Gilli stunned Delhi and played as if playing in a Gully!

Pradip Sangwan’s body language was showing every fear of a rookie bowler bowling against a gifted player. Viru did a costly mistake to introduce him when Nannes was punished for five consecutive fours in the very first over.

Full credit goes to Gilli. He put all his experience of playing finals and winning them. He not only scored runs but killed opponents attitude to play the game to win from the very first over. Even Viru seemed confused when Gilli was in full flow. Only Nehra was looking confident and positive.

With the record of fastest fifty in IPL in just 17 balls, he is also having height strike rate and score (85). This player is unstoppable in full flow. This style of hammering down the ball was introduced by West Indians in early 70s. Richards, Lloyd, Sobers played with the hammer in hand. Recently, Lara had that magic in his bat. In late 80s and early 90s, Aussie era started and won three world cups. Gilli was integral part of the team and Aussies success.

Now, morals are charged up and opponents must be thinking of tightening the screws against him. Another Aussie making his mark with quick 24 in 15 balls was Symonds. A player out of Gibbs, Symonds, Rohit, Gilli and others with quick fire 40-50 runs can make 250+ runs possible. And yeah, this total seems very very difficult for any team in finals.

It’s all ifs and buts but, with such a stunning performance, Deccan Chargers has become strong contender for holding the shining IPL trophy.

Who gets to decide which teams will reach the IPL-2 Semifinals?

Only 2 days left in the league and 3 of the four Semifinal tickets are yet to be finalized.

With Delhi Daredevils through to the semifinal, the rest of the places in the semifinals are yet to be decided. Last week witnessed some very closely contested matches and it hasn’t been easy to guess who will be in the semifinals.

Fans are already going crazy and the cricket madness will be on its peak when the last 4 matches of the league will be played on May 20 and May 21.

While Kings XI Punjab, Chennai Super Kings, Rajasthan Royals, Deccan Chargers and Royal Challengers Bangalore will be fighting their skins out on the last 2 days to secure a place in the semifinals, Delhi Dare Devils, who are already on the top of the table, will continue to experiment. Kolkata Knight Riders who are already out of the contest will be only playing for some respect… perhaps even to ruin the sport-dreams of Rajasthan Royals for their ticket to the semifinals.

This is a really tricky situation… other than how these 5 teams play, there are 3 other factors that will decide the fate of the teams. First is the performance of the Kolkata Knight Riders team, the second being the Net Run Rate and third being the God of Rain.

A look at how the teams are currently placed:

Team

Mat

Won

Lost

Tied

N/R

Pts

Net RR

Delhi Daredevils 13 9 4 0 0 18 +0.251
Chennai 13 7 5 0 1 15 +0.932
Deccan Chargers 13 7 6 0 0 14 +0.265
Bangalore 13 7 6 0 0 14 -0.253
Kings XI Punjab 13 7 6 0 0 14 -0.423
Rajasthan Royals 13 6 6 0 1 13 -0.360
Mumbai Indians 13 5 7 0 1 11 +0.401
Kolkata 13 2 10 0 1 5 -0.891

.

A quick look at the remaining matches in the league:

Date and time The Fixture
Wed 20  16:00 IST Kolkata Knight Riders vs. Rajasthan Royals
Wed 20  20:00 IST Chennai Super Kings vs. Kings XI Punjab
Thu 21   16:00 IST Delhi Daredevils vs. Mumbai Indians
Thu 21  20:00 IST Royal Challengers Bangalore vs. Deccan Chargers

Keep reading CricTalks to know the fate of each of these 5 teams and their chances of making it to the Semifinals.

The mystery of the fake IPL player continues…

Last month ‘Akki’ wrote a very interesting post on the Fake IPL player. Like everyone else, it also got me all curious to find out a little more about this mystery man (or woman… who knows!). I seem to enjoy some of the things written on the blog – not for its sleaze, but been for this absurd yet fascinating piece of cricket writing, that has apparently taken the internet world by storm since it was launched on 18 April.

Some time back even Aakash Chopra, a KKR player, was suspected of being the fake IPL player. He says:

“Let’s face it, we as a society love our reality shows and love gossip… we’ve never had access to gossip on cricket and the blog is catering to that need… It’s just one more media product that’s up for consumption in this space.

