Dirk Nannes is the latest overseas star to sign up for next season’s Twenty20 Cup (following Adam Gilchrist’s move to Middlesex and the various other county comings and goings), having been snapped up by Nottinghamshire.

The Dutch-Australian fluent Japanese speaker and skiing enthusiast is widely regarded as a Twenty20 specialist, and given his success with Delhi, Victoria and Middlesex in the past (not to mention a certain incident over the summer), it’s hard to argue with Notts director of cricket Mick Newell’s assertion that Nannes is “the most effective Twenty20 bowler in the world“. If Graeme Swann, Samit Patel and Ryan Sidebottom are all available to their county over the summer, then the Outlaws will have quite a bowling line up in the short format next year.

Sehwag, Dilshan, Pollard, Dwayne Bravo, Lendl Simmons, Dirk

I rest my case.

Add to that the T&T spin trio and Amit Mishra, Darren Ganga, Gambhir, Owais Shah and Darren Bravo, and two good hitters in the Dinesh and Denesh. See, even the keepers are almost identical, in name and style.

I don’t know about everyone, but I think these are the two most exciting teams of the tournament.

If Delhi can just continue on the momentum they have built up since they lost to Victoria, we might well be on that course. Now that Victoria have lost to the Cobras, it has become even tougher for Delhi, and they’ll need to win against Bangalore today and against the Cobras, and then hope the net run rate is also good enough.

We can almost be assured that T&T will go through to the semi’s so I’m glad I’d thrown my weight behind them in the first place. I cannot find words to describe Pollard yesterday. The best I heard around was “awesomesauce”, which is pretty awesomesauce in itself.

Sehwag seems to be on quite a rampage right now.

After the first round of matches has completed, four of the 12 teams have gone home. Eight progress through to the second round and from here we will lose 50% of the teams until we are finally left with one.

The impressive teams to date have been New South Wales and the Cape Cobras. New South Wales are a team to die for and have ridiculous depth for a provincial side. Players such as David Warner, Phil Hughes, Simon Katich are good enough but then they have an all international bowling line-up of Brett Lee, Nathan Hauritz, Stuart Clark and Doug Bollinger. They are a fantastic side, easily won both of their first two matches and will take some beating.

The Cape Cobras are just as star-studded. They have Herschel Gibbs, JP Duminy and Justin Ontong. They are capable of turning something into nothing and are a very dangerous side.

From Group B, the Eagles advance with NSW after defeating Sussex in a bowl-off.

From Group C, Bangalore will join the Cobras in the last eight. With Anil Kumble, Mark Boucher, Rahul Dravid, Jacques Kallis, Dale Steyn, Roelof van der Merwe and Vinay Kumar there is a strong Indo-South African flavour to the side.

From Group D, the Delhi Daredevils and Victoria are progressing. All sides won one and lost one and both of these sides will be a stern challenge to the Cobras and Bangalore. The Devils are a good side. They did very well in the IPL this year and in Tillakaratne Dilshan, Dirk Nannes, Virender Sehwag  and Amit Mishra they have a quality squad.  Victoria and the Cobras will hold the advantage of bringing two points with them from the group stage.

Group A wasn’t decided until the final ball of competition. Somerset joined Trinidad and Tobago in the second round when Deccan lost to the West Indian side by three runs. The defending IPL champions bow out of the competition without winning a match and in both instances they were very unlucky.

It is good for West Indian cricket that Trinidad and Tobago go through to the next round. They are somewhat of a dark horse with the cricket betting world. There are two sides from India, Australia and South Africa in the final eight with one each from the West Indies and England. Each side only plays twice in the second round so those teams who bring points through with them only have to win once to advance to the final four.  This is a huge advantage and you would expect all four to progress.

David Wiseman writes for this blog. He also writes about the Melbourne Cup.

The Champions League Twenty20 (CLT20) tournament brings together domestic leagues from seven nations as they clash for the top spot in Twenty20 cricket this October in India. The overall prize money the competition offers is a staggering USD six million dollars. The winner will take home USD 2.5 million dollars – the total prize money for the ICC World T20 held in England earlier this year

Meat never tasted so effing good.

