Universal Cricket

Yoga Retreat – A Place of Relaxed Community

2008-05-25T18:38:00.000-07:00

- By: Bertil Hjert, 2008-05-23

Yoga retreat is generally a place occupied by the people who are committed to the art of yoga. It is considered as the place of relaxed community where the people can enjoy the fun of practicing yoga within a social setting. This is the only place which acts as a platform for the people to share their passion for yoga and its benefits.

The retreats generally occupy the beautiful and peaceful locales in order to proffer the higher levels of relaxation to the participants. These retreats are lead by the experienced yoga instructors so as to offer guidance to the people practicing yoga.

Not only this, there is an exclusive arrangement of food and accommodation during a yoga vacation. They proffer you a wondering opportunity to free up yourself from insaneness of the world and to concentrate only on the goal of relaxation and to achieve peace of mind and body.

- Why to attend yoga retreats?

a) A yoga retreat proffers you an excellent opportunity to liberate yourself from the various perplexities of day-to-day life. You can get plenty of space for yourself where you can tranquilize your body and soul.

b) One of the most fascinating features of the retreats is that they serve you with an extensive range of nutritious vegetarian meals so as to deliver you the healthier lifestyle during your stay. This will further inspire you to make few healthier improvements in your daily routine diet.

c) They will permit you an ample of time to be dedicated in practicing various yoga asanas. Not only this, under the supervision of trained yoga instructors, you can enjoy the fun of learning many more new yoga exercises which will enable you to unwind your body from various stresses and to achieve the state of physical and mental peace.

d) A yoga retreat acts as a platform to meet enlightened and intelligent people with whom you can tie up long lasting friendly relations.

e) The centers are generally located at the beautiful locales where you can feel the closeness to the nature proffering fresh sigh of relief.

f) Moreover, these retreats dedicate some portion of their practice to pranayama or breathe practice so as to deliver calmness to the mind and also to supply oxygen to the various parts of the body more efficiently which will further enhance the rate of metabolism.

g) There is also a provision of enjoying the thrill of slow and quiet walking meditation which is practices early in the morning so as to connect your body and mind with the beauty of nature.

h) A weekend yoga vacation will take you to the path of spiritual growth where you can again reconnect your spirits and truth within you. Not only this, you will begin to listen to the desires of your heart and become courageous to live in the spirits.

i) According to our medical science, it has been found that we all need 8-9 hours of sleep to work optimally in our daily routine. But, due to today’s hectic lifestyle, it has become bit difficult to go for such a long sleep. Therefore, by practicing yoga at yoga retreat, you can prepare your body for an early night’s rest.

For more Articles, News, Information, Advice, and Resources about YOGA and MEDITATION please visit YOGA TIPS and MEDITATIONBUZZ

Create Superb Graphics for your Website

2008-05-25T18:37:00.001-07:00

- By: Sandra Prior, 2008-05-23

You’ve planned your content, you’ve played with HTML and you’ve selected a color scheme. Now add some graphical spice.

As Internet connections get faster and cheaper, people are beginning to lose their prejudices about web sites that use a lot of graphics. Yet, there are those who will always browse with images turned off, but it is increasingly becoming the case that if you want people to look at your site, then it needs to look good.

There are exceptions, where content is so compelling that design doesn’t matter. Just remember, however good a site looks, it is nothing without quality content.

Ready-Made Graphics

When you decide to add graphics to your site, you have 2 basic options. Either create your own images or make use of the numerous collections of royalty-free web graphics. These can come from many sources, the most popular being direct from the web. If you look at the web graphics section at Yahoo you’ll find a varied selection of free images you can use for your site, including e-mail buttons, background images and horizontal rules. Other popular sources include the clip art collections that come with most graphics packages these days.

There are, however, a couple of caveats. First, the quality of these images can most charitably be described as ‘varied’ – some are pretty good, but some are downright awful. Second, you need to bear in mind that every other novice web designer has access to the very same selection of images, and it does tend to show. On the plus side, the graphics are almost always completely free and you don’t need any artistic skills to use them.

