Rehab

The very clever individual who repeatedly called me Amy Winehouse (Amy - geddit? LOL) has had their wishes come true, but in a very indirect way.

Lalit Modi, Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri, along with some buddies back in India, have come to the decision that Kamran Khan should undergo 2 weeks of rehabilitation. When Kamran first heard the news, he was excited. Finally, a chance to spend 2 whole weeks alone with Herschelle Gibbs! This wasn't a punishment, it was a blessing.

But then someone told him it wasn't that kind of rehab and he broke down into tears.

Yeah, that's me. How did you guess?

Tonight's Matches

If I weren't backing one team out of the four playing team, I imagine both matches would seem boring. As it turns out, I want CSK to win and so I am interested in the second match. The first however... Deccan Chargers vs. Rajasthan Royals. You know, it might be great, but it could also be a complete pushover.

I think perhaps Kamran Khan will be out due to injury? Not sure how serious that injury was, but it did look painful enough.

And apparently Sehwag is also out because of the finger injury. I think Ryan Campbell had a go at Indian cricketers and said something like "He was pretty quick to leave the field as soon as it touched his finger". Little does Campbell know it was all a conspiracy, and Delhi had planned beforehand to fake an injury and bring David Warner on as a substitute fielder so he could orchestrate more dismissals. Bastards.

Okay, so they didn't fake it. I think he had to get stitches. If he isn't playing, the gap in the side isn't going to be all too big, to be honest. Another talented cricketer will just crawl slimily into his place and fix the gap.

Chennai have won a match after Freddie left. His services weren't so desperately valuable after all. On the Nasser Hussain comment, it's quite peeved me off because for one, I've never understood the merit in the "so you want to have your cake and eat it too?" argument. Because yes, if I have my goddamn cake I'd like to eat the fucking thing. Wouldn't you? It would be real scrumdiddlyumptious. I'm sure Willy Wonka would agree. That man would never let a travesty such as having a cake and not eating it occur.

Alright then, moving away from strange analogies and expressions. Apparently there's one sport that Australians can beat the saffas at. Go Waratahs.

How much does Morne want to play?

It's Morne Morkel I'm talking about this time, in his articles/diary entries for Sports Illustrated. Case in point:

Obviously I would like to get my first game for the Royals but unfortunately onlyfour overseas players can play and at the moment they are going with the extra batsman. So I will just have to wait and see. It is very frustrating at the moment.

--

I hope I get a chance to play. It’s been rather frustrating not to play, but I respect the fact that there can only be four ‘overseas’ players in the team. Hopefully thepitch assessment goes in my favour and I get the call-up.

--

There is no point in changing the team for Chennai cos then they have to start out all over again.

The wicket was quite bouncy last night; I would have enjoyed bowling on there. I can't see them changing the side. They need to get the wiinning streak from the momentum they had last night and they need to build on that. My best bet is to wait it out until Dimitri Mascarenhas goes back to England.

I'm surprised he isn't formulating evil plans to get a game. But did that Kamran Khan injury have something to do with a little Morne voodoo magic from the sidelines?

Kamran Khan Reported

It was going to happen. Homer is first on the case, finding an article which details the latest scandal which was bound to happen.

After the Rajasthan Royals match against Chennai Super Kings yesterday, on-field umpires Rudi Koertzen and Gary Baxter felt Kamran had a suspect illegal bowling action on certain deliveries. After the match was over, footage was obtained and examined by all the three umpires, including TV umpire Amish Saheba, and they felt further action was necessary under the MCC&aposs Laws of Cricket section 24/3 that governs the game.

Funny Gary Baxter felt qualified enough to notice something like this after numerous shocking decisions yesterday.

The chucking claim was always going to land on Kamran, and now it has.

More Kamran Khan Stories

Time to edge in on the latest on the Kamran Khan story before all the news outlets start talking about the fairytale story of Kamran Khan again.

Mike Haysman writes of what is going on back home in Kamran's village during the IPL:

His eldest brother Shamshad Ahmed, who works as a driver on daily wages, had organized that four television sets were on hand and a generator was hired as the villagers gathered at Kamran’s residence to watch the match. When he captured the prize wicket of Ganguly celebrations erupted and fire crackers punctuated the air and signed off the moment. Soon after his brother was bursting with pride as The Royals were victorious following an emotionally draining tie enforced Super Over that was engineered by Kamran.

Everyone wants to know the feel good cricketing story of the year. This is it, folks. They'll be making it into a film next.

And then there's a little more on Kamran's journey to the top and struggle for recognition:

Kamran was an eighth grade dropout and along with his seven brothers and two sisters faced the stark reality of abject poverty and despair on a daily basis. Both his parents died when he was young but that never extinguished his dream of becoming a cricketer. He tirelessly trekked from city to city with his one set of whites and torn cricket shoes enrolling in cricket camps in the hope of recognition.

Are you feeling good yet? You should be.

"I'm going to go, go, go, there's no stopping me."

The Fairytale Story of Kamran Khan

My monopoly on Kamran Khan stories is over. Suddenly all the news outlets are talking about "The Fairytale Story of Kamran Khan".

Bastards.

At least I'm still the go-to person for White Mischief Gals. But that is little consolation in the face of losing Kamran's story.

Over. Just over.

Kamran Khan for all you suckers

Everyone wants to know about Kamran Khan. Everyone.

Apparently many people were impressed by his antics in the last match and are now intent on googling as many variations of "Kamran Khan cricketer" as possible. You'd think there's very few, but there's actually a lot of ways you can plug that into a search engine.

