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Swing bowling not due to humidity, research suggests

Thursday 31 May 2012

(BBC NEWS) The phenomenon of swing bowling, in which a cricket ball veers sideways during flight, is not influenced by humidity, researchers say.

Cricketers and sport scientists alike have long hypothesised that high humidity may increase the swing effect.

But precise 3-D studies of cricket balls under varying humidity showed no effect on the balls' shapes.

A report due in Procedia Engineeringinstead suggests that cloud cover increases swing by stilling the air.

Much like the path of a "curve ball" in baseball or a looping corner kick in football, the swing effect comes from setting up different kinds of air flow on opposite sides of the ball - smooth or "laminar" flow on one side and chaotic "turbulent" flow on the other.

But why the effect is more noticeable during some matches, and even some days in the same match, has had researchers and players stumped.

"Lots of scientists have always tried to discuss this idea around cricket ball swing and the effect of atmospheric conditions, and people talk about humid days being really important," said study co-author David James of Sheffield Hallam University's Centre for Sport Engineering Research.

"The leading hypothesis as to why cricket balls swing was around the fact that the seam on the cricket ball will swell on a humid day, becoming more pronounced, and that might lead to more swing," he told BBC News.

Wasim AkramWasim Akram was one of the all-time great exponents of swing bowling

Dr James and his colleagues John Hart at Sheffield and Danielle MacDonald at AUT University in New Zealand made use of the centre's "climate chamber", in which atmopheric conditions can be tightly controlled.

They used a 3-D laser scanner to monitor differently conditioned balls reacted under varying humidity, but found humidity had no detectable effect on the ball's geometry.

Instead, they have pitched in another idea: that bright sunshine - or the lack of it - is to blame for variation in swing.

"When the ground heats, it makes convection currents which make the air rise off the cricket pitch - that creates turbulence in the air on a sunny day," Dr James explained.

"On a cloudy day you get stiller air, because you don't get these convection currents coming off the ground."

Stiller air does less to affect the imbalance of smooth and chaotic flow on either side of the ball that leads to swing, so cloud cover could indirectly be the culprit.

Dr James concedes that the team's hypothesis must now be put to a test under controlled conditions, but they are convinced that humidity is not the variable that should put batters on the back foot.

"We fairly rigorously went through every possible thing around humidity and debunked it," he said.


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Cricket: Pietersen retires from limited overs cricket: board


(Yahoo News) England star Kevin Pietersen retired from all forms of international limited overs cricket on Thursday, a decision which took the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) by surprise.

Pietersen, who will continue to be available for Test selection, said in a statement he wished to step aside in order to give the next generation of players a chance to bed in before the 2015 World Cup.

"After a great deal of thought and deliberation, I am today announcing my retirement from international one-day cricket," said Pietersen, who turns 32 next month.

"With the intensity of the international schedule and the increasing demands on my body, approaching 32, I think it is the right time to step aside and let the next generation of players come through to gain experience for the ICC World Cup in 2015," added Pietersen, who has scored 4,184 runs at an average of 42 in one-day internationals and averages 38 in international T20 cricket.

Pietersen's decision comes less than four months before England are due to launch the defence of their Twenty20 World Cup crown in September.

The South Africa-born batsman was man of the tournament when England won the title in the West Indies in 2010, and had indicated a willingness to remain part of the T20 squad in Sri Lanka this year.

However ECB rules dictate that centrally-contracted players must make themselves available for all forms of limited-overs cricket.

"I am immensely proud of my achievements in the one-day game, and still wish to be considered for selection for England in Test cricket," Pietersen said.

"For the record, were the selection criteria not in place, I would have readily played for England in the upcoming ICC World Twenty20."

However Pietersen's decision was greeted with dismay by ECB managing director Hugh Morris.

"The ECB is disappointed by the timing of Kevin's decision less than four months before we defend our ICC World Twenty20 title," he said.

"Kevin is a world-class player and I would like to take this opportunity to thank him for his efforts and we look forward to his continued contributions to the Test match side."

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Strike that: Whose loss is it anyway?

(Reuters.com)A few buses have been torched, a few trains have been stopped, a few people failed to get to work, a few shops were shut, a few lost their daily wages and the exchequer will register a big loss. Someone is telling India’s “common man” that this strike is in his interest.

