IPL auction 2017

We can all admit that the Indian Premier League (IPL) has seen its share of crescendos and crashes over the years. While the degree of interest for the event itself can be questioned , the life and story of its auction is separate and distinct in itself.

There is something very exciting and sad in watching  the ‘auction’ of  cricket players (as if they are mere livestock or something). Fortunes can be made and lost over minute strategies and major egos of the team owners and their strategies.

The seasons before saw atrocious amounts paid for players like Pawan Negi , Yuvaraj Singh , Dinesh Karthik , the Pathan brothers only for them to get weighed down by their exorbitant salaries.

Hitherto unknown players like Paul Valthathy , Praveen Tambe can thank the IPL for truly changing their life and bringing them much needed recognition. And that is the beauty of IPL , the conventional routes are so filled with politics and this is an alternate path which can boost you into the selectors radar or could set you up in a specialist T20 career of being good at one skill like bowling Yorkers or a specialist at slower balls ( Vinay Kumar comes to my mind immediately)

This year’s IPL auction was comparatively more subdued one since most teams are pros at knowing what they want by now. Coaches like Sehwag chalked out how teams stuck to their budgets and only bidded a bit outside of it. Also , next year we have the mega auction where players may only be retained minimally and everyone goes for sale! ( Can’t wait for that to happen xD)

Let us go on a small overview of how all the teams faired in their auctions.

1)      King Xi Punjab – This midlevel team usually punches above its weight but last year was abysmal for them. They didn’t have a captain coming in this year and they seemed to have solved it by buying Eoin Morgan ( whose performance in the IPL has not been so good and English players are only available for a limited period this season) . They have spent heavily on uncapped T.Natarajan , a Tamil Nadu fast bowler , interesting to see what he brings to the table and Varun Aaron could be their answer for frontline ‘fast’ Indian bowler. The kings xi selectors managed to buy Martin Guptill , the destructive opener and Darren Sammy the West Indies all rounder captain at throwaway prices. I feel that these 2 buys could alter the scales in their favour. However , Axar patel seems to be the only recognizable spinner in their line up. They could have invested in better known Indian spinners.

2)      Royal Challengers Bangalore – Usually known for its flashy team owner and exorbitant ego buys , RCB this year didn’t buy big ( in terms of glamour) . That maybe due to the fact that they already have to pay so much for their fancy players like Kohli and De Villiers. They seemed to have narrowed their problem to their Achilles heels – their bowling. They have tried to fill the big boots of Mitchell Starc with literally big men – T.Mills ( who was bought for a whopping 12 crores) , Aneekeet Choudary ( who apparently bowled to Kohli in the nets as proxy for tall foreign bowlers) and the foreign Billy Stanlake. They have also bought Pawan negi ( off spinner) and Praveen Dubey ( leg breaks) . Hopefully this solves their bowling woes for the forthcoming year.

3)      Delhi Daredevils – Usually known for their smart Indian buys , thanks to a certain Rahul Dravid , this year they have gone all out and filled all their foreign slots! They have bought the useful but injured Angelo Mathews , mostly misfiring Corey Anderson , pace machines Rabada and Pat Cummins . I think they are set on their Indian batsmen – Shreyas Iyer , Rishabh Pant , Karun Nair and Sanju Samson since the foreign players are mostly all rounders rather than traditional batsmen. Their spin is mostly spearheaded by Mishra and Jayant yadav , since they have bought only Murugan Ashwin as their known spinner. They seem to have a squad set for all conditions , hope they don’t fall into the pit of too many changes and fall short of playoffs like they usually do.

4) 

     Gujarat Lions – The Gujarat team had a very good campaign last year with a team which covered all bases. This year they managed to get the destructive Roy for his base price and have experiment with a lot of uncapped players. They also seem to have bought a lot of their captain’s former teammates!

