CHANGE OF ROLES?

For the second innings in a row, Harbhajan Singh managed to upstage his more legendary teammates and scored a century.Harbhajan took four wickets in the first innings but could not make much of an impression on the New Zealand batsmen so far in the second innings.

Since announcing his arrival into the big league of test matches with a bang in Sri Lanka, Suresh Raina has failed to back his supporters. Even when he scored a half-century against the Australians, Raina looked extremely suspect when it came to the fast and rising balls. If one remembers correctly, Raina offered not so pleasant pictures when facing the short balls even in the IPL. What is worse is the fact that Raina tries a big shot and gets out as he did in the first innings of the Hyderabad test.But interestingly, Raina got the wicket of Ryder.

So is Harbhajan the new batsman and Raina the new off-spinner in the Indian team?

A POINT TO PROVE?

By his standards, Sachin Tendulkar did not have a good time so far in the IPL.But in the third edition, the great master seems to be determined in putting up a good show.

Sachin is all guns blazing and the latest team to fall prey to his bat is the one captained by Saurav Ganguly.The pitch seemed a bit tricky when the Knight Riders were batting but Sachin put all that to rest with another of his grand exhibition of stroke play.It was in the match against the Anil Kumble led Royal Challengers that Sachin paid dearly for his experiment of playing inside the line of the ball to the leg side.

The rich vein of form continues and recently a show on television wanted to know the reasons why Sachin is not willing to play T20 for the country.Let Sachin enjoy doing the thing that he loves the most-scoring runs for the team that he plays for.

Looks like Sachin wants to prove a point about playing in the IPL.

That is not good news for either the rival teams nor their bowlers.

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A LOSS TO TEST CRICKET

The lure of the IPL riches has made test cricket poorer with the speculation of Brett Lee likely to announce his retirement from test cricket.It was only a few months ago that Andrew Flintoff, an all-rounder of the highest class did the same.It is true that both of these players were battling injuries and more so the case with Flintoff

The present Australian team does not really miss Lee with many promising fast bowlers ready to wear the baggy green although the same cannot be said of the English test team without Flintoff.

Lee brought more than fast bowling to the team from down under. It was not uncommon to find Lee showing genuine appreciation for the exploits of the rivals.Even when he was on the receiving end, there was a smile for all to see.

There were doubts over his action when Brett Lee was first unleashed on the Indians but over the years, he silenced the critics.He played cricket the hard way without rubbing rivals the wrong way.That made Lee special.

In the past also, fast bowlers suffered injuries that led to changes in the bowling actions and a cut in the pace but with the likes of IPL offering easy cash, Lee and others have found an easy way out.The world of test cricket is a loser because of the chaddi (T20) cricket.

There are many memories associated with Lee on the cricket field.My most loved one is the straight drive from the bat of Sachin Tendulkar during the last Commonwealth Bank Series that thundered past the bowler to the boundary even before Lee could complete his follow through. Unlike the typical reaction from a fast bowler, Lee could afford a smile!

NO SURPRISE

The cat is out of the proverbial bag with the IPL supremo Lalit Modi saying in an interview to NDTV that there was a risk associated with Pakistan players. This comes as a surprise since Mr.Modi denied after the conclusion of the auction for the players that the BCCI had nothing to do with the decision of the team owners not to pick any of the 11 players from Pakistan who were available for purchase.

The full text of the interview is here:http://cricket.ndtv.com/storypage/ndtv/id/spoen20100126812/story20012010_185300.html

Technorati Tags: IPL,IPL3,CRICKET,LALIT MODI,INDIA,PAKISTAN