The transportation shutdown that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and several left-leaning parties called for as a protest against a steep rise in petrol prices is seen as a means to exploit popular anger against the ruling Congress-led government, though political parties insist that they won’t benefit at election time.

A 12-hour ‘Bharat Bandh‘ (“India shutdown”) to protest against inflation in 2010 cost the exchequer 130 billion rupees, according to the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). This time it can only be more. Given all of India’s other problems, can the country afford such losses?

For many autorickshaw drivers, rickshaw pullers and daily wage labourers, a strike means no earnings for the day. That’s good enough reason to look for alternate ways to protest.

A strike does register dissatisfaction with the government, but it is difficult to understand how it would help in the rollback of petrol prices or in providing an alternate economic strategy.

Thursday’s strike was not as peaceful as promised. Local media reported that strike supporters stopped trains in Delhi, set fire to two buses in the city of Pune and stoned about a dozen others. Incidents of violence have been reported from other states.

Such protests let smaller parties and factions make their presence felt. In Mumbai, the Shiv Sena, a BJP ally, said residents “should not venture out of their houses“. A strike is ideally a voluntary exercise, but fear can push some people into cooperating in a more involuntary way.

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Katrina, Anushka or Deepika, who'll bag HIMMATWALA remake?

Wednesday 30 May 2012

Glamsham Editorial

While it is confirmed that actor Ajay Devgn will be playing the male lead in Sajid Khan's next directorial venture i.e. HIMMATWALA remake, it is still a mystery whether who'll bag the female lead role in the film.

According to media reports, director Sajid Khan apparently wants to rope in one among the three Bollywood's leading actress viz. Katrina Kaif, Anushka Sharma and Deepika Padukone.

Reportedly, Sajid has also bought the rights of the famous song 'Naino Mein Sapna' featuring Jeetendra and Sri Devi from the original film to retain in the remake. Besides, Khan is also planning to rope in his sister Farah Khan to choreograph the song.

It's going to be a tough task for Sajid to decide as to who will play Sri Devi's part. Moot reason being as till now, none of the three actresses have been paired with Devgn. So, this will be an altogether fresh pairing. However, Deepika has an advantage as she has worked with the director in HOUSEFULL before whereas Anushka and Katrina haven't.

Now, only time will tell who'll bag the role.

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Viswanathan Anand wins World Chess Championship


(Yahoo! India News ) MOSCOW: Viswanathan Anand has been crowned the World Chess Champion after he beat Israel's Boris Gelfand 2.5-1.5 in a tense tie-breaker at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.


This is Viswanathan Anand's fifth crown and fourth in a row and he a prize money of approximately $1.4 million as prize money. He has been the world champion since 2007.

In the tie-breaker, Anand went ahead after winning the second game in 77 moves following a draw in the first in 33 moves. The remaining two games also ended in a draw for a result of 2.5-1.5 as Anand defended his world championship title for the third time in a row.

"Game one was a tense start. It was a long and tough match. The match was very intense, I am relieved. I was better for most part in the second game. It was a back and forth game," Anand said.

A humble Anand admitted that Gelfand was a tough competitor.

"I am too tense to be happy, right now now I am relieved. Gelfand was playing well, the match was very even," he said.

The 42-year-old Indian said losing the seventh game had put him on the back-foot and he felt fortunate to defend the crown.

"It was a huge blow for me to lose the seventh game. It was very critical moment for me. I was extremely fortunate that I was able to come back the next day. Given that we drew our first 12 games, deciding the match by tie-break is quite a reasonable situation," he said.

With both the players tied at 6-6 in the 12 classical games, they had to play four games under rapid chess rules with 25 minutes to each player and a ten seconds increment after every move.

The two met in a mini match in the 2000 FIDE World Cup in Shenzhen (China) which was decided in an Armageddon game after two classical, two rapid and two blitz games had all ended in draws. Anand won the mini match and went on to win the title.

The World Chess Championship match too has been a close affair, mainly because they have shunned risks and played safe. Most of their games ended within 30 moves via quick exchange of pieces, causing much disappointment among their fans.

The two have prepared extensively and thus have not only anticipated their rival's tactics but have been ready with their responses. They have played safe, avoiding complications and only a couple of games have been exciting enough to create a buzz in chess circles.

Anand, world champion since 2007, won the junior title in 1989 and became India's first Grand Master at the age of 16.

