IPL 3 --- The Stars and The Slobs

The IPL story this season reads much like a super-charged, over-dramatic masala movie --- tense matches, accusations of under-performance (Yuvraj), banished population (Paki players), underhand dealings(everything L. Modi does), etc. etc. Great show, admittedly; I am now a full-fledged follower.

Further on IPL, here is my take on an IPL3 All-Star Playing XI.
Sachin, Vijay, Raina, Kallis, Symonds, Uthappa, Rayudu (WK), Watson, Mishra, Steyn, P Ojha. (Am maintaining the no-more-than-4-foreign player rule)

My near All-Stars (ones that could have got-in but just missed out) would include --- Yusuf Pathan, Jayawardene, Shaun Marsh, R Ashwin, Rohit Sharma, M Kartik, Nannes, Gambhir, S Tiwary, N Ojha, Kumble, Gilly. And yes, despite being the 2nd-leading scorer, Ganguly is not close to being in this group --- his batting tone and pace seemed counter-productive to the team's needs at various occasions. Which also goes on to show that Twenty20 does a good job of really undermining the value of what I call garbage-scores (Example: Uthappa's 51 of 21 was far far more valuable than Ganguly's 75+ scores in a couple of games).

Speaking of Ganguly, here is my list of the Non-star, Most Over-rated, Under-performing IPL3 XI --- Ganguly, Sehwag, Yuvraj, David Hussey, AB De Villiers, Dwayne Bravo, Irfan Pathan, Ishant Sharma, Sreesanth, RP Singh, Murali. Youvi can be the captain of this team for sure --- for his certain standing as the poster-child of what this list represents, as well as his clear tendency to 'dog' it (any doubters after his absolute piece-of-crap effort on the field against CSK in the final league match??)