IPL 3 - Day One

Here's my initial thoughts on IPL 3 after day 1 and match 1.

- Not a full house, could be due to the fact that there is no local team involved.

- Commericals in between balls in the scoreboard - Pathetic. I am not a big fan of commentators these days, but this trend will totally take them out of picture soon. In between DLF maximum, Citi moment of success, MRF sky cam, how great this tournament is and bunch of other meanderings, they speak Cricket. Special note to Sunny Gavaskar: Please retire from your commentary job. I had great respect for you as a player, and I still do. I am tired of your Ranjit Singhji leg glance story every time someone plays a fine leg glance.

- It is very clear that only Superstars of Indian cricket and foreign players will be able to make this tournament attractive. Example: Vaas chiming in with early wickets, Matthews and Shah having a huge partnership, Gilchrist's 50 and more to come, which goes to show the importance of Test cricket and ODI existence and competition between national teams, so it will be easy to market T20.  I am hearing 90+ games next season, Modi needs to be very careful with overkill. 

If I were to bet/guess on 4 teams that will make it to semi-final (which looks so so far away), here it is:

Delhi - They are my favorites since IPL 1 and they really look a strong team even this season.

Chennai - Dhoni as captain & Hayden as a player are very capable of dominating any team and hence they are my favorites too.

Mumbai -Though I don't believe in Sachin's leadership, I strongly believe they will perform well this season to make it to top 4.

Bangalore - They have some very talented in-form youngsters in their side. Once they have all foreign players available, they will be a strong team.