Indian Premier League and Cricket News by IPL Cricket Forum

Asia Cup

Team in Review – Hong Kong

Coached by the former England international and the an experienced top order batsman for Essex and Leicester Aftab Habib, Hong Kong are full of players of Indian and Pakistani origin and are a unit high on raw talent.

They are led by opener Tabarak Dar who was born in Pakistan and has as loads of experience at club level and playing in ICC tournaments for associate and affiliate countries.

Their Aim

Grouped along with India and Pakistan, they have an extremely tough task ahead. But they will look to give in a spirited performance. Their batsmen should look to survive their quota of overs. The bowlers must look to take wickets because controlling the run flow otherwise looks a task beyond them.

Look Out For

Tabarak Dar – The skipper is and experienced opening batsman. He is amongst the technically sound batsmen in Hong Kong. He hit a splendid century against Sheikhupura when the team toured Pakistan in May this year.

Irfan Ahmed – Look out for the younger of the Ahmed brothers. He is a flamboyant batsman who generally comes in at three and bowls some decent right arm medium. He has often opens the bowling.

Najeeb Amar – He is an experienced pro. He bowls tight slow left arm and comes in as a confident batsman in the middle order.

Other Players

Ashish Gadhia and Courtney Kruger have come through the under 15 and under 19 system and are very talented batsmen. Kruger played a couple of delightful innings in the Asian U-19 elite tournament in Malaysia last year.

James Atkinson is a wicket keeper-batsman and owing to better batting skills, is likely to get a go ahead of Barkat.

Zain Abbas is a young bowler who has the nag of taking wickets and can hit the ball big. He may get a chance in one of the matches.

The real strength of this team lies in its flexibility because of the number of players who can bat as well as bowl.

Probable Starting Eleven

Tabarak Dar (C)

Skhawat Ali

Irfan Ahmed

Courtney Kruger

Najeeb Amar

Hussain Butt

James Atkinson (WK)

Munir Dar

Nadeem Ahmed

Afzaal Haider

Toby Brown

Verdict

Players could have gained some experience had they got more than two games against such big teams. They will be in for some hammering and one can only wish them “Happy Holidaying!”.

Dr. Mohit Goyal © IPL Cricket Forum

Fact File – Asia Cup

• Sri Lanka has hosted Asia Cup the most number of times that is three. UAE and Bangladesh have been hosts twice and India once. Pakistan were to host the fifth edition in 1993 but it was cancelled and now Pakistan get to host it for the first time.
• Pakistan hosts he 9th edition of the tournament this year. Sri Lanka have the proud distinction of reaching the finals of the cup in all eight previous editions right from its inception in 1984.
• India have won the tournament four times, while the cup has been bagged by Sri Lanka thrice and by Pakistan once.
• The first Asia Cup held in 1984 in Sharjah was a round robin tournament involving India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka in which each team played the other once. India won the cup by winning both its matches.
• The second edition in Sri Lanka in 1986 had a final after the three round robin matches. Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh participated in the tournament and Sri Lanka won the cup by defeating Pakistan in the final.
• Bangladesh in 1988 hosted the third edition which involved India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh who played one match against each other and India and Sri Lanka advanced to the finals where India emerged victors.
• The fourth edition in 1990-91 in India, Pakistan pulled out and so the teams involved were India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Matches were played on a round robin format with each team playing the other once. India retained the cup on home soil.
• In the fifth edition saw the four biggies lock horns again in Sharjah in 1995. India beat Sri Lanka in the finals to win their fourth and last Asia Cup trophy till date
• With the same four teams involved Sri Lanka took revenge in Sri Lanka in 1997 beating India in the finals.
• The seventh edition in Bangladesh in 2000 saw Pakistan win their maiden title beating Sri Lanka in the Grand Final.
• Hong Kong and UAE were the additions in the eighth edition in Sri Lanka in 2008. India and Sri Lanka reached the finals where the hosts lifted the cup winning by 25 runs.
• The ninth edition to be held in Pakistan from 24th June to 6th July will have Sri Lanka with Bangladesh and UAE in Group A and India, Pakistan together with Hong Kong in Group B. Matches of Group B will be played at Lahore while the all of Group B, the second phase of the tournament involving top two teams from each group and the final will be played at Karachi.

Dr. Mohit Goyal © IPL Cricket Forum

Cricket Analysts would say that the Indians were the more deserving of the two sides to win this Tri-nation series but the performance on the big day counts the most. The Pakistanis were the better side on the day and they edged out India in what was a fabulous game of cricket. First a brilliant opening with two centuries and then the bowlers stuck to the plan all the time and the fact that the Pakistanis picked up wickets at regular intervals, but most important - at crucial stages which always kept them ahead in the hunt. In the end, too much was asked from the Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni and he faltered in the contest. Irfan Pathan’s patchy stay at the crease didn’t help the cause much and that pegged back the Indians. Earlier in the game, the Indians fielded and bowled poorly. However, this total was always chaseable but the Indians just couldn’t hold the game at times when it mattered the most. Hope you have enjoyed the game. Do join us again for the forthcoming games from the other parts of the globe.

