Cricket Blog

In recent news, BCCI has made advance payments to a host of international players who are signed up to play in next year’s Indian Premier League. It has been reported on Cricinfo.com that Shane Warne is the highest paid of all with $400,000 as his sign-on fee. Glenn McGrath and Stephen Fleming were the second highest paid stars getting $350,000 each. The following is a list of all the players who have received their contracts so far:

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A new controversy seems to have erupted in Australia between Cricket Australia and about 11 players who have signed an MoU with the BCCI for the proposed IPL to be held next year. CA chief executive Mr James Sutherland expressed his disappointment in a letter to the players. According to the letter, Sutherland had this to say:

“You will no doubt be aware that this MOU sees you providing undertakings that will put you in conflict with your obligations to CA and/or your state association. In this context, I am disappointed that you have chosen not to discuss or advise CA of your decision.”

It will be interesting to see what would happen when the IPL itinerary clashes with any of Australia’s tours. The lure of the cash could very well prove to be too tempting for some players who are on their final legs of their careers. It’s going to get very interesting.

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The BCCI selectors announced the 14 man squad that will take on the Pakistanis in the first 2 tests. Final impressions is that this is a squad that is based more on political-wrangling than any common sense. For example, why do they have 3 spinners in as we all know that only 2 will ever get to play. With Kumble the captain the other logical selection would certainly be Harbhajan Singh. Instead of strengthening the top order, the selectors have gone ahead and included Murali Karthik as another spinner.

Gautam Gambhir has failed to make it to the test squad which is a real shame as he has been one of the most prolific batsmen for India in the last couple of months. The selectors should have awarded his performance by giving him a test spot. The fact that hasn’t happened and Murali Karthik has found a place is really very annoying. Karthik has only performed in the last couple of weeks, and he gets a spot.

Atleast the rest is pretty predictable. The openers, Jaffer and Karthik did extremely well in England so they get to retain their positions. The Big 3 take care of the middle order. Dhoni is the wicketkeeper-batsman. The real tough decision would be the toss up between Yuvraj and Laxman. Yuvi has been in absolutely scintillating form in the shorter format and he should be given the first chance over Laxman who hasn’t played since the English Test series which was a couple of months ago. This is where Kumble’s first challenge will be.

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Further to the growing list of players joining the two leagues, more Australians have confirmed signing up to the IPL. The ever-growing list now also includes the following:

1. Ricky Ponting
2. Andrew Symonds
3. Brett Lee
4. Nathan Bracken
5. Michael Hussey
6. Adam Gilchrist
7. Brad Haddin
8. Matthew Hayden
9. Mitchell Johnson
10. Simon Katich
11. Jason Gillespie

This would seem like a reverse immigration to me to see so many Australians moving to India to play cricket. A few of them are on their final lap in their international career and the IPL offers an opportunity to move beyond Test and ODI cricket. Another outcome of this is going to be the different skills that they will eventually bring to Indian cricket. The above list of players have signed up for a total of $2,000,000 to be paid by the BCCI.

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The Indian selectors announced the squad for the first 2 one-dayers against Pakistan:

1. Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wk,capt)
2. Sachin Tendulkar
3. Sourav Ganguly
4. Gautam Gambhir
5. Virender Sehwag
6. Robin Uthappa
7. Rohit Sharma
8. Yuvraj Singh
9. Irfan Pathan
10. Praveen Kumar
11. Zaheer Khan
12. RP Singh
13. Sreesanth
14. Harbhajan Singh
15. Murali Kartik

Rahul Dravid’s omission is a big one. Besides that there are not a lot of surprises here, except for Virender Sehwag making a comeback and Praveen Kumar finding a place in the squad. Dinesh Karthik and Ramesh Powar have been left out. So has Piyush Chawla who has been struggling a little after his ankle injury during the T20 World Cup. Mohammad Kaif and Parthiv Patel have failed to reach the 15 yet again.

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