Anand became the first Asian to win the FIDE world chess championship after defeating Spain's Alexei Shirov in Tehran in 2000. His title win on Wednesday was his fourth in a row -- he also won in 2007, 2008 and 2010.

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Facebook Adds New Analytics Tool for Brands

Facebook stock, as of now, sits at $33.03, and some speculate that there truly is no limit on how low it can go. One of several factors that might’ve contributed to the sensational IPO’s less than stellar performance is a possible fear regarding the company’s future, especially since the mobile version of the site, which more and more users are accessing, offers even less ad content than the desktop version. Some have even speculated that Facebook was aware of this, and may have issued a reduced earnings guidance on the eve of its IPO, which is a company’s forecast of how good business will be in the future. Either way, Facebook stock has essentially tanked, and the social network is scrambling to figure out how to make more money from ads, especially after GM discontinuing their campaign with the company, which made headlines.

Yesterday, the social network made a change which allowed advertisers to bypass Facebook sales reps while purchasing ads – Facebook home page and news feed ad space can directly be set up through Ads API and Power Editor tools, without having to consult with a Facebook ad representative. The platform continues to roll out new features related to ad content sans any official announcements, most recently adding a tab that displays the percentage of brand page fans who were reached as well as ‘liked’ posts. Here are some screen grabs of these new feature:

fb ads
fb ads

Page owners now have an extra analytical tool to get a better handle on how well their brand is doing on the social network. Facebook told Mashable that the new feature is available for the old-style pages, as well as the newer timelines, but adds that “we are slowly rolling this back to Page owners with a slightly updated design.” It can be assumed that the “updated design” is the timeline, which seems to be slowly be taking over the entire site.

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Facebook plans to raise $10.6 bln in mega IPO

Tuesday 29 May 2012

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook Inc aims to raise about $10.6 billion in Silicon Valley's largest IPO, dwarfing the coming-out parties of tech companies like Google Inc and granting the world's largest social network a market value close to Amazon.com's .

The eight-year-old social network that began as Mark Zuckerberg's Harvard dorm room project indicated an initial public offering price range of between $28 and $35 a share on Thursday, which would value the company at $77 billion to $96 billion.

The size of the IPO reflects the company's growth and bullish expectations about its money-making potential as a hub for everything from advertising to commerce.

"We certainly haven't ever seen a tech IPO on this grandiose a scale," said Lise Buyer, a principal with the IPO advisory firm Class V Group.

Buyer, who worked on Google's 2004 IPO, said the question about a company "that's already this big and that is raising this much money is how many of the glory days of growth are in the past versus how many are ahead."

Facebook stands to raise as much as $12 billion at the upper end of its planned range. If an over-allotment or "greenshoe" option is triggered, the company could sweep up a maximum of $13.6 billion, according to a Thursday prospectus.

Facebook is only getting about half, or $5.6 billion, of the estimated $10.6 billion that it would raise at the midpoint of its planned IPO range. About $4.9 billon will go to some existing shareholders.

Facebook's stock could begin trading as soon as May 18, according to a road showschedule obtained by Reuters. The offering's price range can be adjusted depending on Wall Street's response during the road show.

Investors are expected to flock to the highly anticipated IPO, although there have been growing concerns about the social network's longer-term growth and Zuckerberg's majority control.

Facebook will trade at 13 to 16 times the revenue that GreenCrest Capital analyst Max Wolff believes it will generate this year. By comparison, Google, the world's dominant Internet search engine, currently trades at 5.5 to 6 times expected 2012 revenue, he said.

Google's valuation was higher when it went public in 2004, though Facebook's IPO valuation is still higher than Google's was back then, Wolff noted.

But some observers said the rich premium was unlikely to deter investors.

"People are going to be very comfortable with this valuation," said Sam Schwerin of Millennium Technology Value Partners, which owns Facebook shares worth roughly $200 million. The firm is not selling in the IPO.

"A price range of $28 to $35 will be a relief to some people who are concerned that they may try to take the highest possible price because of high demand," he said.

"The amount being raised is noteworthy. Selling stockholders are raising about $5 billion in the IPO, which is a lot."

Facebook executives are due to hit the road on Monday, presenting their investment case to audiences. They will start in New York, go to other major cities such as Chicago and Boston, and end up on Facebook's home turf in Menlo Park, California, according to the schedule.

Zuckerberg is expected to participate in the two-week road show, a source has said, although Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and Finance Chief David Ebersman will lead the briefings.