5)   

   Rising Pune Supergiants – After boldly sacking M.S Dhoni ( no comments) , the team has gone big and bought Stokes for the costliest 14.5 crores. After which their purse drained and bought players like Jaydev Unadkat , Dan Christian and Manoj Tiwary ( should be given a shot) They have picked up a lot of uncapped players and a New Zealand quick Lockie Ferguson ( Stephen Fleming alert) Let’s see how it goes

6)    

  Mumbai Indians – Mumbai which more or less has a settled side bid for a lot of the exciting talent but pulled out of the race many times. They have welcomed back Mitchell Johnson to their pace department and Saurabh Tiwary to their batting ( remember the Rayudu Tiwary days?)  and bought Nicholas Pooran an uncapped West Indies wicket keeper ( because they always end up having problems with their wicket keepers) They have also bought Karn Sharma the experienced IPL bowler and Asela Gunarathne , a nod to his yesterday’s knock. Mumbai continues to interest with their buys.

7)     

Kolkata Knight Riders – KKR is a team which is going stale and I say this not because I hate them ( which I do) Narine is ineffective after his action was corrected and Russell is banned for now. Since they have relied majorly on these 2 they need a new infusion of blood to their team. So they bought the electric Trent boult and impressive Woakes. They have bought a R. Powell , maybe a straight up replacement for Russell and also Rishi Dhawan , Coulter Nile and Darren Bravo. Let’s see if the minor infusion reinvigorates them.

8)     

Sunrisers Hyderabad – Finally we come to the defending champions SRH. Their title win masked their fragile batting which was held up single handedly by the amazing David warner and their stunning bowling line up. They need Dhawan and yuvi to step up in a big way this season if they want to hold their title. They have shrewdly invested in the upcoming Afghanistan talent of Rashid Khan and Mohammed Nabi . They have also snapped Chris Jordan and Praveen Tambe and Ben Laughlin all good talents and good buys. Hope they hold the trophy for two years running!  

The Dawn

The quadrille #25 challenge piqued my interest with its word limit of 44 words to write a poem on 'dawn'. So I penned this. I hope to read your feedback on the same as I really enjoyed writing it. 

Image borrowed from the internet

Constant cacophony of  callous cuckoos cloud the horizons of my consciousness ,

I seek the shimmering rays of the sun 

to build me the moral compass to navigate the gnarly waters of life. 

Strangely enough

 the darkness beneath my eyes dawned the light within me

Happy sunday!

So Sundays are the best  since it gives us the much needed time to be our lazy potato-selves. And on what other day can I throw my random-est thoughts at you guys without shaping them professionally?

What I am going to do is casually throw some ideas at y’all and if it is worthy of discussion we can make a full fledged post.

1)     

    Surveillance is BAD. Then why track our Swiggy* guys?  All of us hate it when our school installed surveillance cameras in the corridors or when they were introduced them in our workplaces. It is not a good feeling to have the Big Brother watching you , even if it is just a fat security guard bhaiya** who is never going to look at you. I’m sure you will have the same reaction if your employer attaches a GPS tracker on you.  While it certainly gives a sense of comfort to know where your food parcel is every minute of the day , isn’t it invading the delivery guy’s workplace privacy to track him every second? If they give a timeframe of 30 minutes and deliver it within that span , does it matter if he stopped for Chai^ in between? In fact , swiggy doesn’t give time based guarantee because we can see when their delivery guys are stuck in traffic. Isn’t it better to not know and demand free food? Food for thought. See what I did there?

*Indian based food app delivery service **brother ^Tea <3

2)    

  Isn’t alarming and annoying that advertisements load quicker than any video? It means they are giving us crappy service when they can do better. Always hate that when that happens. The guy who makes food in our hostel mess used to make awesome Sunday lunches and be crappy rest of the week. The reason he gave was “ You will appreciate my good work when you taste bad food , if I give you good food throughout the week , you will not appreciate my food so much” Underwhelm to Overwhelm is a very important mantra folks. In fact Conversations with God , the much acclaimed book basically keeps repeating this throughout by saying how you know God only when you know Evil. Glad to know that the world runs on such lofty ideals.

3)   

Do online debates ever solve anything? Every one is just trying to look smart , witty and sling mud at each other. Instead of having constructive discussions people correct each other’s grammar and call each other bhakts and presstitutes and feminazis and libtards. No one ever comes around to another’s point of view nor to they even concede a single error when it is blatantly obvious they are wrong. This is why there needs to be rule and orders to discussions. And Arnab Goswami. Just Kidding. But we do need mediators.

4)      Love trumps hate?