There can be no to ways about it.

Sehwag is a friggin bear-man. Nothing else needs to be said about him. He feasts on opening bowlers for breakfast, spinners for lunch, and part-timers for dinner. He once had a one-night stand which lasted 2 weeks.

In the ongoing CL, he decided announce his return to form treating the Wayamba side like an evil red-headed stepchild.  His 66 off 42 deliveries strangely contained only 1 six, which comes as a bit of a surprise, as we’ll shortly see. What was even more worriesome for opposition in future is that he’s equally agressive along the ground. Some of his strokes, especially the wristy on-side ones are turning out to be things of beauty.

Oh, and about that one 6, sample this from a recent cricinfo interview:

Once Gary Kirsten asked me, “What would you do if there is a long-off, long-on and deep midwicket?” I asked, “Gary sir, do fielders matter to me?“

Enough said.  Let’s clear the damn ropes next time. Bowlers, say your prayers.

On the other hand, the way Ross Taylor goes about abusing and molesting the opposition bowlers is reaching near censorship levels. Just to prove last game wasn’t a fluke, he did it again today. In the last over of the innings, Taylor decided to go apeshit on Otago. If there’s such a thing called painfully beautiful, this must have been it. Taylor proceeded to decleat Butler first. After 3 deliveries , Butler decided that he had enough of this, and came off with an injury (injured pride perhaps). Poor McSkimming wasn’t spared either, with Taylor pulling off 3 incredible hits, especially one which he almost swept for six just a few inches of the ground.  Dude’s blessed with extreme quickness of hand and field awareness.

When these 2 predators are on, it can really get ugly, in a good way.

So I conveniently disappeared after wishing New Zealand into the finals of the Champions Trophy.

I know the Australians looked strapping in their uber-cool white jackets, and I know I couldn’t bother to give credit to them for defending their title. Sorry guys, if you hadn’t won so much in the first place, I wouldn’t be like this.

I know the Australians won it, but if you ask me this was Pakistan’s tournament for the taking. Over-confidence did them in. But that’s what the tournament was. Except for the finals probably, most of the results were complete reversals of the expected. England beat the Lankans and the Saffers. Are you telling me someone expected that?

That whole match-fixing fiasco in Pakistan is a disgrace. Come on, it’s one thing blaming India for everything wrong, but paying off Australian umpires is ridiculous.

So the world has moved from South Africa to India, to the Champions (again) League.

Originality is not the strong point it seems in the cricketing market-minds.

It’s so hard that writing “Champions League live streaming” gets me flooded with football links. Come on guys, it’s hard enough finding a link in any case.

Anyway in the Champions League, JP Duminy was so damn awesome yesterday. It was breathless stuff. I just saw the highlights. I can’t really bother trying hard enough to watch each of these gazzilion matches coming up. So I’m going to let the others get excited and catch the good bits on highlights.

Hope the League throws up a lot of excitement. Not like today’s Delhi and Victoria, when I was really hoping Sehwag would blast his way back.

Club cricket takes a new turn this week with the inaugural Twenty20 Champions League. Here’s a brief run-down of the sides involved:

• The Cape Cobras, although without the injured Graeme Smith, will still have plenty of firepower with JP Duminy and Herschelle Gibbs the main threats. The lack of access to the large pool of overseas talent that the IPL teams will enjoy could be an issue, though, as could a lack of familiarity with subcontinental conditions from the non-internationals amongst the squad.

• The Deccan Chargers boast a wealth of talent, with Adam Gilchrist, Andrew Symonds, Chaminda Vaas and Scott Styris all in the squad alongside Indian players of the quality of Laxman and RP Singh. One of the IPL sides will be expected to win the competition, and the Chargers will certainly fancy their chances.

• The Delhi Daredevils pulled off a coup in securing Dirk Nannes‘ services for the tournament, and some of his fellow Victorians may be cursing that decision on Friday when he could well open the bowling against the Australian side. Meanwhile, Gambhir, Sehwag and Dilshan could be an irresistable top order combination if they all hit form. The loss of Paul Collingwood to injury is unlikely to be felt too deeply (except by Collingwood himself, who has ‘a little niggle in his buttock’, no less).

