Date:24/10/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/10/24/stories/2008102456231900.htm

Sport - Cricket

Chennai Superstars on a high

Vijay Lokapally

GURGAON: The Indian Cricket League now travels to the north with matches at Gurgaon and Panchkula — promising greater excitement and of course different playing conditions than Hyderabad and Ahmedabad.

Chennai Superstars, winner of the inaugural edition of the ICL 20-20 Indian Championship, is a team on a high — having won three of its matches to lead the table.

A fraction behind is the vastly improved Royal Bengal Tigers.

Enjoyable journey

Reflecting on the team’s performance, Chennai Superstars captain Stuart Law observed: “It’s been an enjoyable journey really. We have been up against some good opposition and have taken the game to the next level. We all now know the opponents better than before. We are learning new tricks. It’s been a great learning experience sharing our knowledge with the local talent.”

Law, who played one Test and 54 ODIs for Australia and is a British citizen now, was happy with the way the ICL has progressed.

“It’s becoming more and more popular. The intensity is high and there is improvisation in every field. The quality of fielding has gone up and the contests in general are engrossing.”

On the eve of his team’s match against Delhi Giants, the Australian pro noted: “The ICL is not about us (overseas players). It is about the young local talent. Maybe five years from now, you may not need any foreign player in the ICL because you would have enough local talent to attract the spectators.”

Best audience

“It must feel nice to play in front of a big and noisy audience. The 20-20 format of cricket is fast being accepted as a welcome alternative to the traditional form of the game. We want to provide good cricket. It should be competitive and entertaining,” asserted Kapil Dev.

The teams:

Delhi Giants: Marvan Atapattu (Captain), Avishka Gunawardene, Dale Benkenstein, Shane Bond, Syed Abbas Ali, Jai Prakash Yadav, Taduri Sudhindra, Ali Murtaza, Abhinav Bali, Dhruv Mahajan, Dishant Yagnik, Abid Nabi, Abhishek Sharma, Shalabh Srivastava, Raghav Sachdev, Paul Nixon and Monish Mishra.

Chennai Superstars: Stuart Law (Captain), Ian Harvey, Russel Arnold, Shabbir Ahmed, R. Sathish, Hemang Badani, V. Saravanan, Tamil Kumaran, G. Vignesh, R. Jesuraj, J. Hariesh, Vivek Naidu, Nantie Hayward, Hemanth Kumar, Syed Mohammed, Thiru Kumaran and V. Devendran.