Rajasthan Royals.

Mumbai have had many close matches but could no pull them off on many ocassion. Mumba's loss is Delhi's gain as they are virtually through to the semi-final. We (Mumbai India fans) would be praying that Chennai loses their match and hope that Royal Challenger are taken to the cleaners by us. It would be a very intersting scenario if Chennai are to lose.But it will be an uphill task for them to lose against tournaments biggest losers, Deccan Chargers. The game of cricket remains one of great uncertainties.
If I were to pick a "scape-goat" it wold be Uthappa. The crowning glory of being a "scape-goat" is deserved and Robin Utappa is truly worthy of it. He has only showed what he cant do. In one of the match, Knight Riders was it? He came in with not many runs to get and Jayasuriya on strike.Uthappa stuck couple of boundaries got over the board and played a naive looking stroke only to get caught on mid-on. He gets start often and often thats the only contribution o n the field. But to be fair to Robin he is an opener and not given that slot. Tendulkar and Jayasuriya in the squad nobody would even dare to dream of opening.
But Mumbai have been luckier than Royal Challenger.Takwale mean while hit 25 of last over to ensure that their is a sense of respectability in the score. It proved to handful for the Royals who score 32 of the last two overs. Shane Warne the man in charge. Warne, Watson, Smith, Tanvir, Pathan and Kaif form a very rigid core. The other memebers give more than what it is required and Rajasthan Royals looks to be ahead of other and favourites to win the IPL.

New Zealand vs England.

Everyone nows how poorly England play their first test match of a series especially first innings. But it was great to see that England actually won the first of three matches against New Zealand. Ross Taylor creamed a score of 150 and England collapse to 200 something giving them a very big deficit. But they pull backed. New Zealand were caught in a Full Monty show, as Monty took 6 blackk kap wickets.
There was however a big task to score nearly three hundred, Andrew Strauss coming with a century and mopping it up for England.
So England coming from behind to win this one.

Australia vs West Indies.

West Indies seem to be in a hangover. The hangover has lasted for more than one and a half decades. They still lok themselves in the mirror and imagine what they use to be. The reality is that they are perhaps on the bottom of the list of test playing nations.
They however came close to claim a win over the Aussies. They reduced Aussies 17 for 5 but that Symonds stuck a good 79 which ensure West Indies were chasing a score of more than 250. A good score in the fourth innings to hunt down. West Indies were 96 for 6. The fate was sealed after feeling sorry for WI, I went to sleep and Aussies completed the formalities of winning one more game coming back from the back door.

Kolkatta Knight Riders vs Kings Punjab.

Sharukh vs Preity. ham vs Jaadu ki Jhappi, Yuvraj vs Maharaj. Punjab set Kolkatta a highest score to chase in the ever low scoring Eden Gardens. They looked down and out until a wicket fell. Umar Gul came to the crease hit three sixes in double quick time. Ganguly cut lose and kept on pelting sixes one after the other. Kolkatta came close to victory when Pathan came to bowl to Ganguly. Ganguly creamed first one for six and thats was the game for me. Kolkatta came back to win over Punjab and this was when they were down and out.

Moral of the story.

Cricket is a sport of glorious comebacks.