At the end of the Match the winning captain Shoaib Malik rated this win as one of the biggest wins in his captaincy tenure. He said he is happy with the performance of his boys and was all praise for them. He had a lot of faith in Salman Butt and Younis and they pulled off special knocks to enable his side post a big total. He praises his bowlers who stayed disciplined all through. Finally, he says that a win against India is always special and when it comes in a Final, nothing gets better than this.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni congratulated Pakistan for having played brilliantly. He said that their side was sloppy on the field but he can’t take any credit away from Salman Butt and Younis Khan who werer too good today. He feels that the decision to send Raina ahead of him was very critical, he admits that he made a mistake there but he hopes to avoid such mistakes in the future. He thanks the crowd for being supportive right throughout the series.

Salman Butt is the Man of the Series. He thanks heavens and the crowd for all their support. He and Younis planned to stay out there in the middle for as long as possible, both of them are natural stroke makers so run scoring was never a problem. He feels proud to have performed in a big game.

Younis Khan is the Man of the Match. He says that it always feels nice to perform while under pressure. He says that he didn’t get enough opportunities previously in the series and today, he wanted to make it count. His plan was to stay out there in the middle for sometime before playing his natural game, it paid off today and he is delighted.

In the end we saw Mahendra Singh Dhoni walking off the field dejected and disappointed. There would be a few questions coming at him so as to why didn’t he bat up the order? The Pakistanis are a happy bunch at the moment and why shouldn’t they be? They were the better unit this evening, they bowled and fielded with a lot more discipline than their neighbours and as a result, they emerged champions in yet another final against India winning by 25 runs.

Pakistan Batted first winning the toos and scored 315/3. India managed a score of 290 falling 25 runs short from the total.

Ahead of the final of the Kitply Cup between Indian and Pakistan Team India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni has a problem of plenty. He brought in RP Singh in place of Ishant Sharma for the game against Bangladesh. RP took three wickets to land Dhoni in a fix. RP looked in great form and it would be hard for any captain to leave out a bowler like Ishant. Dhoni could look to make Irfan sit out but it would probably be like keeping a batsman out of the eleven.

Dhoni at the moment is not ready to take the risk of going in with six batsmen but the fact is that risk stands either way. Pakistan batters looked much more comfortable against Yuvraj and Yusuf Pathan who were not required to complete the full quota of the fifth bowler as Pakistan were bowled out.

Irfan seems to be in good batting form and the capabilities of Praveen and Piyush with the bat must encourage captain Dhoni to go in with five bowlers. If Dhoni doesn’t take five bowlers into a match with this combination, there is rare chance that he will ever.

Pakistan could be lured into playing Fawad Alam, the spinner on the slow pitch. But it wouldn’t be such a good idea to play a new spinner against India. Afridi is a different case because of his accuracy. And also Iftikhar bowled reasonably well and even Wahab Riaz did well in the match against Bangladesh.

Team winning the toss would like to make first use by batting first as the track may slow down progressively. Fans will be looking forward to seeing a bit more intriguing battle this time.

Probable starters for India : Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Rohit Sharma, Yuvraj Singh (VC), Yusuf Pathan/RP Singh, Suresh Raina, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (C) (WK), Irfan Pathan, Praveen Kumar, Piyush Chawla, Ishant Sharma.

For Pakistan: Salman Butt, Kamran Akmal (WK), Younis Khan, Mohammad Yousuf, Misbah-ul-Haq, Shoaib Malik (C), Shahid Afridi, Sohail Tanvir, Umar Gul, Rao Iftikhar, Wahab Ria.

Dr. Mohit Goyal © IPL Cricket Forum

Michael Hussey will not be available for the Twenty20 Champions League due to Australian National Schedule. This saves him from a situation where he might have to play against his home team in the said League.

Though Michael Hussey initially preferred to play for his Native state of Western Australia in the upcoming Twenty20 Champions League, IPL Chief Lalit Modi insisted that IPL Franchisees will have the first choice for Players.

As both Western Australia and Chennai Super Kings have qualified for the Champions League it was a definite embarrassment for Hussey as he would have to play against his home team if Chennai Super Kings claimed him for their team. However, he himself was quoted saying that rules were rules and even if he considered himself a native, born and bred ‘Western Australia Boy’ he will go with the rules and play happily for Chennai.

Asstralia will be playing a four test series in India immediately after the champions trophy.