As they say in cricket, or in any other game, you need more players with character than with just talent. Talent may ‘deceive’ you in tricky situations, but players with character will raise the bar in difficult times and win you more matches under pressure.

Before the inaugural edition of IPL, no one knew Yusuf Pathan or Ravindra Jadeja. They were, at that time, raw materials which needed complete support from seniors, so that they could believe in their abilities and play their natural game.

Here are some of the lesser known stars who have shone in the limelight making me believe that league churn out the best talent available in a vast country like India .
Left-arm spinner Shadab Jakati was the unlikely hero for Chennai Super Kings in their crucial Indian Premier League game against Delhi Daredevils at the Wanderers Stadium on Saturday. He claimed four wickets to help Super Kings register an 18-run win.


The 28-year-old Goa player struck two vital blows to tilt the match in his team's favour as Daredevils' David Warner and Dinesh Karthik threatened to take the game away from Super Kings. Jakati broke the rollicking 74-run partnership by having Warner stumped for 51 on the fifth ball of the 15th over. Thereafter, he removed the hard-hitting Karthik to reduce Daredevils to 132 for six.

Jakati took four wickets for 24 runs, which also included wickets of T Dilshan and Pradeep Sangwan to walk away with the Man of the Match award.

Abhishek Nayar is a Mumbai Indian player , a left-handed batsman known for his long-standing and hard-hitting capabilities, and he is also a medium-paced bowler. Abhishek Nayar has a unique batting style and his ability to bat at any position of the batting has helped his team enormously. The anonymous, inexpensive Abhishek Nayar can smite Andrew Flintoff, the most expensive IPL player, for three sixers in one over.


That character was shown by another young man from lowly Madhya Pradesh, Naman Ojha. Though he has scored aplenty in the domestic circuit, IPL has proved to be a completely new arena for him.
He failed in his debut match against Delhi Daredevils, scoring a golden duck. Any other captain might have dropped the rookie after that match. But Warne saw in him a champion match-winner, and the seeds of his wisdom germinated in the very next match, when coming as an opener Ojha surprised one and all by smashing 68 against Kings XI Punjab and forging a 135-run opening stand with Graeme Smith. He provided an encore with another fifty in the next match to steer his team to victory over Bangalore Royal Challengers.

The name list could be endless . some are taking their chances while some are not that lucky this time but all I can say that they are all headed in the right direction . However strong might be the halo of the foreign players but their representation cannot be effective without the support of local talent . had it not been for Raina , CSK would not be topping the charts just due to Hayden . AB De Villiers continues to impress .. some day it is the local SA knowledge of conditions but that wouldn't have been possible without the bowlers Mishra and some local talent support . Hail IPL .. churn out hard and good .

"I think he is an overrated bowler and so I think he was a great target for us to go at. He always loses his cool under pressure and I think tonight was a good example of that,"


In yet another cricket controversy for the DLF IPL 2009, we now have Australian Matthew Hayden calling Sreesanth an overrated bowler. Sreesanth went for a lot of runs when he was bowling to Hayden. When he finally got the big Aussie out by getting him caught at the personal score of 89, Hayden did not take kindly to the words that Sreesanth addressed to him as he walked back to the pavilion.


Matthew Hayden specializes in using choice epithets for some of the hapless bowlers that have the misfortune of bowling and he reserves the choicest ones for Indian bowlers: about a year ago Hayden’s comments about Harbhajan Singh were much in the cricket news, when India was touring Australia. Readers will recall it was a particularly acrimonious tour with allegations of racial slurs and counter allegations of name calling.

At that time, Hayden had very famously called Harbhajan an obnoxious little weed. “It’s been a bit of a long battle with Harbhajan, the first time I ever met him he was the same little obnoxious weed that he is now”, Hayden had said on Brisbane radio. Then there was also the allegation that he called Bhajji a ‘mad boy’ which he countered by saying that he said ‘bad’ not ‘mad’ which Bhajji should be “flattered” by since it was a clothing range.

Hayden had also famously referred to Ishant Sharma as a “stringbean paceman” and had expressed the desire to meet him in the boxing ring. “At the end of the day you are 19, why don’t you just worry about your bowling for a while,” Hayden was reported in the cricket news as having told Sharma

This latest cricket controversy also is caused by the wonderful compliments that Hayden seems to reserve for Indian bowlers who seem to get under his hide with shocking regularity. So when Hayden was in full flow and was stopped in his tracks at 89 by Sreesanth, the bowler seemed rather overwhelmed and as he often does, he overreacted. He hurled some abuse or harsh words at Hayden, and Hayden then responded with his withering scorn, the contempt that he keeps especially for Indian bowlers.

As for Sreesanth, this is far from his first run in with cricket controversy. Readers will remember last year’s IPL which saw Sree in floods of tears because Harbhajan Singh allegedly slapped him. This is just the sort of thing that Indian players need to avoid, such a display of childish immaturity. When our chaps behave like this, can you really blame Hayden for taking pot shots at them!