Pre-match: Away at RCB

Daredevils travel to Bangalore, with a surprise win in the bag. It was a very good performance in Kolkata, but it still was a surprise win. Just like the last match, we will be without Mahela and Kevin and ofcourse Ross Taylor, who unfortunately is injured very badly. That makes the team very weak, at least on paper.

On the other hand, the RCB squad is at full strength, with the likes of Gayle and Murali in their squad. We can just hope that they are rusty, and that we are not hit by Gayle force this evening.

Difficult it can be, but T20 cricket is full of surprises. Hoping for one today, again. Delhi all the way!

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Pre-match : Away at KKR

DD go against a strong KKR side in kolkata, missing key players like Warner, Taylor, Jayawardene, Pietersen etc. On the other hand, KKR have a problem of plenty, one the daredevils will love to have, but they wont. The crowd is known to be pirticularly hostile.In all the four years, DD have never won at the Eden Gardens.
But all of that counts for shit in 20 overs. Will we see a surprise DD win?

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Fresh Beginning

Unlike last year, this time the Daredevils' squad is strong. Complete with full time international players both from India and other countries. At the helm for his 5th time will be Captain Charismatic, Virender Sehwag. The dashing opener isn't in the best form but will be looking to turn his fortunes around in the competition.
Sharing the opening Duties will be David "pocket dynamite" Warner. The South Australian has gone from strength to strength, proving his mettle in all formats of the game.
Joining us this term for the first time are Mahela Jayawardene and Kevin Pietersen. Although both of them wont be available for the start of the IPL due to the ongoing England-Sri Lanka Series.
The middle order will be held by Ross Taylor, Venugopal Rao, Naman Ojha and Robin Bisht. Bisht will be the one youngster to look out for in this edition. He has dominated the domestic circuit, and has been the Highest Run-getter in the Ranji Trophy, amassing close to a Thousand runs.
The Bowling will be handled by Umesh Yadav, Irfan Pathan, Ajit Agarkar and Morne Morkel. Devils will also have the pace of Andre Russel and the Spin of Van der Merwe at their disposal.
Devils roster also boasts a whole host of youngsters who'll be looking to give the oldies a run for their place in the team.
The Coaching Staff remains the same as last year except the return of T.A. Shekhar. He was with the team in the first two editions, when we made it to the Semis.

All in all, the Daredevils this year have a fresh-look to their side. How the team performs, only time will tell. But the hopes are sure high!

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Report Card..."Team India"

Its time that the Indian Cricket Team stop taking their fan support for granted. This time, Dhoni should work, rather than making lame excuses. Sachin should play his natural game instead of developing an over-defensive mindset. like in the second innings. Indian bowlers should know that they can take wickets by making the opposition play like Praveen Kumar did, not by delivering short balls. The Indian's were overshadowed by England's performance in every field, be it batting, bowling, fitness or temperament.

BATTING

Absence of Virender Sehwag is clearly visible. The Indian opening never looked solid. In both innings, the top order failed to just stand there. Apart from class shown by Rahul Dravid, gritty second innings play by VVS Laxman and Raina, none other looked impressive. Sachin was not complete match fit(as told by MS Dhoni) and he missed out on displaying his shots in Lord's again. The middle order and lower middle order were always under pressure and fall to pieces. None of the tail-enders stood a chance against English bowling.

BOWLING

A bit unlucky in the bowling front. Zaheer's injury gave English batsmen a huge relief and Indian were a bowler short. Praveen bowler amazingly well in the first innings, swung the bowl everywhere. Ishant didn't looked in his elements. He bowled very short length deliveries and wasted energy. Harbhajan did what he could, stop runs from one end and build pressure but KP was too good for them. The early second innings went India's way. Indian bowlers made England to dance on their song till lunch. After lunch, the momentum faded and they recovered. Prior and Broad made quick runs after wards and forced India to bat 120-130 overs. Well, nobody can comment on whether Ishant's "Xtra Break" affected the rhythm or not.

It's sad that Indians are not complete match fit. I don't think anyone should be blamed rather than working on solution. Nor do I know if they deserve to be on top, but overconfidence will lead them nowhere but down, they better be aware of it.