Home-Made Graphics

If you want to create a unique web site, you have to create your own graphics – simple as that. There is an ever-increasing array of software to help you do this, ranging from freeware and shareware to full commercial products. Some of the better packages will cater for every need from start to finish. All you need provide is the talent and imagination.

JPEG Images

Before you start, you need to learn about the two image formats used on the web. First there is the JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group). This achieves a high level of compression by separating the colors from the details and processing them separately. When they are recombined, you have a color picture. But this is more than you need to know. What is important is that this works very well for graphics with smooth color transitions and few sharp edges – typically photographic images – and looks terrible for line art and blocks of text. The result is that, when used appropriately, a jpeg image will achieve a very small file size alongside a picture with thousands of colors and little noticeable loss in quality.

GIF Images

The alternative is CompuServe’s GIF (Graphics Interchange Format). A huge image has its colors restricted to its own palette, which can contain up to 256 colors. GIF compression works by looking for repeating patterns within an image – hence large areas of a single color will produce a very small file – but GIFs are also ideal for any line or text where it is vital to retain the image’s detail.

GIFs can also be used to tailor an image to a computer that can only display 256 colors. By limiting an image to the standard palette of 256 web-safe colors, you can be almost certain it will appear the same in any browser. In practice, it is preferable to strike a balance between using web-safe colors and achieving the best image quality – then those users with better displays will not be restricted by the lowest common denominator.

The humble GIF has also a few tricks hidden up its sleeve. The first of these is the ability to set one of the colors in the palette to be transparent – which means that whatever this color appears on the image, the background of the web page will show through, allowing you to make the graphics blend in to a much greater extent.

You can also string a load of images together into one file to create an animated GIF. This means you can have animation on your page without requiring any extra plug-ins. Bear in mind that every frame added to an animation adds to the file’s size, and unless used sparingly, animated GIFS can become very tiresome.

X Marks The Spot

The main use of graphics on any site is usually to form a navigation system. One way to achieve this is to make each option a separate image, but often it can be neater to have your buttons as a single graphic. You can then use an image map to link different areas to different pages. In the past, the only way to do this was to create a server-side image map – the co-ordinates of a mouse click would be sent to the server, which would then redirect you to a specific page. But now any reasonably up-to-date browser supports client-side maps – a few lines of code in the page itself define the hotspots, and the link goes direct to the target page, with no fuss.

PNG Images

Soon you’ll be hearing about another image format – the Portable Network Graphic, or PNG. The file specification was designed with the web in mind, and is already supported by the next generation of browsers. The PNG performs much the same function as a GIF, with two main differences: PNG files are noticeably smaller than GIF, and they can use alpha transparency. In other words, the image can have varying degrees of transparency, so it will blend into any background. But don’t throw away your old tools yet – GIFs will be around for some time to come.

Sandra Prior runs her own websites at USA Computers and http://sacomputers.rr.nu.

Punjab beat Mumbai by one run

2008-05-23T00:22:00.000-07:00

19 runs were needed off the last over. The first ball was hit for six and the next ball for a four. The last ball came. Only one run was needed. It culminated in a run out and Punjab won by 1 run.

The Little Master scored 65 and was run out. Mumbai was on top when Sachin was run out and then the collapse started. Five run outs and Mumbai had lost by one run !

Later, Yuvraj conceded that Sachin's wicket was the turning point !

Dravid's team fail again !

2008-05-20T10:14:00.000-07:00

Despite Misbah scoring 24 off the last over with 3 sixes, RC failed again. RC could only score 154 and DDD won by 5 wickets, with a six by Shikhar Dhawan

Gambhir leads with 504 and R P Singh wears the Purple cap with 15 wickets.

Gambhir & Sehwag were involved in a 90 run partnership and when the first wicket fell at 90, it was too late for Dravid's men.

Ntini's hatrick wins the game for Chennai !