• The Eagles are on paper the weakest team in the competition, but the likes of Dillon du Preez and Ryan McLaren have overseas experience, and Twenty20 competitions have proved ripe for surprising results in the past, so they shouldn’t be underestimated.

• New South Wales could upset the IPL hegemony, with the likes of Simon Katich and the famously big-hitting David Warner providing the runs, whilst Stuart Clark, Nathan Hauritz and Brett Lee will be a potent attack. If the problems which the Australian national side had in the World Twenty20 can be overcome, then NSW could be heading home with some silverware to go with their international players’ natty new white jackets.

• Otago’s chief asset, as ever, is the power-hitting of Brendon McCullum, but brother Nathan can also contribute. Dimitri Mascarenhas, available as neither Hampshire nor Rajasthan have qualified, has a strong track record in this format with both bat and ball, and is a strong addition to the squad.

While the rest of the sports world obssess over football’s millionaires, the first installment of Champion’s League cricket arrives in India. There is a real buzz around the country who are hosting many sports tournaments over the coming year, including the Football World Cup next year.

English fans will be dissapointed to learn Paul Collingwood is not available to play for the Delhi Daredevil’s, as I am sure he is too. However, he didn’t play any part in the IPL matches, such is the high calibre of player competing in the Delhi franchise.

CMUMBAI: The Indian Premier League Season III (2009-10) could well be Virender Sehwag’s last with Delhi Daredevils. From the fourth year onwards don’t be surprised if you find the dashing cricketer heading to Mumbai Indians.

Though nothing has been finalised as yet, there are strong indications to that effect.

Sehwag recently resigned as captain of the Delhi outfit and signed up with Reliance 1, a new corporate team, whose owners are the same as Mumbai Indians. In fact, team owner Nita Ambani had personally visited Chandigarh to welcome Sehwag into the team, which made its debut with the JP Atray tournament. Though Sehwag played only one match, his team has made it to the semi-finals.

On Saturday, when he was asked about his decision to step down from the Delhi IPL team’s captaincy, during a promotional event in Mumbai, he said: “For two years we haven’t been able to reach the final. So I asked the team owners to try someone else’s luck, because my luck wasn’t working. Besides, we have only one more year left and after that nobody knows where Sehwag will go.”

Well, nobody knows now, but the Mumbai Indians know his value for sure.

Meanwhile, Sehwag reiterated that he had never said that he wasn’t interested in the Indian captaincy. “I had said I don’t want to be the vice-captain,” he said.

For the moment though, he is trying to get back to business after a shoulder injury which sidelined him for nearly four months. The Irani Trophy, beginning in Nagpur from October, he feels “would be a good tournament to test match fitness”.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/

The Morning Run

A full-blown civil war seems to be on at both the BCCI and IPL. In what was to be an internal show of power at BCCI between N Srinivas and Lalit Modi – IMG was removed as the event organiser stating dispropotionately high price for the termination. But in an unexpected move, the teams  (Knight Riders, Dare Devils & Royals) have written to IPL supporting IMG and citing roaring success the league has been in comparison to World T20 Cup and the sheer excellence of execution that IMG has shown. This starts a new tussle within the franchisees. Srinivas owns Chennai SuperKings while the rest are tacitly supporting Modi Con the IMG issue. And if this goes the usual way, head will roll and we all know who will not be going anywhere. Keep watching this space – it’s gonna get intertesting. Times of India story on the letters is available here.

After making his Victoria debut at the ripe old age of 29, going missing in Middlesex and briefly going Dutch, Dirk Nannes is set to establish himself as a key part of Australia’s One Day attack. Having made his ODI debut yesterday in Australia’s demolition of Scotland, ‘Dirty’ Dirk will be looking to make an impact in the two Twenty20 matches against England in Manchester, and he certainly has the pedigree to do so given his success in the Twenty20 Cup with Middlesex and in the IPL with Delhi.

