Crucket

“Country first, cash second” claim the headlines after the NZ IPL contractees deigned to sign their NZ Cricket contracts. The headlines naturally simplify the issue greatly, but mange to be extremely generous to the players.

The story is that the six Black Caps who are contracted to IPL franchises weren’t keen to sign their NZC contracts until they were assured that their international obligations weren’t going to get in the way of them turning out for their franchises. They were given until last Friday to sign, which they all did in the end.

Let’s name these six:

• Brendon McCullum
• Daniel Vettori
• Ross Taylor
• Jesse Ryder
• Kyle Mills
• Jacob Oram

That all six IPL players who were offered national contracts were holding out on signing, it was clearly a joint decision, probably organised by the Players’ Association.

Before Friday I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. In contract disputes, “employees” generally have only one bargaining chip, withdrawing their services. So you shouldn’t take such threats too seriously. The threats have to be made of course, but they are more a bargaining position than a real likelihood. My feeling was that the delay in signing was just a message to NZC that they should give more concern to the players’  positions.

However, the statements coming from the players since signing have got me very concerned. Reports are that the players’ have got pretty much all they could have hoped for. The test series with Australia has been shortened by a whole test so that the tour will finish by 31 March, allowing the IPL players to be available for half the IPL tournament. That is a massive win for the players and a serious blow to the summer’s cricket. And yet the players continue to threaten to pull away from international cricket in favour of the IPL and talk about the decision to play the Aussie series to be a big decision. We’re also being told that Vettori had to convince some of the others to sign. Could they actually have seriously been considering not signing their NZC contracts? Was it more than just bluster?

And on top of that, we are being asked to applaud these players for their magnanimity, despite them having sabotaged the Aussie series and threatening to sabotage future tours. Well maybe some people will. The best I can say is that I am not as disappointed in them as I might have been.

And please everyone, stop talking about families. I have a family and it doesn’t cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

Jonathan Millmow has had his say in today’s paper, expressing his disappointment and covering a few other issues.

Amongst all the talk of the sacrifices made by the IPL Black Caps and their loyalty and priorities, consider these aspects:

• We’re missing out on a test against Australia this summer. That’s not solely the fault of these players, but is certainly due to the IPL. That’s a big sacrifice NZ cricket fans are being forced to make – there is a huge difference between a 3-test series and a 2-test series. NZC may also be making a huge sacrifice here, assuming tests still make money. It also means less match fees, which is a sacrifice for the non-IPL-contracted test players.
• The IPL is for current players or retired players, not for uncommitted players. As I understand it, every player in the IPL needs a non-objection certificate from the player’s home board. So choosing money over country wouldn’t have been that straightforward anyway.

What does a drought look like? Check out the huge gap in the England column of this list of victors in tests between England and Australia at Lord’s.

When I first took a look at how the New Zealanders were doing in the IPL, I found that most of them needed to lift their game if they were to make an impact, or their franchises had to give them more of a run.

How much have things changed over the second half of the IPL?

Kyle Mills – Mumbai Indians

Not given a single game for the team who ended up second from the bottom. Probably already left South Africa to join the NZ 20-20 squad.

Scott Styris – Deccan Chargers

Didn’t add to the two games he had played when I last reported. Piggy’s descent into obscurity continues.

Ross Taylor – Royal Challengers Bangalore

Had a slow start to the tournament, but really accelerated in the second half. Ended up second highest run scorer for Bangalore with 236 runs averaging about 30 at 134, particularly helped out by his 81* of 33. Not bad in the end, and possibly winding up for a good knock in the semis.

Jesse Ryder – Royal Challengers Bangalore

Pretty much dropped by Bangalore after a poor first half of the tournament. I think he played one game in the second half, where he scored 22, which actually pushed his average into double figures.

Jacob Oram – Chennai Super Kings

Continued on as he started; hit a few runs when he got a bat and knocked over a couple more wickets in the second half of the tourney. A most middling of middling performances. He sits a bit below half way down in both the batting averages and bowling averages.

Daniel Vettori – Delhi Daredevils

Despite having a tidy first half to the competition, Vettori has only been given two games in the second half. Fairly perhaps as he has taken no more wickets and only picked up a handful of runs. Delhi go into the semis as top qualifier, so they are likely to be happy with their winning lineup, which doesn’t include Vettori.

Brendon McCullum – Kolkata Knight Riders

One of the more abject performers of the first half, in both his batting and his captaining. He managed a couple of wins in the second half, but combined with another 5 losses. His batting improved considerably, including an 84 and a 81*, which gives him two entries in the top 10 high scores for all teams. These scores did enough to push his average and strike rate to 24 and 120 and out of the embarrasing zone.

