Blog Posts by AR Hemant

What began with a tirade against cricket on an extreme-right Hindu website has now become a laugh-fest of epic proportions.

Is there such a thing as a template for good results in a World Cup? West Indies had exceptionally strong batting and vicious pace. In 1983, India batted deep and had many swing and seam bowlers. Australia in 1987 didn't lose a single tight match with their deceptive slow bowlers. Pakistan peaked late in 1992, but did it with steady build-ups and explosive finishes. Between 1999 and 2007, Australia were — well — Australia.

Since Sri Lanka won the last Cup in the sub-continent, it is important to analyse how they did it. They had explosive openers, a middle order that didn't let the momentum slip and an army of slow bowlers. Compare that with India in 2011. After the two warm-up games, it seems MS Dhoni has finally found the template for World Cup success — dominating the middle overs.

In ODIs, all teams look to make the most of the first and last 10 overs. But this World Cup will be won by the team that controls the middle overs and Powerplays the best. A month back in South

It’s official now. Praveen Kumar won’t play the 2011 World Cup. The swing bowler has failed to recover from the elbow injury he’d suffered in South Africa.

He is expected to be replaced by Sreesanth, but more details are awaited. Sreesanth has undergone a fitness test at the National Cricket Academy.

Praveen had been recuperating at Bangalore’s NCA and had also been sent to England for treatment. But the injury turned out to be more serious than thought earlier.

The World Cup tournament rules allow the BCCI to request for a substitution. This request is referred to the event technical committee which includes Ratnakar Shetty, Anil Kumble, Sanjay Manjrekar, David Lloyd, etc and is headed by ICC’s general manager Dave Richardson.

Sreesanth was brilliant in patches in the Tests against South Africa. He had also taken seven wickets in two ODIs against New Zealand. In recent outings, he’s shown a higher degree of control.

Then, there’s Ishant Sharma who’d been a disappointment in the

With the World Cup less than a month away, there could be two ways to look at India's disastrous batting in the ODIs series against South Africa. One, look at it in absolute terms - in which case, India's top order without Tendulkar, Sehwag and Gambhir was a train-wreck.

Murali Vijay made 18 runs in three innings, and in five innings each Rohit Sharma 49 runs, Yuvraj Singh 91, Suresh Raina 111 and captain MS Dhoni 75. There were bright spots in Yusuf Pathan and Virat Kohli, but this isn't enough.

With that unbelievable hundred in Centurion, Yusuf looks like the man whose time has come.And if that is so, he should no longer be pushed down to No. 7 while an off-colour Yuvraj continues to bat higher up. The lessons of the 2007 World Cup have been forgotten; India still judge players by their reputation rather than form.

Let's not kid ourselves with Yuvraj's bowling, or even Harbhajan Singh's batting. Yuvraj needs to score runs, Harbhajan needs to strike out batsmen. Anything

Aakash Chopra was one in the motley group of cricketers who moved to Rajasthan this season. The former Delhi opener can't pin-point the exact moment when this bunch from different states and cultures came together — he calls it the "McDonald's moment", a la Chak De India — but one incident stands out in his memory.

"We were playing in the Buchi Babu Tournament against Tamil Nadu," Chopra says. "The light had faded away, and it was a really tight game. Suddenly, Deepak Chahar decided he wanted to bowl. He grabbed the ball, wiped out the Tamil Nadu tail, and we won by five runs."

It was one of the many incidents that united this motley bunch, which had cricketers who'd left their home states and their comfort zones, coming to a politically volatile cricketing set-up in Rajasthan. The turmoil may not have been incidental to the fact that Rajasthan took the wooden spoon in the Ranji Trophy Plate Division in the previous season.

From being one of the lowest ranked domestic teams

As the IPL auctions for 2011 come to an end, we cast a glance on the new line-ups, possible captaincy options, team spend and players retained.

Some quick thoughts:

Defending champs Chennai have retained an astonishing number of players, 10 11. The next best are Mumbai and Rajasthan with four.

There's lots of noise about fans boycotting KKR at the Eden. They've got to realise Ganguly wasn't a KKR problem; the other nine teams didn't consider him either. It's clear there's a non-cricketing reason behind Ganguly's removal. He was the fourth highest run-maker in IPL 2010.

On a whole, it is sad Ganguly waited to be shown the door. It's a lesson for Dravid and Laxman. Kumble played it smarter, withdrawing at the last minute from the auctions.

Lara's exclusion wasn't surprising either. He's in no fitness for this level of cricket and seemed like he was only in it for the money. The ten teams showed him place, and rightly so.

Delhi, one of the most consistent teams in the IPL, will have a

To wrap up the day's proceedings: the day opened with Gautam Gambhir and it turned out to be the costliest one of the day at an astounding $2.4 million for Kolkata Knight Riders.

$57,900,000 were spent today at IPL auction. Kochi had the most buys, 11. Mumbai and Rajasthan bought the least: four each.

Reigning champs Chennai Super Kings bought six, out of which four were retained. They lost Muttiah Muralitharan to Kochi, but went after R Ashwin, taking him for $850,000, their costliest buy.

Indian players were in great demand - Yusuf Pathan was also bought by Kolkata, for 2.1 million while Robin Uthappa went to Pune Warriors for the same price.

Rohit Sharma (2 million, Mumbai), Irfan Pathan (1.9 million, Delhi), Yuvraj Singh (1.8 million, Pune), Saurabh Tiwary (1.6 million Bangalore) were the other top picks.

The highest paid foreign player is Mahela Jayawardene, taken for 1.5 million by Kochi.

The big news from India's point of view was Sourav Ganguly going unsold, along with his