2008-05-18T21:22:00.000-07:00

Ntini's hatrick won the game for Chennai. He took 4 wickets. Ntini took 4/21 and wrecked the Kolkotta Knight Riders to 149. CSK were 55/0 in 8 overs when rain came. Chennai won by the D/ L method.

In the other match, Deccan failed again. Considered the most powerful batting lineup in the world, Deccan crumbled !

RP Singh took 3/35 in restricting the Mumbai Indians to 178. But that was not enough as Bravo took 3/24 to restrict the Deccans to 153 !

Warne does it again ; Sagar Kulkarni scores double century in T20 !

2008-05-17T20:55:00.000-07:00

Have you heard of a double hundred in T20? S Kulkarni scored a 200 in Singapore.

RR triumphed again, despite Dravid's heroics of 75 not out with six sixes. In a powerful batting display, RR scored 194/1, with G Smith 75 n o, Asnodkar 50 and Shane Watson 46 no. RC was a devastated team and were soon 83/8 ! Dravid stood out, a cut above the rest and hammered six sixes and six fours !

Sehwag scored 51 no and Gambhir 40 in DDD's score of 118/4. Kings XI won the match 94/3, with Mahela scoring 36 off 17 balls, in a game limited by rain

Shaun Pollock proves the principle " Bowlers Win Matches"

2008-05-17T02:09:00.000-07:00

Shaun Pollock took 3 early wickets and KKR were 21/3 ! Bravo, Raje & Thorney took 2 wickets each and KKR were all out for 67!

Then Jayasuria excelled with 48 not out and Mumbai won with 8 wickets to spare !

Earlier the T20 was thought to be a batsman's game. "It is a batter's game" said Mark Boucher. McGrath contradicted him saying that it is a bowler's game.

Who is right, nobody knows. Now the bowlers are coming to know how to bowl in T20s. Also to take early wickets. We find that the team who loses early wickets find it hard to build up a mammoth score. The early wickets lost puts pressure on the incoming batsmen. Two dot balls bring in pressure. So ideally a good start of 50 plus is needed for the opening wicket. 21/3 and the team seems to be finished ! And this is what happened yesterday. Pollock moved the ball in the air and off the wicket. So did Raje, Thornley and Bravo and what a good bowling performance it was.

McGrath is proved by hatricks from Balaji and Mishra, both spells destroying the opposition. Now the bowlers know where to bowl and how to contain the batsmen. As T20 evolves new and new methods will be found out. Even tailenders are becoming experts in hitting sixes.

Gambhir and Dhawan excel

2008-05-15T22:16:00.000-07:00

Dhawan scored 68 nout and Gambhir 79 in a glorious century partnership. And Deccans could not score tha 195 needed.

Earlier Sehwag was taken; his favourite shot to third man and he was caught ! A trap well arranged by Gilchrist.

Mishra took a hatrick and took 5/16.

Well, IPL is a great opportunity for youngsters and Dhawan and Mishra are the new heroes. The world knows about the Gambhirs and the Sehwags. About the Mishras, the Dhawans, the Kulkarnis, the Gonys, the world knows not.

IPL and ICL are great opportunities for Indians and other upcoming youngsters from other countries -Shaun Marsch, Cameroon White - to showcase their skills. The organisers are also improving their skills and within 3 years, we will have state of the art international stadiums as well. All will upgrade their skills - players, commentators, the bosses of teams, broadcasters - and India will become a world power in the globalising scenario !

Gambhir leads with 427 runs, followed by Dhoni 332 and R Sharma 331. Sreesant, Irfan and Zaheer lead with 13 wickets. The orange cap is worn by Gambhir and the purple cap by the three seamers !

Say Tony Cozier, commentator, IPL

Within 3 years, India will be the best team in the world.

Asked if T20 is a different format than Tests, he says no, both are complementaries and the immense learning and experience gained in the IPL matches by the Indian players will be carried forward making them the best outfit in the years to come

The Jayasuria Whirlwind !