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The first match Blues

As the English took control over the first test match at Lord's, questions were raised yet again about the adaptability of the Indian players.The Indian teams have always found it hard to play in overseas conditions. This trend was also observed in West Indies, tour of South Africa and the previous tours of Sri Lanka and Australia.

 But is it really down to lack of skill? 
I dont think so. In my opinion it is down to the lack of time given to these teams to get used to the conditions. Take for example this tour. The team arrived 2 days before the warm-up game, which was 3 days long, 1 week before the opening test match. Compared to this, teams like Australia and South Africa play arrive 3 weeks before the tour starts and play at least 2 warmup games.


So is it the fault of the BCCI?
I dont believe in that either. We are a 'cricket-hungry' nation. We need a packed schedule to fulfill our freakishly large appetite. That gives the schedulers no choice.

Okay Mr. Expert! Whats the way forward?
Squad Rotation. India has enough talent to fill two complete squads. This should be put to good use and hopefully perform better in tour-openers.

Till the time that happens, we can only pray we don't loose. Although I think a fit and firing Sehwag would change that.

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Lets not jinx it

If the MASTER scores You Know What, It will be his 100th You Know What in professional cricket and his First at Lord's.
We, your humble fans, wish you Best of Luck. Touch-wood!

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Straight from the field.!

The fans are at dismay after dull performance by both the Indian bowlers and batsmen in the three-day practice match against Somerset. Yes, nobody is happy, but then they haven't fully adapted to the conditions and surely will do so until the actual start. Raina's century might leave Dhoni a tough decision to pick between Yuvraj's experience and Raina's grit. Virender Sehwag will be dearly missed as he is out for at least a couple of matches.

A few positives include Zaheer's and Munaf's economical spells with some good amount of swing and a solid opening stand by Indian openers in the second Innings. Sreesanth's bowling was wavered and gave away plenty of runs bowling short deliveries. Amit Mishra scalped wickets but he too was inconsistent. Though, a good bowling performance can be expected from the Indian bowlers.

A lot of pressure will be there on this team, especially batsmen, because not a single player in the current team has scored a century at Lord's.! Also, a local newsletter pointed out:

"Even Agarkar has tasted feast of scoring century at Lord's.!.What keeps the Master Blaster away.?"

Maybe, The Master Blaster will answer the critics in his own fashion as always..i.e."action" (by posting a century).

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The Cricketing Delight.!

And here we are, at the start of a test series which has huge expectations and is bound to be exciting and "a fight to the wire". After the satisfactory performance by Indians against Caribbeans, they are up against a formidable opponent, the English team, which is going really good recently and posses the Home advantage. But they surely know that the World's No.1 team has what it takes to be at that spot.

The Cricketing world will be witnessing the 2000th match in the History of Test Cricket.!

Not only that. 

I'd be the 100th Test match between the two Test playing nations, i.e. India and England.!

And all of it to be at The Lord's Cricket ground.!!

...........

Aint we forgetting something.?.Yeah.!.The fans would be desperately praying for Tendulkar's 100th ton in International Cricket.. Well, doesn't matter which country you are from, what sport you love, you are bound to fall in the magic that Sachin has been performing since a couple of decades.!. And we surely will be eager to watch him crossing another milestone yet again at the Mecca of Cricket...

It's gonna be a hell lot's of entertaining cricket in coming weeks...so...stay glued.!

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Back Again

IPL was a disappointment. But the World cup brought some relief, specially when Viru hit those two towering sixes over long on at the Kotla. ( I was there!)

Now we shift our focus to the Indian team's visit to england.

ANGREZO ENGLAND CHHODO!

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Pride up at stake!

Citizens of Delhi are incredibly proud people and the Daredevils will be playing for all of Delhi tonight.
First game for new skipper James. He has changed the lokk of the team completely.
Young lads looking good, especially Varun and Nadeem have been very impressive.
Warner's form has dipped after a flying start. Daredevils will be looking to him to give a good performance in the absence of his counterpart Viru.
All the best to our team.
Daredevils forever in victory and in defeat!

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