Can the Tigers Stop the Badshahs?

I think they can if they get lucky and the Badshahs have an off day...which after going 7-0 they are bound to have at some point...

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ICL Ko Support Karo Yaro...

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Good to see the LOCALS are represented in the top bracket..not just the internationals...

Most runs...

Player Mat Inns NO Runs HS Ave BF SR 100 50 0 4s 6s 
L Klusener 7 7 2 220 73 44.00 176 125.00 0 2 0 22 7 
(Kolkata Tigers) 
RP Patil 7 7 1 213 66* 35.50 150 142.00 0 3 0 23 10 
(Mumbai Champs) 
Hasan Raza 7 6 2 209 98* 52.25 142 147.18 0 1 2 20 8 
(Lahore Badshahs) 
IJ Harvey 7 7 1 206 58 34.33 166 124.09 0 1 0 22 7 
(Chennai Superstars) 
S Sriram 7 7 1 202 52* 33.66 149 135.57 0 1 0 17 1 
(Ahmedabad Rockets) 
RP Arnold 7 6 1 200 69 40.00 151 132.45 0 2 1 19 3 
(Chennai Superstars) 
AA Jhunjhunwala 7 7 1 200 62 33.33 188 106.38 0 2 1 15 3

Best Strike Rate...(minimum 100 runs)

Ganapathi Vignesh 184.61
Rajagopal Sathish 148.45
Hasan Raza 147.18
Chris Cairns 143.37
Raviraj Patil 142.00
Stuart Binny 139.24

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ICL Ko Support Karo Yaro...

BCCI Ko Joote Chappal Maro....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008:03:31:23:29:50 by Birbal.

I am predicting the Kolkata Tigers to WIN this thing...

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ICL Ko Support Karo Yaro...

BCCI Ko Joote Chappal Maro....

For The Players, By The Players...


Nice column by Ajit Wadekar...


For the players and by the players. That's the USP of the Indian Cricket League and what better way to understand its worth than following the rise of some of the domestic stars in the competition. The overseas recruits have been around for quite some time at the international stage and they have been the guiding force for most of the youngsters who were given a platform to showcase their skills through the ICL.

And despite a battery of internationally acclaimed bowlers like Shane Bond, Michael Kasprowicz, Nantie Haywards, Azhar Mahmood and Mohammad Sami gunning for glory in the tournament, Chennai Superstars Thiru Kumaran has stole the limelight with 14 wickets to be the highest wicket taker in the tournament so far.

The medium pacer bowls within his limitations but is not afraid to give his all for the cause of the team and that has been the main reason behind his success. He also claimed the tournament's first hat trick in the very first match against Lahore Badshahs and that would have been an icing on the cake.

The other medium pacer who has been very impressive in the tournament is Delhi Giant Taduri Sudhindra. That boy has a very good out swinger and in the game against Hyderabad Heroes showed that he has a big heart. With their strike bowler Shane Bond not getting wickets, Sudhindra bowled his heart out to claim three important wickets and kept the team in the hunt.

Then there is Alfred Absolom of Hyderabad Heroes, who took seven wickets for just 15 runs against Ahmedabad Rockets and even has the best strike rate and bowling average in the tournament. Sridhar Iyer of Mumbai Champs bowled with an ecomony rate of 3.25 in a Twenty20 tourament and Abu Nechim also made his mark for Kolkata Tigers with his slinging action and raw pace.

In the batting department, Kolkata Tigers Abhishek Jhunjhunwala, Hyderabad Heroes Ambati Rayudu and Stuart Binny showed that they are slowly but surely mastering the Twenty20 format. They are all quick learners and have made the most of the inputs given to them by their more experienced international stars.

The semifinals kick off on Wednesday and though the Lahore Badshahs are the overwhelming favourites, one cannot help but not put all money on them. The Law of Averages can catch up with anyone anytime and I hope the team can overcome that challenge.

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ICL Ko Support Karo Yaro...

BCCI Ko Joote Chappal Maro....

Karachi Based Saad Shafqat

writes how much of a HIT Lahore Badshahs have become in Pakistan...


Saad Shafqat

April 3, 2008





"You and your Lahore Badshahs," said this friend of mine recently after I sent an SMS asking her to switch on the television and tune in to the right channel. Indifferent to the game herself, she duly passed the message on to her husband, and thereafter, as she describes it, time stood still.