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Fuel shortage to ease in Chennai, says Jayalalithaa

Chennai, May 29 (IANS) Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. JayalalithaaTuesday said the acute shortage of petrol and diesel will end in the metropolis as urgent steps are being taken to supply the fuel to the petrol bunks.

In a statement issued here, referring to the review meeting the state government officials had with the oil industry officials, Jayalalithaasaid: "Chennai needs 2,100 kilo litres (KL) of petrol and 2,500 KL of diesel per day."

The 67,000 KL of fuel brought by the oil companies through ships will be distributed to the retail outlets immediately so that the fuel shortage in the city comes to an end, she added.

However, during the day several oil outlets remained closed for want of supplies and some had long queues.

The oil tankers arrived at Chennai port Tuesday afternoon.

Jayalalithaa also said 2,000 KL of diesel will be brought by road from Bangalore by the oil marketing companies.

According to Jayalalithaa, the sudden fuel shortage was due to the closure of Mangalore Refinaries and Petrochemicals unit for 10 days and the non-receipt of fuel by Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd(BPCL).

Appreciating the state government's initiative to solve the problem, M. Kannan, president of theTamil Nadu Petroleum Dealers Association, told IANS: "It was due to the state government's initiative the issue has been sorted out soon."

He said some supplies have come Tuesday and the situation is somewhat better.

Queried about the reluctance of dealers to take just petrol, he said: "The oil companies have no answer to the question why they have ran out of diesel. They are blaming the dealers."

He said retail outlets will indent the quantity of fuel based on their requirement and the oil companies cannot insist that they should take full lorry load (12,000 litres) of petrol alone.

"Looking at the suffering of the people, the oil companies could have supplied several bunks with just petrol instead of insisting each outlet accept full load," Kannan said.

Meanwhile V.K. Jaychandran, executive director at Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL) and the state-level coordinator for oil industry, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, said one of the coastal tankers carrying 26,000 KL of high-speed diesel (HSD) has berthed at Chennai Port and is currently discharging the product.

In a statement issued here, he said: "A second coastal tanker carrying motor spirit - 7,800 KL petrol and 18,000 KL HSD - has also anchored and is awaiting berthing at Chennai port. The third tanker carrying 6,000 KL HSD has also arrived at Chennai port and will be taken up for discharge as soon as berth space is allotted for it. One more coastal tanker with 7,000 KL of MS and 17,000 KL of HSD is expected in Chennai shortly."

According to him, with the Chennai Petroleum Corporation Ltd maintaining normal production, adequate supplies will now be available to normalise diesel supplies in the city.


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India PM Manmohan Singh meets Aung San Suu Kyi

(BBC NEWS) Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has met opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, hours ahead of her first overseas visit in 24 years.

Ms Suu Kyi is due to travel to Bangkok late on Tuesday for the World Economic Forum and to meet Burmese refugees.

Mr Singh is also on a historic trip, being the first Indian prime minister to visit Burma since 1987.

On Monday, he met Burmese President Thein Sein and signed a series of deals including a $500m (£319m) credit line.

The two sides also signed deals on border area development, air services, cultural exchange and the establishment of a joint trade and investment forum.

At the meeting Mr Singh invited Ms Suu Kyi to deliver a prestigious Nehru Memorial Lecture in India, the BBC's Sanjoy Majumder reports from Rangoon.

Mr Singh said he hoped the Nobel Peace laureate would play a "major role in the political process" undertaken by the new Burmese government.

Ms Suu Kyi, whose mother was Burma's ambassador in Delhi in 1960, said she hoped to take up Mr Singh's invitation as soon as possible.

'Untapped potential'

The two nations share a 1,600km (1,000 mile) border, but relations have often been uneasy.

Delhi cold-shouldered Burma's military rulers during the 1990s, infuriating the generals by openly supporting Ms Suu Kyi.

But Mr Singh, who arrived in the Burmese capital on Sunday, has overseen a dramatic turnaround in Delhi's policy and hosted former ruler Than Shwe on a state visit in 2010.

India is now Burma's third biggest export market, behind China and Thailand.

But China still dominates oil and gas exploration in Burma and is involved in the construction of roads, pipelines and port facilities.

In a joint statement after their meeting, Mr Singh and President Thein Sein said there was ''considerable untapped potential for greater trade and urged the business community to capitalise on this potential".

The mutually agreed target was to double bilateral trade by 2015.

