Chennai Super Kings remain favorites for IPL8

#CSK #IPL8 #PepsiIPL #EdenGardens Cricket festival is back in India and IPL8 is set to be launched tomorrow at Eden Gardens in Kolkata. In spite of a series of unpleasant revelations connected with match-fixing in the wake of IPL7, the ownership of CSK is now with a new entity – namely, a wholly owned subsidiary Chennai Super Kings Cricket Ltd as reported in ibnlive.in.com dated 6 April 2015.

The CSK has a well-knit team and has an impressive record – it was two-time winners, two-time semi-finalists and three-time runners-up, and have never gone out in the group stages. Its strength is in Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni. This year CSK has retained 17 players and bought 8. Two of them, prime performers Irfan Pathan and Michel Hussey, were bought in for 1.5 crores each. The other new arrivals are Rahul Sharma, Kyle Abbott, Ankush Bains, Pratush Singh, Andrew Tye and Eklavya Dwivedi.
It already has strong hitters like West Indian Dwayne Smith and New Zealander Brendon McCullum and are backed by Faf du Plessis and all-rounder Dwayne Bravo besides M S Dhoni himself and Suresh Raina. Australian veteran Michael Hussey returns following a disappointing stint with Mumbai Indians in 2014.
In the bowling department, pacer Mohit Sharma and offspinner Ravichandran Ashwin will be a handful – they would spearhead the attack.

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India on a wining streak in CWC 2015 – beat West Indies at Perth

#CWC2015 #kapildev #INDvsWI #captaincool It was the fourth win in a row for India as they beat West Indies in the CWC 2015 at Perth – thanks to captain cool M S Dhoni who ensured that the target of 182 was chased down in spite of hiccups caused by the top order not contribute much to the cause. This has been reported in zeenews.india.com dated 6 March 2015.
In the West Indies camp also it was its captain Jason Holder who ensured that the team put up a decent score in spite of failures of his batsmen. He scored 57 runs out of the total of 182. It was same score as in 1983 when India, under the captainship of Kapil Dev, defended it down to cause a major upset – India finally won the 1983 Cricket World Cup.
At one time it was thought that it would be a repeat performance of 1983 – if the Indies defended it and the Indians failed to win. However, Dhoni was at the crease to ward off such an end.
Anyway, it was India’s bowling that played havoc so that the West Indies got bundled out for a paltry 182 in 44.2 overs. It was Mohammed Shami (3/35 in 8 overs) who was responsible. He managed to get both Dwayne Smith and Chris Gayle out of the equation. He was ably supported by Umesh Yadav (2/42 in 10 overs), Mohit Sharma (1/35), Ravichandran Ashwin (1/38) and Ravindra Jadeja (2/27).

India breaks the World Cup jinx – beats South Africa convincingly in CWC 2015

#CWC2015 #INDvsSA #Dhoni #Proteas #MCG India had never beaten South Africa in any Cricket World Cup matches till it finally happened in Melbourne when India beat them convincingly by 130 runs as reported in zeenews.india.com dated 23 February 2015.
It was a wonderful win coming on the back of the win against arch rivals Pakistan and with twin wins under his belt, captain M S Dhoni is a much relieved man – thanks to his team delivering on all fronts. While the batsmen put on the runs on the board to reach a huge score of 307 runs, his bowlers kept chipping off at the South Africans till their miseries ended by the 41st over. They could not last for the full 50 overs.
Shikhar Dhawan’s 170 coupled with 79 by Ajinkya Rahane happened in the morning session when Dhoni chose to bat after winning the toss. And, in the afternoon it was Ravichandra Ashwin with his 3 wickets followed by 2 wickets each by Mohit Sharma and Mohammad Shami that brought the win for India. The Proteas were left wondering what had hit them!!
Before the start of the game, there were fears that Dale Steyn would create havoc but, the fears were unfounded because Indian batsmen played him to perfection and he managed to bag only one wicket for 55 runs.