It was the night when Hasan Raza was blazing his way to 98 not out from 52 balls in Chandigarh. Coming in against the Mumbai Champs at 28 for 2, with two golden ducks behind him, he conjured up an innings from nothing almost. Perfectly pitched balls headed straight for the wicket were carved over square leg for six. Yorkers aimed at off stump were deflected for a boundary past wide third man. Replays showed Raza twisting the face of his bat, adjusting his footwork, even changing his mind, in the split-second after the ball left the bowler's hand.

Let's be honest about it. You would never see such a rabbit-out-of-the-hat innings in Test cricket, and even in ODI cricket you would have to go months, at least, before one came along. In Twenty20 cricket, by contrast, such magic tricks abound. There are rumblings that this is the dominant future of international cricket, and these rumblings are threatening to become an avalanche. The configuration of this game - skill and conflict compressed to the point where risk-taking simply overflows - is forcing it to happen.

Take a league competition enhanced by the addition of regional pride, a generous sprinkling of international stars, a top commentary team, and shapely cheerleaders dancing to music, and you've got a concept that goes from zero to water-cooler talk in the space of just a few matches.

The Indian Cricket League also has the extra charm of being forbidden fruit. It has not been a priority for the major news outlets and wire services. India's BCCI, the most powerful cricket board in the known universe, has declared it "unauthorised". Luckily for the ICL, everybody loves an underdog who stands his ground and fights, and the controversy has become its own best advertisement. And since the competition has its genesis in discontent over television rights, the one thing you can trust the league's owners to be good at is television coverage.

In Pakistan, fans have been switching allegiances fast. Like a Mughal cavalry cutting a swath across the horizon, the ICL's sole Pakistani entry has lit up the sky and commandeered a passionate following. They have had some natural advantages. The fans, already cheerless and disenchanted with an underperforming national team, have been smarting from the snub of Australia's refusal to tour their country. Distractions such as the latest Shoaib Akhtar-PCB saga only compound the weariness.

Into this emptiness of the heart, the Lahore Badshahs have settled easily. The only team in the tournament where all the players are of the same nationality, they are mentored by a coach (Moin Khan) and a captain (Inzamam-ul Haq) who played a role in Pakistan's 1992 World Cup victory and today sit comfortably as icons of the Pakistani game. These two have the credentials to guide and inspire any team in the world. The players under their charge have gone flat out, giving their best, and at the same time displayed an enviable camaraderie and a cowboy coolness that any cricket outfit would kill for.




Like a Mughal cavalry cutting a swath across the horizon, the ICL's sole Pakistani entry has lit up the sky and commandeered a passionate following. They have had some natural advantages. The fans, already cheerless and disenchanted with an underperforming national team, have been smarting from the snub of Australia's refusal to tour their country. Distractions such as the latest Shoaib Akhtar-PCB saga only compound the weariness









Most of all, it is their skill and verve that has made them the terror of the tournament. Pakistani players' traditional weaknesses - short attention span, needless innovation, bravado, and recklessness - have emerged as formidable strengths in Twenty20 cricket, carrying the Lahore team to within touching distance of the title and the winner's cash prize of nearly US$625,000.

Even when they were most strenuously tested - defending 151 against Ahmedabad Rockets in Hyderabad - they showed scant respect for the textbook, and got out of jail with medium-pacers Rana Naved-ul-Hasan and Azhar Mahmood bowling back-of-the-hand wrist-spin at the death. Not for these lads the conventional theory of bowling fast and furious into the blockhole. Instead, they used slower balls with loopy topspin to extinguish their opponents' final embers of hope.

"Badshah" is a fitting label for a winning club. In Urdu the word means "king", yet the term's first syllable also resonates in English, casting the team in a menacing light. Most appropriately, the name honors both Lahore, which has known glory as an imperial Mughal capital, and its greatest patron, the Emperor Akbar, who is a celebrated ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity and remains the most revered of the Mughal kings.

In the semi-final, the Badshahs will hope they continue living up to the memory of Akbar. They are up against the Kolkata Tigers, a team representing another imperial capital. Captained by New Zealander Craig McMillan and coached by South African Daryll Cullinan, it is a formidable side with several international stars, including Lance Klusener, Upul Chandana and Andre Adams. Whatever happens in the endgame, the Lahore Badshahs will depart the tournament with a reputation. Before the competition, the organisers had expressed hope this team would add a new dimension to the league. They certainly have, by a distance.

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ICL Ko Support Karo Yaro...

BCCI Ko Joote Chappal Maro....