2008-05-15T04:17:00.000-07:00

If Jaysuria clicks, what can happen to the opposition ?

Dhoni's men were vanquished in the Jayasuria whirlwind knock of 114 not out. 156 were needed to win and Mumbai won by 9 wickets.

Earlier Shaun Pollock had reduced Chennai to 156. With Hussey and Hayden gone, Chennai's batting looks fragile, their bowling susceptible !

Shaun Pollock's figures were 4-1-9-1

Bowlers win matches and Shoib delivers !

2008-05-13T21:17:00.000-07:00

The adage "Bowlers win matches" is right again. The Rawalpindi Express bowled KKR to victory. Sehwag was caught in the slips in his first over ( ball 149 kph). Gambhir hit a powerful shot into the hands of David Hussy. Shoaib took 4/11 and DDD were 28/4. Laxmi R Shukla took 3 wickets in the last over and DDD were shot out for 110.

Earlier KKR could only manage 133,due to some accurate bowling by McGrath & Co. McGrath seems to be right in his analysis that it is bowlers who win matches !

Punjab bowlers contain RC

2008-05-12T22:51:00.000-07:00

The adage "Bowlers win matches" still holds good in T20.

It was Sreesanth who removed Arun Kumar with a super swing delivery. Then Misbah threatned to take the game away from Punjab and he was then hit wicket Sreesanth. Misbah scored 21 off 7 balls. He stepped onto his wicket and was declared hit wicket Sreesanth. Then it was the turn of Peeyush Chawla to contain the hapless RCs. Virat Kohli who began well was clean bowled by Chawla. Cameroon White was caught and bowled Chawla for 10. The score then was 74/4 ! Then VRV bowled a superb spell, just giving away 15 runs off 4 overs, with a wicket. The Punjabis had contained Royal Challengers - there is criticism that RC is a good Test team - to 143!

Then the Australian trio swung into action. Hopes, Marsh and Pommerbasch took Punjab to victory, with 9 wickets in hands. Shaun Marsh was a revealation and now has scored 295 runs so far !

Sreesanth now leads with 13 wickets, along with Irfan and Zaheer ! Gambhir leads with 336 runs in batting !

Ganguly's blitzkreig's destroys Deecans, Watson's finishes DDD!

2008-05-12T03:22:00.000-07:00

Well, Ganguly silenced his critics with a superb 91 off 57 balls, with 11 fours and five sixes. He was involved in a 102 partnership with David Hussy, who scored 57. The Deccan Chargers couldnt score the 205 needed to win, despite some fantastic hitting by Venugopal Rao ( 71 runs with six sixes .

Ganguly also shone with the ball, picking up 2 wickets. He was declared the Man of the Match.

In the other match, Sehwag fell, along with Gambhir. Shikar Dhawan was unfortunately run out and Delhi were 100/6. !57 to win and Watson rose to the occasion scoring 74 not out and steered his side to victory.

Balaji bowls Chennai to victory !

2008-05-11T01:19:00.000-07:00

Balaji took a hatrick and bowled Chennai to victory.

Earlier Sreesanth had reduced Chennai to 20/2, by taking both openers, Fleming and Vidyut. Vidyut hit 2 fours off Sreesanth, but Sreesanth had his revenge when he induced Vidyut to edge an outswinger into the hands of Mahela. Fleming was deceived by the pace and was caught.

Then it was left to Raina and Badrinath to steady the innings, which they did. Raina departed at 64/3 and then Dhoni walked in. In a 91 runs stand, both Dhoni and Badrinath played well and took Chennai to a respectable 181/4. Badrinath scored 64 and Dhoni was 60 not out.

Punjab was in dire straits at 29/2. Shaun Marsh played a magnificent innings but was out of 54. Yuvraj was dismissed cheaply and this event started the Punjab collapse. Balaji took a hatrick and finished with the best figures of 5/24.

The Juniors are leading in the tournament. As against Dravid's 169 runs, Ganguly's 116, Laxman's 155, the youngters like Gambhir had scored 305,Dhoni 289, R Sharma 263 and Uthappa 211!