Analysts say India is desperate to counteract the influence of China in the region, and Mr Singh is keen to stress the close cultural and historical ties between the two countries.

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Calcutta celebrates Indian Premier League win

(BBC News) Tens of thousands of people in the Indian city of Calcutta have celebrated the victory of Kolkata Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League.

The cricket team's owner, Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, and the players led a parade through the streets to the Eden Gardens stadium.

The players were congratulated by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Large numbers of police were deployed along the route of the parade and at the stadium, officials said.

The celebrations began with the arrival of the team at the Hazra crossing in south Calcutta, known in Bengali as Kolkata, on Tuesday morning.

Thousands of people lined the streets of the city in the sweltering heat to watch the actor and the players on their 5km (3-mile) victory parade.

At the stadium, watched by tens of thousands of fans, a band sang and played music while Khan, team officials and players danced on a stage.

The state government presented gold chains to all the team members.

"Thank you Kolkata. You've been very kind to us," Khan said.

The team arrived in the city on Monday night and was welcomed by a large crowd outside the airport.

At the IPL final on Sunday night, Kolkata Knight Riders beat defending champions Chennai Super Kings by five wickets.

Kolkata team owner Khan is one of Bollywood's biggest stars. He has appeared in more than 70 films, anchored television shows and appeared in innumerable advertisements.

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Penguin 1.1 Now Live – More Incentive to Write What You Love

Wow. So much has happened in the world of search over the last few months! It’s given me quite the ulcer… how about you? Webmasters far and wide have been scrambling to revise their SEO strategies, embarking on link-removal campaigns that could rival the Crusades and rabidly trimming the keyword-stuffed fat dripping from every page on their sites. Some are spitting mad, others are devastated, and a big chunk of spammers have dropped off the grid for good (not that we’re complaining about that last one).

But still, there are millions of well-meaning website owners licking their wounds and trying to make sense of what exactly caused their rankings to go haywire. The dust has finally begun to settle from Penguin’s initial rollout, and things were beginning to level out. Site owners breathed a sigh of relief and started the process of regrouping. Then, this:

Matt Cutts Tweet Penguin 1.1

Here we go again. Search Engine Roundtable announced the rollout shortly after Matt’s tweet, and the announcement post declared that all the past SE Roundtable reports about alleged Penguin updates were actually live tests that were simply preempting what everyone is seeing happen right now.

The post also speculated that webmasters who were thinking their sites were either hit or had recovered were simply seeing the effects of the testing and shifting in action. Now, however, the update is officially live. We’ve warned you countless times on Site Reference that this is not the end of the adjustments – it’s only the beginning. Google algorithm updates will always be with us, and all attempts at gaming the system will be shut down sooner or later. It’s nothing but a matter of time.

If you check out the comments below the SE Roundtable article, you’ll find that people’s websites are all over the map right now. Some have seen their sites jump in the SERPs, others have lost significant rankings, and still others are stuck in some weird holding pattern (aka Google Purgatory). It’s still early, however, and as with all Google updates, it will take a bit of time to really get a handle on where everyone’s websites now stand. All this activity leads me to wonder when the people with pitchforks and “SEO is dead” chants will begin to surface. Any time an algorithm change rattles the search landscape, it seems that this alarmist mentality runs rampant through Internet forums.

So, let’s think about that logic for a minute. Martin Sadler is the Bristol, England-based director of the Cloud and Security Lab at HP. He says that roughly 30 percent of the world’s population is online today, and by the year 2020, that amount will jump to nearly 50 percent, which is an addition of almost four billion people. How much more content will be added to the Web by that time? How much more information will be available for people? As long as the Internet is growing, so will the need for search. Google’s been called the “front door of the Internet” and interchangeably, “the Internet itself”. It’s not going away any time soon, so neither will SEO.

That said, let’s talk about what you can do in the wake of Penguin 1.1. I thought it best to illustrate best practices post-Penguin via a case study I’ve been following with great interest for the past couple of months.

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lucky to be away from any controversy: Akshay Kumar

IANS

Mumbai, May 22 (IANS) Shah Rukh Khan and Saif Ali Khan have recently been in the midst of controversies, but Akshay Kumar says he has been lucky not to have been a victim to any such incident.

"May be I escaped from controversies, maybe I was not caught. No, it is not like that... There are situations when controversies are made and controversies are created out of nothing," said Akshay here.

