HPl season 3; Bring on the balls...!!

Aloha...

This was meant to be a blog covering the Honolulu Premier League season 2. As always, I lazed away but hope to keep up with the tournament this season. It would've been great to do this the last season as yours truly was part of the winning team (Silly points); well, anywhoo...

We have an exciting season of HPL on the cards with three teams from Oahu. Skippers for this season are the Club president Mark Berwick (an American butcher of a batsman ), Travis Wilkinson (the Australian who lives and dies by his pull shot) and Raghu Srinivasan (the sweeping Indian) and have chosen what appears to be well balanced teams. We have few regulars missing for this season. The inimitable rambo (a hard hitting Guyanese and one of the oldest members of the club), snail Bob (the quickest Englishman on the ground; ever), Aadi (who'll never be mistaken for Arnie), Pete (who is a tobacco farmer in Raleigh now), Ricks (the soon to be dad and the best silent scorer I've seen) and the others will be sorely missed. We will also be missing a couple of guys (Sid and Yudi) who've been a very significant part of the club for the last few years but will act as pool players for the first match. Sid's one of those players who you would want to play against; someone you want to beat the shit out of coz you know its not going to happen often. I am sure everyone here has cherished playing with him and will miss him when he leaves the island after the first match in pursuit of greener pastures and colder climates. Yudi's been one the most entertaining members of the club and is joining us from Nashville for the first weekend.

The Teams

Underdog Billionaires

Raghu Srinivasan (c), Ragu Vijayakumar, Om Das, Kamran Masih, Owen O'Callaghan(wk), Vemuri Srinivas, Matt Hawkins and Nadeem Joseph.

Royal Lions

Mark Berwick(c), Munna Hussain, Lazar Joseph, Sachin Shah, Naveen Margankunte, Misa Tupou and Sankar Venkataraman

Sloggers

Travis Wilkinson(c), Barry Watt, Subbu Raman, Shabbir Hussain, Pankaj Bhanot (wk), Vishan Dookhu, Karthik Vjayarajan

My take on the teams: I feel that one team usually ends up looking weaker than the two on paper. But that doesn't mean squat as we, the Silly points showed last season. I reckon the Billionaires look a tad weaker than the other 2 teams with at least one explosive batsman and one attacking bowler short and hence the name 'Underdog' I guess. More on the two teams playing the first match later.

Schedule:

7 June: Sloggers versus Underdog Billionaires 10:00 AM - 1:30 PM Pool players: Sid, Yudesh, Vinoo, Jacob, Francis, Deon

14 June: Lions versus Underdog Billionaires 10:00 AM - 1:30 PM

21 June: Sloggers versus Lions 10:00 AM - 1:30 PM

Teams will be seeded after the first round of play. The third place team will play a doubleheader on 28 June, one match against each of the others teams.

28 June: Doubleheader (all teams play at least one match) 10:00 AM - 1:30 PM and 2:00 - 5:30 PM

5 July: 1st place versus 2nd place 10:00 AM - 1:30 PM

12 July: HPL Summer Grand Final

Preview : Game 1 (Sloggers Vs Underdog Billionaires)

Sloggers

Sloggers are in my book the favorites to win it all this season (I am being nice; the Lions with me in the squad are going to devour em all). They've got a perfect balance of attacking batsmen and guys who can accumulate runs pretty briskly. They've also got a tremendous bowling attack with plenty of variation and everyone capable of turning the game around on their day.

Watch out for: Barry who is one of the most consistent all rounders in the club. He paces his innings immaculately and can bowl at a very good pace consistently.

Underdog Billionaires

The Billionaires would have been the underdogs for this one but a turn of events evens this out. Om from this team tore a ligament in a practice match and the Billionaires would get the first pick of the pool players. I wonder who it'll be (I got 5 bucks saying its Sid). Having a regular keeper in Big O should be a huge advantage though Pankaj Bhai is no slouch behind the stumps.

Watch out for: Ragu (the Lankan firebrand of a cricketer). He is one guy in this team that can turn a match upside down in a jiff. Much will be decided in his first over with the new ball when he is prone to have a few too many wides. If he can control the swing and his swagger he'll be a potent weapon in this line up.

Key Match up: Big O (Owen) Vs Barry; Much depends on how Big O opens his batting against a potent pace attack. He's one of those guys who goes all out and can swing the game either ways pretty quickly.

Good luck to both teams...!!

I want to add a disclaimer that this is my personal take on the HPL and the events that unravel during the 6 weeks of the tournament the way I see it.