Here are the stats for the top ten.

Gambhir 305
Dhoni 289
Gilly 284
Sehwag 270
R Sharma 263
Y Pathan 231
S Marsh 221
Watson 213
Uthappa 211
S Dhawan 206

Zaheer 13 wickets
Irfan 12
S Warne 11
R P Singh 11
M Gony 11
A Nehra 10
Watson 10
Sreesanth10
P Chawla 9
P Kumar 8

Yousuf and Smith pull RR to victory

2008-05-09T21:40:00.000-07:00

An easy victory was achieved by the Rajasthan Royals, with a century partnership from Smith and Yousuf.

Even though Gilchrist scored 61, the Deccans finished with 140. An easy target of 141 was easily achieved by the century partnership of G Smith and Pathan. Pathan scored 61 off 37 balls and Smith 40.

Afridi and Gibbs failed again. This is a big problem for both Deccans and Royal Challengers . Their players are not firing. They may be out of the competition, if this form continues.

Gambhir leads with 305 runs, followed by Gilchrist with 284, Sehwag 270, R Sharma 263. In the bowling dept, Zaheer leads with 13 wickets, Pathan 12, Warne and R P Singh 11

Gony swings Chennai to victory; Dravid falters again !

2008-05-08T20:22:00.000-07:00

15 runs were needed in the last over for Chennai to win.

Gony swung the first ball for six and then slashed the next ball through the slips for four. Gony took a single and gave strike to the talented Badrinath. Two runs were scored off the next ball and the fifth ball was a dot ball. Badrinath lofted the sixth ball and Shikha Dhawan made a valiant attempt to catch it. The ball bounded from his left hand and Chennai had snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. One of the greatest thrillers ever !

Gambhir and Dhawan were in tremendous form, with Gambhir scoring 80 and Dhawan 59. Gambhir became the orange cap owner ( orange cap for the highest scorer in the tournament ) with 305, followed by Sehwag with 270. Delhi amassed 188. Chennai started well with Vidyut hitting bowlers to all parts of the field. Fleming came into form with a superb 44. Dhoni scored 33 off 33 ball and was declared Man of the Match.

In the other match, Ganguly was adjudged Man of the Match with a superb 1/7 off 3 overs. 129/7 was the score of the Knight Riders and the Royal Challengers could only muster 124/4. Boucher was 50 not out !

Left arm swing bowlers lead in IPL bowing. Zaheer and Irfan lead with 12 wickets.

Ashish Nehra wrecks Royals !

2008-05-07T22:05:00.000-07:00

Superb bowling by Ashish Nehra, 3/13, wrecked the mighty Royals ! McGrath says that the theory that it is a batsman's game is not correct and events in the IPL are only corroborating his statement.

The old adage " Bowlers win matches" still holds good in T20 ! Look at the records, Sohail Tanvir's 6/14 spelt doom, Sreesanth removing two in the first over, Pollock removing two in the first over !

Now Ashish Nehra. It the previous match he was on a hatrick. We welcome his return to form. Royals were bowled out for 103. Pollock, Kulkarni, Raje, Bravo and Jayasuria lent solid support to the former Indian swing bowler.

Takawale, the Mumbai wicket keeper impressed with 4 good catches. One of the catches he took was stunning. He scored 27, with one six and one four. Uthappa was 34 not out and Mumbai won by seven wickets !

More consideration should be given to IPL, says Paul Marsh, the ceo of the Australian CC. Ganguly says the youngsters who impressed in IPL should prove their mettle in Tests.

Mallya is irate at the way the RCs are losing the matches. Charu Sharma has been sacked. Brijesh Patel has been chosen as the ceo of the Royal Challengers.

"I was summarily dismissed" says Charu Sharma. There was widespread criticism that RC is a good Test side, with Kallis and Jaffer, excellent Test players ! Dravid took the lead in picking the squad, which had good Test players !

