Cricket once again seems to be winning over Glamour in IPL

After Kolkata kicked defending champions Rajasthan out of the second IPL today and Chennai almost shut the door on Punjab’s possibility of making it to the semi finals (mathematically they still have a remote chance), I wanted to have a look at the current standing in the IPL-2 as of now and could observe an interesting pattern. If you look at the below colorful points table, there is a reason why the last 4 rows have been marked yellow.

 

Team	Matches	Won	Lost	Tied	N/R	Pts	Net RR	For	Against
DelhiDaredevils	13	9	4	0	0	18	0.251	1812/237.5	1788/242.4
Chennai	14	8	5	0	1	17	0.951	2086/255.3	1855/257.1
DeccanChargers	13	7	6	0	0	14	0.265	1953/252.4	1927/258.1
Bangalore	13	7	6	0	0	14	-0.253	1824/256.0	1869/253.2
Kings XI Punjab	14	7	7	0	0	14	-0.483	1787/251.2	1887/248.3
Rajasthan Royals	14	6	7	0	1	13	-0.352	1688/253.1	1810/257.5
Mumbai Indians	13	5	7	0	1	11	0.401	1732/236.2	1636/236.1
Kolkata	14	3	10	0	1	7	-0.789	1757/248.5	1867/237.5

 

 

Together with Bangalore, these four teams, Kolkata, Punjab, Mumbai and Rajasthan Royals would probably make the glamorous group within the IPL.  The common notable points about these teams: 

1. The ownership was mostly individual.
2. The running was mostly glamorous

Seeing these teams at the bottom of the table, came to my mind, could this be a basic lesson for those owners? Did cricket at the end seem to emerge as winner over the glamour yet again for the second time in a row? Is this game more than the individual and glamour would hardly fetch success on the field (off the field, probably yes)? If yes, when would the likes of Shahrukh Khan and Preity Zinta understand this?

 

Rajasthan was a much unknown team last season but with success came the glamour in the form of Shilpa Shetty and Co. and the team couldn’t make it to semis. Story about Punjab (Preity), Kolkata (Shahrukh), Mumbai (Neeta Ambani) and Bangalore (Vijay Malaya) is well known to everyone.

 

Probably these things are not directly related to the positions of the team as much but they sure have played a part.  Cricket is not an individual game and this fact puts cricket in a different league altogether among other sports. This is very much a team game and should best be left to those who play the game on the field in the real time. By making close and unnecessary presence in the dugouts and other places, the owners might just have made mistakes. Such things might have put extra pressure on the players to perform or the tempting glamour around might have just distracted them a bit from their focus. Who knows what exactly, but there was a correlation in the last IPL and there seems to be a definite correlation in this IPL as well.

 

This theory does lack to explain the Bangalore’s possible semi final spot, however on a funnier note, we can take that as an exception, given that Katrina Kaif only cheered her team from India this time, a mark able difference from the ways of other celebrities.

 

This feeling is also reinforced by the teams like Delhi, Chennai and Deccan making into top 4, where we didn’t see the owners’ presence onto the field area and these teams seemed to play like a proper cricket team. It still remains to be seen who finally will clinch the Mega Trophy, but the glamorous ones have been shown the door once again.

 

Disclaimer: This blog could seem to be illogical and furious to few, but it is intended to those who would find it logically funny.

Why Kolkata and Bangalore deserve to see the bottom?

It is too early to predict who is going to win the IPL this season and a bit foolish too given that only 6 games have been played so far. However, I am not talking about “WILL”, but I am talking about “Should” giving the game of cricket its true value and spirit.

Many of us surely think that the table is going to change this season for good reasons. Change is necessary. However, Bangalore along with KKR MUST go to the bottom. This is my completely personal opinion. I have nothing personal against the players of either KKR or Bangalore but am simply thinking about the sanctity of the game we all love. 

Why Bangalore?: Firstly because they do not have a strongest T20 team and secondly because their owner has done little to correct the problem even after last time's dismal performance. They were tagged as the greatest test T20 team ever and despite that nothing concrete has been done. Sure he lobbied for KP ahead of Flintoff, fired Dravid as the captain despite Dravid being one of the better scorers last season and fired the first CEO of challenger, Charu Sharma out of sheer frustration only showing the true cricketing acumen that he might posses if any. Lots of money, cheerleader babes and things remotely related to cricket will not fetch wins. They have somehow managed to win a game against a lackluster Rajashthan and then lost to Chennai and Hyderabadmiserably. Once KP goes back to England after 2 weeks, it is going to be even harder for them. 

This is not a beer bajaar after all, this is entirely a different ball game and it has to be. It needs to be played differently. At the end, personal ego must be burnt by this great game of cricket and the fans must celebrate that.

And why KRR?: Almost for the same reasons. They have been the most talked about team for non-cricketing reasons. Multiple captaincy theory,sleeping-with-the-boys theory and what not have been all over the media before the IPL kicked off. A change of captaincy just before the IPL started was a non-sense move, it might have surprised McCullum more than Ganguly. They would get what they targeted, probably the attention, but win would be hard to come by. McCullum and Gayle after all can not fire every game. Gayle is already slated to go soon. It is also hard to figure out why Mendis has not been tried so far looking at the successes, Murali and Kumble have achieved. God was gracious a bit for KKR against Punjab but were completely overwhelmed by Deccan.

So much talk and so little cricketing considerations. It looks like, the coach has found a new field to experiment different theories and satisfy his personal ego while the owner doesn’t seem to differentiate between acting on big screen and playing on the field in real time. Do not deserve to win cricket games. Ego must be burnt again by this great game of cricket and the fans must celebrate that.