So, with the semis and final still to be played, it has been a rather quiet tournament for the New Zealanders. Taylor has been the stand out, and he hasn’t even been playing to his usual standard. Really rather quiet.

The Kolkata Knight Riders have been eliminated from the IPL contest, having come last by some margin. So the fake IPL player has played his last game, in as much as he ever really played for Kolkata.

Now IPL Anonymous promised to reveal his identity after his tournament was finished. Well, he put that idea up for a vote, which as far as I can tell was running pretty hot in favour before the poll was taken down. To this end, the fake player has posted a video of himself nattering on about himself and what he has seen as part of his involvement in cricket and just how mysterious he is. Except we don’t see him – we only see his shadow cast upon a concrete wall. So in the end all we get revealed is his sillouette and his voice. And he reveals nothing in his little speech, apart from admitting that he was a fake, which will suprise no one. He may write a book or two, but probably not. He might reveal himself one day, but maybe not. Just a little shadow play really.

With such an underwhelming end to the story, the response has been equally underwhelming. Cricket With Balls is scathing. Arm Ball is pissed. Well Pitched is confused. And no one else has much to say. (Excepting the Bored Cricket Crazy Indians, though they are being more mysterious than the fake himself.)

Oh well. It was fun while it lasted. Now thankfully it won’t distract from the semis and the final.

As a bit of a postscript, Well Pitched takes a bit of a wander down what is surely a dead end, that Shahrukh Khan arranged the whole thing as a publicity stunt.

In the comments of my previous post, my identification of the player nicknamed Panty Curry by the fake IPL player, Jesse “Bevdaa” Ryder’s drinking buddy, was corrected. Apparently Panty Curry is a chap called Robin Uthappa, fellow Bangalore Royal Challenger and sometime Indian ODI ’keeper/opening-bat, and not Morne van Wyk, sometime Kolkata Knight Rider ’keeper/opening-bat. And as for that name, Suhas has an explanation:

Assuming ‘Panty Curry’ is Uthappa (who comes from the Coorg district of Karnataka – a region not known for producing cricketers), this is where the nickname originates from:

http://mbopaiah.wordpress.com/2007/06/07/coorg-pork-curry-pandi-curry/

Brilliant. Impressive enough of IPL Anonymous to concoct these monikers, but outstanding work to those deciphering them.

Here’s a fake IPL player glossary (sadly with few explanations of the names):

Fake glossary of the Fake IPL Player

Featuring the intriguing comment about Panty Curry:

hey… dont get why mangal is shukla… As for Panty Curry, agree with it but one small problem… Latest blog says panty curry and bevdaa went or few drinks… Now, I am being honest, I know robin very well personally… He does not touch alcohol, I can vouch or that.. I have known him for bout 12 years now.. and as for chipli, he did not play U-19 with Kolhi… he was my senior.. He played U-18 when i played U-16 and I am 23 so.. so it is Goswami!! But Robins name foxes me after the latest blog!! Even if you wanna speculate that he had a few drinks, he certainly wont have capacity more than Jesse Ryder.. I have seen him get high of just sniffing alcohol!!lol…

Baz’s Blues

So some New Zealanders finally make it onto the IPL records (McCullum’s 84* in the recent Kolkata v. Bangalore match is currently the 4th highest score, and Taylor’s 81* off 33 sits just outside the top 5 scores, though is 5th on highest innings strike rates) and now Lalit Modi is casting doubts on the legality of the match. “Was Kolkata-Bangalore match fixed?” is India Today’s breathless title for the webpage showing the article more soberly titled “Lalit Modi hints at probe into Kolkata-B’lore match”.

The article quotes a stern Lalit Modi: “There is an anti-corruption unit. We will look into the TV footage and investigate about Hodge’s presence in the hospitality box.” It seems Hodge’s omission from the playing squad was surprising (leaving him free to enjoy the hospitality of the people funding the match fix one must presume) and that by the 15th over Bangalore were heading for a loss, then shockingly turned things around and won.

As much as I would love for there to be a juicy corruption scandal in the IPL, this doesn’t look much like it. Firstly, if you are going to arrange for someone to be involved in throwing a match, surely it would be best to have them on the field. Secondly, Bangalore were always on target to win, despite Kolkata racking up their highest total to date, so there was nothing suspicious there. And thirdly, aren’t you supposed to fix matches to bring about an against the odds result? Paying Kolkata to lose is hardly money well spent.

There is nothing juicier for the cricket news desk than a Jesse Ryder/alcohol scandal. So the outlets were all over this story as soon as it started to emerge. But when the only reported details are rumours that Jesse was “restrained by security guards”, it sounds like someone is letting their sordid imagination fill in the gaps.