When the Royal Challengers suffered a humiliating defeat in the inaugural match, before a record TV audience and before BCCI and ICC officials, there was growing discontent in the RC camp. Nasty words were used that night to describe the team's lasklustre performance and there was even talk that the team was underperforming in order to make a laughing stock of the owner. The franchise sent a strong signal and the then ceo, Charu Sharma, was the obvious target !

So corporate cricket is serious business !

Bowlers bowl Deccan to victory !

2008-05-06T21:50:00.000-07:00

Despite Gilchrist being named Man of the Match for his 54 no, it was the Deccan bowlers who bowled them to victory.

Good bowling by R P Singh, Pragyan Ojha, Afridi, Styris and V Kumar, saw that Chennai got only 144. They were at one stage 86/6, when Dhoni got out. Dhoni fell to Ojha, the left arm spinner. Suresh Raina played well for his 32. Abie Morkel and Gony indulged in some lusty hitting and took the score to 144.

Deccan in reply lost Gibbs, who was caught and bowled Gony for 10. Gilchrist fell to Morkel, after making a solid 54.

We envisage a World Cup with 39 teams, with all teams of the Stanford, ICL and IPL !

Sreesanth removes Jaffer and White and bowls Punjab to victory

2008-05-05T20:25:00.001-07:00

Great bowling by Sreeshant and Chawla took Punjab to victory.

RC were 1/2 from which they never really recovered. Virat Kohli scored 33 and Dravid 66. Dravid's innings was highly sophisticated. RC were all out for 124.

For Punjab, Shaun Marsh scored 39 and Pathan and Jayawardene were not out on 17 each. Punjab scored 127/4.

In the future we envisage contests between the 8 teams of the IPL and 11 teams of the ICL. Also the 20 teams in the Stanford 20/20. So we have a corpus of 39 teams and all of them can partake in an international League. So this will be the future !

Tanvir wrecks Chennai;Mumbai beat Delhi

2008-05-05T06:43:00.001-07:00

Mumbai created a big upset, when they defeated Delhi at Mumbai.

Mumbai scored a respectable 162, thanks to Shaun Pollock who scored 33,Jayasuria 33 and Thornely 30. But Gambhir was out cheap at 3/1 and then suddenly the Dare Devils were 82/4. Sehwag scored 40, but it was not enough and Delhi were all out for 133 ! What a relief for Mumbai Indians !

Tanvir wrecked Chennai but the best IPL figure of 6/14. Two were dismissed in the fist over and Chennai were 1/2, losing P Patel and S Feming within 1 runs. Then Vidyut was also taken by Sohail. Chennai were all out for 110 and the Rajasthan Royals won by 8 wickets, Graeme Smith

Punjab and Bangalore prevail

2008-05-03T19:40:00.000-07:00

We had 2 magnificent nerve baiting finishes yesterday. Dravid's men trouncing the Deccan Chargers by 3 runs and Punjab winning by 9 runs.

The final over was bowled by experienced bowlers and they won the game for their teams. Kumble for Bangalore and Pathan for Punjab. If not for the great bowling of these bowlers, results could have been otherwise. This gives lie to the theory that T20 is a batter's game !

Piyush Chawla hit 21 in the last over to give Punjab a decent score, 178/6. Kolkota, despite David Hussy's 71 off 46 balls and Saha's 59 off 32, could only finish nine runs behind.

Praveen Kumar took 3/23 and bowled the Royal Challengers to victory. 20 runs were need in the last over and Sanjay Bangar hit 2 sixes and almost did a Shane Warne. But Kumble's experience proved too much for the Deccan Chargers !

Team P W L T NR PTS NRR
Delhi Daredevils 5 4 1 0 0 8 1.263
Chennai Superkings 5 4 1 0 0 8 0.743
Rajasthan Royals 5 4 1 0 0 8 0.525

The leading scorer in the IPL is R Sharma with 235, followed by Gambhir, 224 and Sehwag , 204. Sangakara is fourth with 203, Hayden with 189, McCullum with 186, Dhoni 172, Gilchrist 179, Yuvraj 168 and Mike Hussy 168 !