5)      Does anyone else google their dreams? Today I had a giant ant bite in my dream , I hope it is something not life altering. If you do interpret your dreams online try non Freudian ones. Else save yourself a search – it is definitely something sexual or traumatic from your childhood.

On that creepy note , I decide to leave you all.

Actually , google your dreams. It’s pretty fun.

Happy Sunday!

Divided we fall

Hi there. So it has taken me longer than usual to get the blog rolling this year. Starting the year with an old unpublished poem which fits the theme of unity :) Would absolutely love all feedback! So comment away.

A conjoined twin trying to escape another

Grunting in exertion and effort

As his flesh binds him to another

But not his spirit

A group of people deciding

What is best for themselves

And propagandising it as

What is best for those who they represent

And changing the contours of history

And geographical boundaries

By coercion and threat.

A group of disadvantaged people

Who are sick of the current system

And want to create their own system

To grow sick of.

The prince who abandoned his title

Subjects , wife and children

In the name of enlightenment.

Are all seceding. 

Physically

Politically and

Morally

But is anyone really succeeding? 

Written for Poet united's midweek motif  'unity'. 

Fakebook?

In this world so connected with technology,we have actually lost our real connections.Technology has actually surpassed human-interactions. Real time Conversations became texting and Feelings became status updates.What you feel? Share your views on it. 

So this is my first post for indispire , I hope to participate more often. #indispire149 has the above mentioned topic and I have decided to play Devil's advocate. ( the best type of advocate)

Disclaimer : All views are solely my opinion and all images are taken from google , I claim no rights over them.

So it boils down to this

Cliched intro and some irony 

In every century , every decade man (woman too?) has proven that he hates new change or technology. For , every innovation there is equal and strong opposition ( see how i mimicked newton there xD ) and a general sense of disdain over all things new. And that is precisely what is happening here when slightly older generations ironically go on social media and blogging platforms to state how we don't have 'real' connections anymore. 

Technology is good * blasphemy *

No change is so simplistic or negative , unless it is brought by Hitler maybe. Truth be told technology has helped us connect more than ever before. I am thousands of miles away from my family and connect with them at a moment's notice through skype. Isn't that wonderful? Yes , it is. But to admit that would mean that *gasp* technology is a GOOD thing. 

Beholder 

We all know that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder and the use or abuse of technology solely lies on the hands of the operator. Blaming oneself instead of the medium requires a lot of introspection and courage and most of us lack that. 

Exaggerations

Also known as crying over nothing

At any given point of time , a person is genuinely close to give or take 20 people? When it is face to face we avoid these other 100's of people or don't have a chance to connect with them and really doesn't impact us. However , when all of these people are on our virtual screen we get a sense that they are our 'friends' and feel disappointed when they don't respond. 

External validation

The problem is that when we post 'status' updates we want people to react , we need some sort of validation and knowledge that we are not shouting ourselves hoarse to an empty stadium. Social media and technology to a certain extent shows us how tiny we are in this world. And that doesn't feel like progress to many. 

Use to build up and not create 

But it's how we take it. If we are using Facebook solely to make new friends when we don't have any 'real' friends , it is not going to really help. There is no substitute for real human connection and organic personal experience as opposed to artificial , manufactured attempts to foster friendship. If we use sites like Facebook to build on a date or catch up with friends we already know , rest assured that it is 'real'.

Fakeness

Most of the 'fakeness' can be attributed to the forced sups? and nms uttered when one wants to be left alone and the other clearly doesn't get it. If you have your core group of friends and you regularly share updates on your life , you aren't fake you are just sharing it to wider circle who aren't used to the idea of instant sharing and sensory overload. 

Life goes on

An important point to be noted is that it is our real life relationships that impact our virtual ones. If our 'real' life is in order , I don't think we will even be complaining about our virtual ones. So people moaning about social media ruining your lives , take a deep look at the mirror and face the music. 

I also wanted to let you guys know that sometimes ( not always) you tend to lovely relationships with technology and social media too. I know a lot of bloggers and friends this way and Fakebook is not all that fake if you make an effort and you are yourself. In fact relative anonymity helps your true personality come out. The problem is the nature of the personality sometimes. So let's not blame the technology and learn to use it productively?

Thank you

Samyuktha Semi Jayaprakash