Undoubtedly, the blog has brought in a new wave of freshness in the world of Cricket. It has sucked in a huge audience as well with its dressing room gossips and interesting tittle-tattles on the lives in the KKR team.

According to the reports from Pinstorm, a Mumbai-based digital marketing firm:

“The fake IPL player blog had at its peak, on 26 April, 150,000 visitors, who each spent 15 minutes on the site, which adds up to about 37,500 hours spent on the blog in one day. Much of the interest in the fake IPL blog has stemmed from cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore, even though the blogger apparently belongs to the Kolkata team”.

More than 41,502 people have voted already on the fake IPL player blog to determine whether the anonymous blogger should disclose his identity. Of course, the majority (almost 64% of the voters) feels the mystery blogger should stand by his word and disclose his identity at the end of the popular 20-20 cricket tournament.
I suppose the curiosity factor would keep all of us interested in finding out the true identity and face behind this blog. The people all over seem to be enjoying every bit of it… I guess that’s what really matters.

With all the speculations that have been going around, the mystery still continues… Do let us know if you have any clues!

Link: Fake IPL Player

Kolkata Knight Riders’ Online Marketing Freebies

No wonder, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) team has the highest brand value. They might not be a successful team at IPL this season, but they are definitely the best when it comes to marketing and creating brand awareness.

IPL is turning out to be a pure business. Big reputation does not get you bread and butter… if you do not fit into the business, you better be at home! Catch this – Jayasuriya was asked to sit out of the Mumbai Indian’s playing eleven, the other night by Sachin Tendulkar.

So, said that, it does not really matter if KKR are playing well or not, they have done there homework well. The rule is simple – if you are doing a business you need to have your budgets right.

KKR has set aside a good amount of money for their branding and marketing activities and even when they are not playing well, the strategy has been paying them well.  Interesting would be to see, if KKR have been able to get back their costs, after the IPL gets over. Last season, they were truly ahead of all other IPL teams!!

Check out their official website and more importantly check out the download section in it. It is full of online marketing freebies… I guess good enough to keep the fans engaged and keep the buzz alive. 🙂

The download section features:

  • Web badges including the code that you may use to put on your web pages
  • Free KKR WordPress themes (Now, that’s something interesting)
  • Wallpapers
  • Mobile games & applications
  • Desktop alerts for KKR matches (can the alerts show KKR winning some matches?) 😛
  • Screensavers

Not sure how much all these online marketing strategies help play better cricket but it definitely helps in keeping the fans engaged.

I have not downloaded any of the freebies yet, so I am not sure how well they are designed. But, I am sure many of you would like to try out a few. If you do… then let us know. Also, interesting to know would be if there is any live blog using KKR’s WordPress theme or not.

Till then, let’s keep praying that KKR manages to break their losing streak. (7th consecutive loss today!)

Link: KKR Download page

Enemy of the KKR State: Fake IPL Player

This is one player, the KKR owners did not bargain for… with an alias as ‘Fake IPL Player’, this guy claims to be on the KKR team and is all set to wash the dirty linen for all to see and smell…

Interestingly, he has nicknames for all the players on the team (SRK-Winnie Dildo, Mallya-Mr Batlivala, Dada-Lord Almighty etc etc)…  and leaks all the insider info to the world through his blog… well call it “spy-in-the-ranks” or a brilliant marketing strategy by the owners, they have got eyes glued in onto their team… all the Bollywood Masala finding its way into an equally addictive and insane format of cricket.

If this is the how the things are going to move ahead, what next:  link-ups and breakups in the team… did anyone say casting couch during team selections???

I wonder…

Orkut Released Dedicated Theme for Knight Riders

Orkut, anticipating heat of Indian Premier League event, released a special theme for Knight Riders fans. Below is screenshot of my Orkut Homepage after activating this theme.

Being fan of Knight Riders, I am happy to see this theme. I would have loved it more if they have put Dada (Saurav Ganguly) instead of Shahrukh Khan (Knight Riders team owner) in theme header.

Lets hope more themes from Orkut for other IPL teams.

Details about activating and using this theme are here.

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