Delhi win by 8 wickets !

2008-05-03T02:55:00.000-07:00

Chennai Super Stars looked depleted by the absence of Hussy, Hayden and Oram.

The Delhi bowlers McGrath, Asif and Company bowled beatifully to restrict the Super Kings to 169.

A glorious century partnership by Gambhir and Sehwag saw Delhi winning by 8 wickets. Sehwag hit 2 sixes off Goni in the second over and when the century partnership was hoisted, the match was almost over.

A great day for Sehwag & Co and Dhoni tasted his first defeat

Rajastan Royals and Kings XI win !

2008-05-01T23:56:00.000-07:00

Shane Warne does it again. He won the toss and batted. Good innings by Asnodkar 60 Yousuf Pathan 55 and R Jadeja saw the Royals reach 196. Kolkotta went down fighting and they lost by 45 runs.

Shane Warne is proving to be the best captain in IPL. Many say he is the greatest captain Australia never had.

Ganguly hit 2 sixes and 4 fours in a good 39 ball effort. But the Knight Riders were all out for 151

Punjab won in the other match. Deccan could only muster 164/8, with R Sharma scoring 76 and Laxman 48. Gibbs failed and did Gilchrist. Afridi, V Rao and Bangar all failed. Shaun Marsh, the son of Geoff Marsh, went on to score 84 no and Jayawardene gave him solid support with 45 not out.

Shikhar Dhawan and Gambhir shine in Delhi's win

2008-04-30T23:28:00.000-07:00

Delhi scored 191 runs and set a target of 192 for Dravid's team. Dravid's team failed again.

Magnificent batting by Dhawan and Gambhir saw them score 191. Gambhir is the fifth biggest scorer and his 86 was a revealation ! Dravid's men could not get the 192 !

Royal Challengers are going down. Chennai is on top at the moment. But with Hussey and Hayden gone, let us see how Chennai fares again.

Maiden win for Mumbai !

2008-04-30T03:54:00.000-07:00

Shaun Pollock removed Ganguly and McCullum and Kolkotta were 6/2. Early wickets from which they never truly recoverd.

Laxmi Shukla scored 40 with 2 sixes and 4 fours. But the revealation was Debabrata Das who hit 5 fours and a six in his blistering 29, when Ganguly, McCullum and Ponting failed.

All that the Knight Riders could muster was 131. Mumbai were 25/3 and there were fears of a Mumbai loss, like the last four matches. But then Uthapp (37 n o ) and Bravo ( 64 no ) were involved in a 113 run partnership, which saw the Mumbai Indians home.

Here are the points of the 8 teams

M V L T P ( M-Match, V-Victory, L- Loss, T = Tie, P=Points)

Chennai 4 4 0 0 8
Rajasthan 4 3 1 0 6
Kolkotta 4 2 2 0 4
Delhi 3 2 1 0 4
Punjab 4 2 2 0 4
Hyderabad 4 1 3 0 2
Bangalore 4 1 3 0 2
Mumbai 5 1 4 0 2

Royal Challengers fail again !

2008-04-28T21:29:00.000-07:00

We do not know what is wrong with the Royal Challengers, they have failed again.

Dravid was again out for a blob and Virat Kohli did not shine. The target was gettable, particulary after Waseem Jaffer and Ross Taylor scored half-centuries.

Dhoni won the toss and batted on a hostile pitch. Dale Steyn was hostile, bowling at 145 kph. Hayden was out to Zaheer and then Patel got out. Dhoni's blitzkreing was 65 out of 30 balls. Hussey scored 47 and the Chennai Super Kings finished at 178/5.

The Royal Challengers were on top at 102/1, when Jaffer, who had hit 2 sixes, got out. Then they lost quick wickets in succession. It looked like a procession of batsmen. RC failed again and were all out for 165 !