Series Thread: Zimbabwe President's XI in Deodhar Trophy

[brmtaylor.com admin]

Do you remember the name of the station? If so, I can shoot off an email to them to find out if they are doing it again this year.

[CrimsonAvenger]

Do you remember the name of the station? If so, I can shoot off an email to them to find out if they are doing it again this year.

Well, it was the state-run All India Radio (AIR) itself. We can look it up easily, but I doubt if they are planning to cover this at all this time, with general elections drawing closer and IPL hogging all the limelight, I doubt if people other than those playing in Deodhar Trophy even know that there is a List A series coming up.

[CrimsonAvenger]

Here are a few links to Cuttack stations that might help (I can't guarantee when these were last updated, though)

http://allindiaradio.org/address/cuttack-cbs.htm
http://allindiaradio.org/address/cuttack-stip.htm
http://www.allindiaradio.org/schedule/freq_er.html

[brmtaylor.com admin]

I've sent them an email, fingers crossed we get a positive reply.

[CrimsonAvenger]

Looks like AIR would not be broadcasting this series. A couple of years ago, the state-run Prasar Bharti had bought both TV and Radio rights for all matches held in India. So, Doordarshan (TV) and All India Radio were broadcasting all these matches. Now that Neo has the contract, Prasar Bharti would have no say there, so AIR cannot broadcast the Deodhar trophy officially, unless they reach a deal with Neo for Radio rights.

In any case, parts of the commentary would be in the languages of Hindi or Oriya (Official language of Cuttack, Orissa) in all probability (and other parts in English), and I don't think many would understand these languages here

[brmtaylor.com admin]

Well it is a shame that AIR are not broadcasting it
Because to me it looks doubtful that Neo will be doing it it - check out the Cricinfo page for the Deodhar Trophy, two games played and no commentaries. It is well known that the vast majority of Cricinfo commentaries come from their writers watching the matches on TV, so to me that signals very little hope of us getting any form of live scores, let alone seeing the match live on a stream.

First round:

Central Zone v North Zone at Cuttack
North Zone won by 7 wickets, Central Zone 250/9 (50 ov); North Zone 251/3 (47.5 ov)

South Zone v West Zone at Cuttack
West Zone won by 71 runs, West Zone 223 (49.2 ov); South Zone 152 (42.2 ov)

It looks like 250 will be a competitive score.

[CrimsonAvenger]

You wouldn't believe this. The whole country seems to be obsessed with IPL. All the news channels talk about IPL 75% of the time. The home ministry of the country is busy negotiating new dates for IPL from weeks, so as to not affect the election dates and security around it. They surely have better things to do. This has now reached the levels of insanity. We don't even know if Zimbabwe has arrived or not, let alone any information about the matches. Ironically, both IPL and Deodhar trophy are same level of competition, domestic league. And Deodhar has a rich history behind it too...

[brmtaylor.com admin]

I have my reservations about the IPL. I didn't watch any of last years matches to completion, and probably only saw bits and pieces of 2 or 3 games maximum - just to get a feeling for what it was all about rather than any keen following for any of the teams.

I don't like the way the BCCI has treated the ICL. ICL came up with the idea first, they got theirs off the ground first... BCCI just copied them. The ICL to me seems more friendly and genuine, the IPL is too money focused. As long as the players get their paychecks I doubt they could care less if their team does well or not. Not to mention that the teams don't mean anything. I wonder how many of the players for the Knight Riders first eleven were actually born in Calcutta? Probably a token few with the rest being imports. ICL of course is much the same, yet they have been working against the odds the whole time so for that they have earned my respect.

For me, an ordinary ODI series rates far higher than the outcome of the IPL.

That is not to say there isn't a market for it, because obviously there is! I would still prefer to watch a Test or ODI because a good game has the potential to swing both ways and you see greater use of tactics. But Twenty20 has the "non stop action" factor that the other forms of the game don't have, so people that have taken to and like Twenty20 will understandably be much more interested in the IPL.

I will exclude T20I's from this argument though, because arguably the best game of cricket I have seen in the past 5 years was Zim vs Aus at Cape Town...

[brmtaylor.com admin]

Zimbabwe President's XI vs South Zone
http://content.cricinfo.com/deodhartrop ... 89631.html

Toss news: Zimbabwe President's XI won the toss and chose to bat first

By the sound of it South Zone is the weakest team, but we should still be looking for 240-250 to ensure a competitive match. Probably 270 or so would be a winning total.

[CrimsonAvenger]

A half cooked scorecard is up at Cricinfo now, and looks like we are struggling at 51/3 after 13 overs.

Masakadza 15
Utseya 0 (Looks like he has opened )

No idea who else is out, as Matsikenyeri and Mutizwa are being shown as not out batsmen.