Bad scheduling of the IPL finals

The finals of this year's Indian Premier League was scheduled as though the authorities involved had previously known that the Sachin Tendulkar led Mumbai Indians would surely make it to the finals this time, if the scheduling of the finals is seen which is held at Mumbai from where Sachin Tendulkar hails. Relax! this has got nothing to do with match fixing and related other stuff. However, when the other side of the coin in given a close look at, it is a bad scheduling when the finals should have been held on Saturday which would have coincided with Sachin Tendulkar's 37^th birthday.

People still remember the way Sachin Tendulkar smashed all the Aussie bowlers that included the likes of Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath on this day exactly 12 years ago when he celebrated his 25^th birthday. That was the finals of the tri nation tournament in which Australia had never lost a single ODI after winning both the games against India and New Zealand at Sharjah. Of course, India would have won that game prior to the finals had there been no interruption by dust which reduced the required target by just 10 runs and the number of balls by 24.

Now, there could have been yet another occasion had the IPL authorities scheduled the finals of the tournament today rather than on Sunday. Well, I'm aware of the fact that there is the stand off for the third place to be held between Deccan Chargers and the Royal Challengers Bangalore that will decide the team that will make it to the champions league T20 tournament. But, even that could have been settled by having the match played on Sunday or on Friday. It shouldn't matter in case the Deccan Chargers would be playing games back to back with the 2nd semi finals held on Thursday.

However, coming to Sachin Tendulkar's 37^th birthday, I would like to bring it to everyone's notice that Sachin Tendulkar is the only batsman in the history of the game to have at present scored more number of centuries in both forms of the game which is more than his age. This record may not last for long with his age bound to go on as long as the earth exists and the number of hundreds scored to be terminated one fine day when he retires. And with Sachin Tendulkar confirming his presence in the upcoming world cup in 2011 due in the sub continent minus Pakistan, he is likely to become the 2^nd player after Pakistan's Javed Miandad to play in 6 world cups.