To get the details of this scandal, I have gone to the only on-the-ground source I know of, the Fake IPL Player, and veracity be damned. According to IPL Anonymous:

A few days ago I had introduced you to the blooming romance between Bevdaa and Panty Curry. The other night, the two had a few too many. Panty, with better capacity, managed to walk through the door. Bevdaa lost balance, tripped over, almost crash landed on 2 very scared nubile beings, eventually landed face down on the marbled floor. Security helped him up and out.

Bevdaa is of course Jesse, and Panty Curry is a guy called van Wyk. Bevdaa, quite appropriately, means ‘drunk’. Panty Curry probably has some self-evident meaning, but I’m not sure I want to dwell on it too much.

So anyway, Jesse’s run in with security amounted to him being helped to his room by a security guard to sleep off a big night. Somewhat confirmed by later reports. Reading these reports you would think Ryder was drinking to celebrate 100 days of sobriety. Previous posts by IPL Anonymous suggest he wasn’t getting through those 100 days as smoothly as we’d like to think:

Bevdaa has found a soulmate in our very own (sometimes opener, sometimes wk) Panty Curry. They have been bonded by their shared love for bottled beverages. Short of holding hands, the two fat asses seem every bit like a puppy couple in love. And if the number of bottles one can down decides the man in a relationship, our Panty Curry definitely wears the pants in that family. Surprising, but true!

The defeat on Sunday of Kyle Mills’ Mumbai Indians by Taylor and Ryder’s Royal Challengers Banglalore marked the half way point of the IPL qualifiers.

While the tournament has been fairly subdued compared to last year in terms of action, it is shaping up to be a competitive run to the semis, with everyone except Kolkata well in with a chance. The New Zealanders haven’t contributed much to this however…well, maybe McCullum is contributing to Kolkata’s misfortune.

Brendon McCullum – Kolkata Knight Riders

McCullum’s star burnt brightly but briefly in last year’s tourney – he only played 4 matches but scored 188 runs at more than 2 runs a ball. He was, perhaps, rewarded for his performances by being made captain this year. You can read about his being made captain, though the story has many more sides. You can also read the inside word (or a dramatisation of, at least) on McCullum’s team, though the outside word is just as dismal. In short, the Knight Riders are crappity crap. Just one win and an NR in the first part of the tournament. As captain, Brendon knows he is accountable, and he has offered to quit if they don’t make the semis (and they won’t). He has been garnering a fair bit of sympathy though.

His biggest problem is that he hasn’t been leading from the front. By last Sunday he had scored a mere 50 runs from 7 innings, less than his average innings score last year (his average this year is about 7 so far). And that has come at about 2 runs every 3 balls.

Daniel Vettori – Delhi Daredevils

Delhi have had the strongest start to the tournament of all the teams; by Sunday they had 4 wins out of 6 games. Vettori’s contribution to this was 7 wickets @ 19, including a 3/15. A very good haul from his 5 games, though it might be fair to say he is riding the momentum of his team.

Jacob Oram – Chennai Super Kings

Oram has knocked 50-odd runs and knocked over 3 wickets in the 4 games he has had for the Chennai Super Kings, playing turn about with Andrew Flintoff it would seem. A decent performance, though he was in the news more for suggesting the IPL is a bigger priority for him than tests.

Jesse Ryder – Royal Challengers Bangalore

A real disappointment considering the expecations. Started out his IPL career with ducks in his first two matches. He has had one good knock of 32 in his 4 innings, but the fact that his overall aggregate is just 34 emphasises his poor overall performance. You could well imagine him to be nervous, though he never seems to show it, but it could just be Bangalore – they’re a team so lacking in spunk that even tearaways like Ryder and Pietersen get dragged down.

Doing great work as a part time bowler as usual. 3 wickets at 30, but under 7 an over.

Ross Taylor – Royal Challengers Bangalore

The other half of the stoner twins. Also picked up a duck in his first match, but is double Ryder’s tally (as of Sunday). Neither here nor there and hence pretty much invisible.

Scott Styris – Deccan Chargers

Also invisible. Only given 2 matches as of Sunday, with only one turn at bat (for 14). Outstanding bowling though, taking 5 wickets @ 12.8.

Kyle Mills – Mumbai Indians

Missing in action. Not given a run in any of Mumbai’s first 7 matches. Not a fair way to treat one-day cricket’s no. 2 bowler. I guess the recent series with India has damaged his reputation.

So, a real disappointment so far. A good record by Vettori more than matched by terrible performances by Ryder and McCullum, McCullum’s lasting for 7 matches. With Oram, Taylor and Styris phoning in some pretty average efforts. It would have been nice to see at least one standout performance from the six of them. Still, it is still early on. After all, Taylor has only faced about 10 overs in total, just as an e.g. Any of them, and Mills, could put on some fireworks in the second half.

For the record, the highest score for any Kiwi is 41* for Oram and the best bowling is 3/15 by Vettori.