"Some actors fell into that! But no one wants to get caught into any controversy; everyone wants to hear good things about themselves. It is situations that make you a victim of some controversy. I feel I am lucky enough not to become a victim of any controversy. May be I escaped from it," he added.

The actor last made for negative news during the 2009 lakme Fashion Week in Mumbai. He invited trouble by asking wife Twinkle Khanna to unzip his jeans during a show.

But he has no regrets about it.

"I would still say that unbuttoning thing was not wrong," the 44-year-old said.

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Kolkata stop Chennai for first IPL title


CHENNAI: (Yahoo) Shahrukh Khan performed cartwheels and went on an embracing rampage. Wasim Akram likened the win to Pakistan’s World Cup triumph. Gautam Gambhir shed his stoicism momentarily and allowed his face to crease into a wide grin – and rightly so!

After all, the most maligned of IPL sides had finally lifted the biggest prize. Following season after season of humiliation, Kolkata Knight Riders rode on Manvinder Bisla’s swashbuckling 48-ball 89 and held their nerve to carve out a five-wicket win over defending champions Chennai Super Kings in the final of IPL-V on Sunday night. The result stopped Chennai well short in their tracks as they attempted an unlikely hat-trick of IPL titles.

Chasing Chennai’s imposing 190, Kolkata were served well by Bisla, who slammed five sixes to vindicate his replacement of Brendon McCullum in the eleven and partnered Jacques Kallis for 136 runs in just 82 balls to power Kolkata ahead, after the visiting team had lost skipper Gautam Gambhir in the first over of the pursuit. This was the highest successful chase in an IPL final.

Bisla’s dismissal to an Albie Morkel slower ball when 52 were needed to win in a shade over five overs put Super Kings back in the match. And M.S. Dhoni’s team looked to have attained supremacy when Laxmi Shukla and Yusuf Pathan were out soon after.

KKR needed 20 off the last two overs as Ben Hilfenhaus, until then the pick of Chennai’s bowling, returned to bowl. He lured Kallis into a slice off a full-toss, and on the next ball – another full-toss – appeared to have nailed Shakib Al Hasan. But that delivery was called a no-ball – not only was Shakib not out, he had also scampered a couple as Murali Vijay was busy celebrating the void catch.

The Bangladeshi scooped the last ball of Hilfenhaus’ over for four, leaving KKR with just nine to get off Dwayne Bravo’s last over of the innings. Consecutive boundaries from Manoj Tiwary took Shahrukh Khan’s franchise home with two balls to spare.

Earlier, M.S. Dhoni finally won a toss and unsurprisingly elected to bat in what was Chennai’s third consecutive IPL final. Once again the defending champions were aided by an off-color batsman who chose the most opportune time – the summit clash – to come good.

Hussey (54, 43b) and M. Vijay (42, 32b) added 87 for the opening wicket in just 62 balls, and then Suresh Raina roared back into form with a 38-ball 73. The southpaw smashed five massive sixes on his way to partnering Hussey for 73 runs in a shade less than seven overs, as Chennai posted 190, thwarting whatever advantage Kolkata had hoped ‘mystery’ spinner Sunil Narine would gain them.

It was surprising that Gambhir, who had harped on his spin advantage all through the build up, gave Iqbal Abdullah just one over, and did not allow Shakib his full quota either. Narine, the second-highest wicket-taker in IPL-V, went for a scalp-less 37 in his quota of four as Raina waded into him. Suspect against the short ball, he acquitted himself well against that delivery on Sunday night.

Raina pulled Jacques Kallis for maximum over mid-wicket and reserved similar treatment for Brett Lee - L. Balaji’s replacement - biffing him over his head for a morale-crushing blow. Lee finished with 42 runs taken from his four overs. Chennai had begun quietly, taking just six from the first two overs, but as Lee ran in for the third, the carnage started. Hussey lofted the Aussie speedster for four right behind him and then Vijay creamed another one through mid-wicket.

When Lee returned for the sixth over of the innings, the tempo shifted. Vijay and Hussey struck a six apiece, taking the toll from Lee’s over to 19. Vijay was out to a sensational catch by by Shakib in the deep, giving way for Raina to bat. The left-hander ensured a more than competitive total for his side, and Chennai would have considered the match over and done with at the halfway stage. Little did they know that Bisla and Kallis had something entirely different in mind.
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