Of course, I’m hoping he’s on the losing side on Sunday (assuming the fabled Manchester climate allows enough play for a result ), but seeing him in the flesh will be special.

After being out of action for over two months following a shoulder injury that needed surgery, dashing opener Virender Sehwag is hoping to return to top notch cricket through the ICC Champions Trophy next month.

I am hoping to play in the ICC Champions Trophy. My rehabilitation is going well, he said .Sehwag sustained the shoulder injury during the semi finals of the Indian Premier League in South Africa in May while captaining Delhi Daredevils against eventual winners Deccan Chargers.

He was in the Indian squad for the World T20 in England but could not play any part because of the injury to his right shoulder that needed surgery.

Sehwag underwent a surgery on June 11 after a lesion was identified in the injured shoulder and he was ruled out of action from between 12 to 16 weeks. The lesion was expected to heal in six weeks.

Indian team’s physio Nitin Patel was given the task of monitoring Sehwag’s rehabilitation process at the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore.The Champions Trophy, earlier termed the Mini World Cup, is also to be held in South Africa from September 22.

Ever wondered how come Sachin Tendulkar is endorsing Luminous inverters or Zandu balm? These are not quite the brands you associate with somebody who normally charges 6-8 crore per brand endorsement.

So Sachin comes a bit cheap these days because as part of his IPL contract with Mumbai Indians he also has to endorse the brands, which sponsor his team. No wonder then that the players are feeling a bit short changed.

“The IPL contracts are technically supposed to be only for the duration of the IPL. There still is a conflict of interest. The main sponsors who are sponsoring the players, there is a PEPSI situation and there is a COKE at the IPL. Definitely they are feeling the pinch and this will manifest itself during the time of the renewal, the value assessment of what someone brings to the table and how IPL contradicts this value. I think there will be issues like this and I think they will be detrimental to the interest of the player,” said Latika Khaneja, Managing Director of Collage Sports and Virender Sehwag’s manager.

The contract specifies that every player has to commit to at least 10 appearances for the sponsors of his IPL team and each of these appearances could last up to 8 hours. All this is in addition to the days they spend playing cricket for their IPL teams. But the big boss of the IPL says there is enough protection for the players’ interests as well, such as the fact that the brand has to use at least three members of the team in an ad campaign rather than trying to latch on to just one big name.

“They always knew what they were getting into. Players need to realise that IPL is a tournament where they get large sum of money, they need to be a part of the team and put their personal endorsements aside. They have to play with the team and work with the team. All the players around the world are happy to do so,” IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi said.

In Indian cricket ambush marketing have always caused problems and the IPL is no different. So Ishant Sharma and Virender Sehwag are with Pepsi but have to endorse rival brands coke and sprite because of their IPL teams.

“Well, there is no clash at all. This is standard system of business in sports and sponsorships all over the world. There is a personal endorsement and there is a team sponsorship arrangement this is practiced not only in cricket but in other sports as well. It is just one way of connecting with the fans.

“The needs of a franchise is slightly different from that of the national team, so this is just a marketing initiative where you want to reach out to the supporters and get more and more people involved with the franchise. I think what we are seeing is a major transformation in terms of how teams are promoted, how cricket is promoted, how matches and events are organised on a different scale.”

“There have been many changes because of the IPL. Where did you ever see a match being promoted as Sachin Vs Sehwag or Sehwag Vs Ganguly? A cricket match was a cricket match. These are changing times, the IPL is a commercially driven tournament. So you will see all kind of innovation. I do not think it reduces their profile or compromises their position in anyway. They are stars and will always remain stars and they do motivate and influence fans. So this is just one way of using their power to get to people,” Amrit Marthur, Delhi Daredevils CEO said.

But for the players it’s not just a question of whether their brand value is getting diluted, it’s also about getting a bigger share of the pie. Now that the IPL is officially listed as the sixth most valuable sports property in the world at about 8000 crore, the next set of player contracts in 2011 will certainly go through the roof.