But my favourite one is: THE STORY OF KAMRAN KHAN

Upper case and all. THE STORY OF KAMRAN KHAN. Sounds like a fable, of a mighty hunter and his valiant efforts to save the king from a lion. But it isn't. Anyway, it turns out that if you were, in your uncontrollable state of excitement, to search THE STORY OF KAMRAN KHAN, and wait with bated breath, the first result that would turn up is "Kamran Khan has a story".

Apparently there is a god.

Super Over

What a super match.

The real stars of the night:

King Kong
Kamran Khan
Chris Gayle
And alright, Ganguly.

Kamran Khan has a story

This is exciting. We know so little about this 18 year old, and Warnie's waving him hints under our noses, but not revealing much. He'll be pissed that Khan decided to give an interview. So much for unveiling him when the IPL officially begins, Kamran's gone and ruined Shane's big spectacle.

Warnie isn't talking to him, but Khan sure as hell is talking about himself to SuperSport:

"I had gone for trials to every part of my state Uttar Pradesh but without success. Even until a few days ago, nobody knew me. I used to play at the Azad Maidan in Mumbai and just hoped to keep on doing the hard work. I had just one pair of clothes for trials and torn shoes. I used to buy platform tickets and spend the nights there when travelling to attend trial camps as I did not have money to book hotel rooms. I often used to bowl on an empty stomach or a meal of tea and biscuits."

It's almost like a feel-good movie. Or a cricketing version of Slumdog.

What an extraordinary rise for this boy. His life has taken a permanent turn to the better side of things, and (wait for it) all because of the IPL. What a great find he is.

Kamran Khan has a great bowling action. It's almost as good as Sohail Tanvir's, who's more of a slingshot than anything else. Khan gets down really low and does something similar to Tanvir, only it looks more legitimate. What is it with the Rajasthan Royals and picking bowlers who have an extraordinary arm action?

It's the only photo of him I could find. What a mystery.

IPL Watch: Yusuf Pathan

The Dave Hussey to our Mike. Currently in form, a real all-rounder with strengths in both batting and bowling. Not a bad fielder either. Yusuf Pathan is yet another example of those Rajasthan Royals picking players based on quality performances, and he stepped up to the plate in the inaugural season of the IPL to prove his worth. $475,000 worth.

Good man.

The IPL really brought Pathan into the spotlight. He was a key player on Warnie's side, and if you'll remember, played a big role in the final against the Chennai Super Kings, picking up 3/22 and also having a handy day with the bat, with 56 off 39 balls. That won the match, and also won him the man of the man award.

Throughout the tournament, Yusuf Pathan scored 435 runs and took 8 wickets with his off-spin. Shane Watson scored 472 runs and took 17 wickets. They were both excellent players, but this post is about Pathan. Maybe Watson will come later.

Pathan's big strength was his batting. Over the course of 16 matches, he had a strike rate of almost 180, the second highest in the tournament after Sehwag. Along the way, he scored 4 half centuries, one of which was from only 21 balls against the Deccan Chargers - the fastest fifty in the competition.

When he's not busy pretending not to know his brother...

"Hi, uh... Imran, right? No? Irfan? Gotcha."

...Yusuf Pathan is a very clean hitter of the ball. He's no slogger. Watching him hit repeatedly perfect shots over the boundary made this pretty clear. He was an expert at finding the middle of the bat, and played straight out of a textbook. Nice to watch.

This year, with Shane Watson still recovering from an injury and not likely to bowl, perhaps Pathan will find himself playing a more important role in the proceedings with the ball. More likely, however, is that the Rajasthan Royals have been grooming a few younger Indian players for this. Kamran Khan, says Warne. I want to see this guy in action. Pathan looks likely to continue to make big scores and push his team closer to the finals.

There's a reason he's so good. I don't know why nobody else has considered this, but it's pretty obvious to me. Yusuf Pathan is some sort of reincarnation of King Kong. If you look at him in motion, or especially after he takes a wicket, the similarities are tremendous. Photos don't do his ape side justice, you need to watch it with your own eyes.

Shane Warne speaks on IPL

This is like IPL gold. Same newspaper, Shane Warne has also given an interview about the Rajasthan Royals and the IPL in general (especially now that it's being held in SA). There's quite a few interesting things in it, but I'm picking out a few particular bits:

"Captains should always run the cricket. At international level I don’t think you need a coach. At domestic level you need a coach."

That's an interesting thought, and not one I necessarily agree with. Putting the pressure of coaching the team on the captain seems to be too hard a job, especially if the team is already under pressure to perform well. Coaches are always getting bashed by public figures, or the public. If a captain were to undergo scrutiny over their coaching, in addition to the scrutiny they already face about their performance, then I think we'd be seeing many unhappy teams around the world.

"We were very well prepared and we gave everyone a role and nickname. Graeme Smith was the “Rock at the top”. He batted with Swapnil Asnodkar who was the “Goa Cannon” — go and hit them. We had all these names that the guys loved."

That's almost funny.

"We’ve got one young player who’s going to be very interesting. We’re tossing up now what his nickname is going to be — Wild Thing or Tornado, something like that. Kamran Khan is a young kid, a left-armer, a slinger, he doesn’t speak much English at the moment. He’s a tiny little guy but he bowls 140 plus."

Well, he sounds awesome. Like a little bowling machine. I'm highly interested.

On his relationship with Graeme Smith:

"We had a few beers after the first game and chatted about a lot of stuff. We hung out a fair bit. We’ve kept in touch since then and become good buddies."

Move over, KP.

"He was so verbal and public about everything. We won 5-0 (in 2005/06) and I said to him the other day, when something’s not working, try to do something else. Don’t just continue and let the ego get in the way."

Excellent advice, Warnie.

Great article. Check it out. I'm just disappointed Warne didn't say anything directly about Buchanan. He sort of implied a few things, though.