Many of you might disagree, but compare other teams with KKR and Bangalore based on only such matters and you might get a conclusive hint. As I keep my eyes fixed on exciting IPL, I would soon bring why two of my favorite teams, might make it to the final.

Finally Bowlers seem to get a hold of Twenty20 in IPL

When most of us first heard about Twenty20 in general and IPL in particular, we all heard and thought that it is purely a batsmen's game. For many cricket fans, It was all about hitting those massive SIXes and flurry of boundaries. It was perhaps all about making the bowler repent for his chosen career path in Cricket world. Cricket purist often criticized this form of the game citing the logic that it is a harakiri for the bowlers as they doesn't stand any chance in this format. Well, in the IPL opening ceremony game and for the next few games that followed, all such notions were well supported with big 100s in a Twenty20 game by Mccullum, Symonds, Hussey and Gilchrist. Umpteen number of countless sixes which has been rare even in the 50-50 format was easy to see af if a video game was being eye witnessed. Mouth watering for many and more success and dollors for IPL and Bollywood.

But it seems, slowly slowly the pattern has been changing and it has stabilised to some extent now. There could be many reasons for example exodus of the international stars, most importantly the australians, the amount of cricket being played and its tiring effect on the players etc. All these reasons have been suitably explained it one of the earlier posts of Mrigank.

However, After a bit of analysis, I do feel that bowlers are now finally getting a strong hold on the subject matter of T20. Initially they must have followed more or less the same approach as they do in regular ODIs if not test matches. Obviously that was not to work as this format gives more freedom to play your shots as you have 11 batsmen to play in only 20 overs. But the bowlers seem to understand a few basic things for their T20 bowling armoury:

1. Bowl lot many slower bowls and mix it well with your faster ones. It is learnt that Shane Warne had this plan for Sehwag and had asked his team members to bowl only slower bowls to him and frastrate him as the bowl would not come to the bat easily. Hard hitters always love it when the bowl comes to the bat really good.
2. Avoid full pitched bowls. As the boundaries have shrinked, chances are what would possibly be a catch near the ropes would be a comfortable SIX in this format. So bowl flat but short of a length. This is what Balaji did against Punjab Kings XI.

When the tournament started off, a dot ball was a Mallika Sherawat (rarity), forget about a Katrina Kaif (maiden over). But as the tournament has progressed, we have seen bowlers coming with many dot balls in overs and in fact we do see 1 or 2 maiden overs every match. In fact there has been instances of maiden wickets. See below.

Bowlers Bowling a Maiden

Mdns	Bowler	For	Mts	Overs bowled
2	IK Pathan	Moh	9	35.2
2	GD McGrath	Del	10	40
1	M Ntini	Chn	3	11
1	ST Jayasuriya	Mum	8	13
1	SM Pollock	Mum	8	28
1	SK Warne	Jai	9	29
1	I Sharma	Kol	9	30.4
1	P Kumar	Ban	9	32.4
1	RP Singh	Hyd	10	36.5
1	M Gony	Chn	10	37

Bowlers Bowling a Wicket-maiden

Bowler	For	Vs	Venue	Match	Batsman dismissed	Over #
Glenn McGrath	Del	Jai	Delhi	3rd	Taruwar Kohli	3rd
Ishant Sharma	Kol	Hyd	Kolkata	4th	Y Venugopal Rao	4th
Shane Warne	Jai	Ban	Bangalore	12th	Mark Boucher	12th
RP Singh	Hyd	Mum	Mumbai DY	14th	L Ronchi	3rd
Sanath Jayasuriya	Mum	Kol	Kolkata	16th	Mohammad Hafeez	14th
Praveen Kumar	Ban	Moh	Bangalore	25th	Yuvraj Singh	11t

Do not forget the two hattricks. Balaji and amit Mishra both have taken hattricks already. Had anyone ever thought something like this happening in T20?

owler	For	Vs	Venue	Match
L Balaji (5-24)	Chn	Moh	Chennai	31st
(victims-IK Pathan, PP Chawla & VRV Singh (all caught)
A Mishra (5-17)	Del	Hyd	Delhi	37th
(victims-DB Ravi Teja (Ct), PP Ojha (Ct) & RP Singh (St)

More importantly, I could count as many as 7 instances where the bowlers have won the game because of a terrific spell/over.

1. Sohail Tanvir [ 6/14 against Chennai]
2. Amit Mishra [ 5/17 against Hyderabad including a superb hattrick]
3. L Balaji [ 5/24 against Delhi]
4. Shoaib Akhtar [ 4/11 against Chennai, Daredevils might lose a semi spot because of this terrific spell]
5. GD Mcgrath [4/29 against Bangalore]
6. SM Pollock [3/12 against Kolkata, Kokata slumped to their lowest total of IPL]
7. Ashish Nehra [3/13 against Rajasthan]

There are many other small instances where the bowlers have contributed significantly. You can analyse the data in cricinfo in detail.

As someone has aptly said - "Throw a true sportsman to a challenge and he would raise his game". No matter what the format would be, everyone would have a day of his own to prove his calibre. It might need sometime and some motivation. This change also augurs well for the cricket pandits who were against T20 because it was a bowler's grave. Now they also have a reason to rethink and probably embrace this format.

I feel more happy as it seems to give chance to every participant to turn a game around just like we have been seeing those magical spells, magical innings and stunning catches in the regular forms of the games. And I hope it balances out more and it doesn't turn the NBA way?