IPL in the dugout

IPL - home to the starry eyed

The NFL is the world’s strongest sports brand according to Sports Pro Magazine. The National Football League, not surprisingly, is valued at a whopping $4.5 billion. That’s a little more than Major League Baseball, about double the value of the NBA, but still probably less than Larry King’s per show kitty.

In Sports Pro’s recent “most valuable brands survey”, the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket competition amazingly featured amongst the biggest brands too. Despite being only two years old, the IPL is valued at US$1.6 billion, or just under the cost of Mr. King’s monthly hairdressing bill. That’s when you know you’ve made it folks.

via The Sports Brand Review – News – NFL is the world’s biggest sports brand.

It’s not easy to be classified as a champion team when you finished dead last in last year’s championship. However, the Deccan Chargers from Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh) have done just that – from the zeroes of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2008 to the undisputed champions of IPL 2009, it has been one dream journey for this deadly combination of crack cricketers led by Adam Gilchrist.

Gilly receives the trophy from the South African President, Jacob Zuma…

Image: www.deccanchargers.com

No one doubted the potential of this team – they have a great mix of youth and experience, a cool combination of seasoned international pros and talented young Indian cricketers. But, in last year’s inaugural edition of the Indian Premier League Twenty20 cricket, the team simply failed to click. All that is history now!

Gilchrist took over as the captain from VVS Laxman for this year’s IPL that was shifted to South Africa since the Indian government could not provide security for the tournament, as the dates coincided with the General Elections. It was a blessing in disguise for the League as it helped to increase its popularity beyond Indian shores. Full credit goes to Cricket South Africa for organising a fantastic tournament at a very short notice. We all look forward to the big one – the 2010 FIFA World Cup. South Africans have proved to be great organisers and wonderful hosts!

For the Chargers, it was a superb team effort that took them all the way. Gilchrist and his fellow Aussie, the DC coach Darren Lehmann have managed to bring out the best in all their boys. Young cricketers like Tirumalasetti Suman, Rohit Sharma, Pragyan Ojha and Harmeet Singh have proved themselves on the big stage while seasoned international pros like RP Singh (who won the Purple Cap for taking the most number of wickets in the tournament), Herschelle Gibbs, Ryan Harris and Andrew Symonds made great contributions at crucial stages to keep the charge going. Not to forget Gilly’s sterling contribution – he not only shouldered the burden of keeping wickets while leading the team, but got the Chargers’ off to a flying start with his aggressive batting as an opener. Chasing a big target in a pressure semi-final against the highly rated Delhi Daredevils, Gilchrist played the knock of the tournament, single handedly demolishing the Daredevils’ attack with his incredible hitting. It was champion stuff from a champion cricketer!

The Royal Challengers Bangalore is another team that deserves apprecation. The boys from Bengaluru (Karnataka) finished second last in the IPL 2008 and made an ordinary start in this year’s edition. Anil Kumble lifted the RCB to a new level when he took charge as skipper. The Challengers put together a string of successive victories over top teams and knocked out last year’s runners-up, the Chennai Super Kings, in the second semi-final. They lost the final narrowly to the Chargers in a pressure cooker situation.

There is no doubt about the heroes of this year’s IPL, though. It has to be the Chargers from Hyderabad! A word of praise for T. Venkattram Reddy, the DC team owner. He solidly backed his team and could be seen in the team dugout with his boys when some other team owners chose the comfort of the hospitality box. The team is owned by the Deccan Chronicle, a reputed broadsheet and South India’s largest selling English language newspaper. I guess when you are the undisputed numero uno in one field, it tends to rub off on your other business ventures too!

I look forward to watching the Deccan Chargers in action at the T20 Champions League. As the Chargers’ cheerleaders and fans say: GO, Chargers! GO, Chargers! GO, go, go, go!!!

Thanks to Prakash, my fellow blogger at Kalugu for his contribution in putting this post together!

Indian Premier League (IPL) has come as a windfall for jobless youth in South Africa.

The 37-day tournament has not only provided the unemployed here some work, but also saved youth from being sucked into gang wars.  Read more :