IPL Buzz !!!

• The match of the week, and so far of the tournament was the tied match between Kings XI and Chennai Super Kings. The latter choked horribly and screwed up the proceedings in the super over.
• The battle of toppers Mumbai v/s Bangalore the latter emerged as winners steered by good performances of Kallis and Vinay Kumar.
• Rajasthan Royals were back in limelight with hat-trick wins. They are still in the contest. With yesterday’s victory over Deccan Chargers they have definitely made a statement to their critics.
• Preity Zinta turns philosophical and says “It’s the journey that matters not the destination”. Looks like she’s already given up hopes of her struggling team making into semi-finals.
• The team to beat Bangalore Royal Challengers were beaten convincingly by rejuvenated Delhi Dare Devils.
• Jacques Kallis finally got his average as he was dismissed for the first time CSK’s bowler Laxmipati Balaji.
• It was a hopeless week for KKR and CSK as they failed to win even a single match.
• The Karbon kamal catch of the week was by DDR’s AB de Villiers. It was absolute stunner when caught Praveen Kumar attempted ‘DLF maximum’ just feets away from long-on boundary.
• The daemon of ‘team-selection” for T-20 was running over everyone’s head. Robin Utthappa was unfortunate to miss the bus but the biggest gainer was Vinay Kumar after his back to back good performances against Mumbai and Chennai. The 3-wicket over against MI, which in fact turned the match would have brought him under selectors microscope.
• The other talking point of week was auction two new teams for season-4. Pune(Sahara group) and Kochi(Rendezvous Group) emerged as winners

• Defending champions lost the inaugural match .. following the usual trend in major sporting events.
• Mumbai Indians is the only unbeaten team so far. They have kept their feet on the ground so far along with their captain who has done the same throughout the career. Many people say this IPL belongs to Mumbai as Tendulkar is not only top of his batting form but also cricketing form,
• The team which finished on top of the league table RR and Kings XI are on bottom of the table by losing their all their matches. Preity Zinta’s change-the-fortune salwar-kameez act could not any impact.
• Warne’s intuition has gone horribly wrong. One can easily justify it after seeing RR 10 wickets loss to Bangalore.
• In the first edition of IPL people used to say – “Yusuf brother of Irfan”. Now people saw “Irfan brother of Yusuf”.
• Delhi Daredevils look to be in good form but they lost their last two matches. 2 loss and 2 wins. But lot of matches remaining.
• KKR look to be a better team with their new Coach – Dave Whatmore, new bowling coach – Wasim Akram and of course with their new purple color jersey.
• Old timers are have been best performers. Chamind Vaas with bowl and purple cap, Jacques Kallis with bat and orange cap. The latter is not yet dismissed in the tournament and hence to get an average next to his stats.
• The major setback has been series of injuries, Dhoni and Ghambir being on top of the list being captains of their respective sides.
• The major player missing in 3.0 is FakeIPLPlayer. Not sure what is he doing all this day.
• After all speculations the revolutionary mongoose bat was put into act by Mathew Hayden and utilizing it effectively to win match for his team.

They say a number is worth thousand pictures and a picture is worth thousand words. Sachin’s 68 of 45 balls neither does it give you the right picture nor do I have the right words to describe it. Even though he scored at a strike rate of 150 there wasn’t a single rash slog nor were there any mistimed shots looping in the outfield. It was like watching highlights of 2003 WC, the six against Ishant reminded us the one against Caddick. It felt like a 16 year old trying to woo his female classmates in the crowd. Gavaskar sahib would have been a very happy man seeing those high elbow and straight bat shots.

At the end of the day Mumbai’s 187/6 doesn’t reflect how well Sanath and Sachin played; if Sachin took the initiative to start with, Sanath played second fiddle. Once Sachin cooled down Sanath began to explode. At 111/0 in 11 overs there wasn’t scope for even damage control from the KKRs. It looked like Mccullum’s team had given it up, just going through the motions. As a bowler one could feel like a candle burning from both the ends. If Sanath bludgeoned over the infield, Sachin caressed through, both complimented each other very well. As a bowler you had to pick between getting caressed by Sachin or clubbed by Sanath.

When batsman start getting used to the pace and bounce of the wickets, generally one needs to take the pace off. Mendis, Gayle and Hodge did that but the ball travelled even further into the boundary, couple of them even saw the Port Elizabeth city. One has to just feel for KKR’s bowlers, there wasn’t much difference in the bad balls and good balls bowled; everything reached the fence, only probably difference was the speed at which they reached. Shukla ji bowled with a lot of heart picked up both the wickets of Sanath and Sachin. Bhajji did pinch on KKR wounds, rest of MI made us realize that there was something called pitch and conditions which affected the scoring.

Chasing 188 against the likes of Malinga, Zaheer, Bravo and Bhajji is a tough task and a touch tougher when Malinga starts with a Yorker. Gayle and McCullam’s opening seems overrated; Hodge and Ganguly did try to accelerate but got sucked up by Nayar’s variations. With lack of batting power the KKRs stumbled to a cliched score of 95 all down in 15 overs. Had SRK invested in same low cost players rather than a 600K Mortaza who hasn’t featured yet, it would have done KKR some good. The future for KKR this season as last season looks dark as their jersey.

One can confidently say that the MUMBAI INDIAN chewed the Calcutta Mithi Pan.

It took 20 overs and one super over for the royals to register their first win in IPL 2.0. The two most uninspiring teams pulled out one of the most exciting matches of the IPL so far. Frankly after the high scoring Chennai Delhi game I wasn’t all excited about the clash of minnows, but the Royals pulled out a tie out of thin air and then Pathan blasted 16 from 4 balls in the super over. Last time around Gayle had blasted 25 in the super over against Vetori’s NZ. Super over is far more exciting than the bowl out in case of a tie in T20, as its far more challenging n exciting.

Spinners have always played a big role in T20’s; Mendis was no different, picked up key wickets of Smith and & well set Pathan. Scoring 42 of 21 balls Pathan gave Royals much needed momentum. Agarkar is one of the few bowlers who would never completes his quota of 10 overs in ODIs; the trend is following even in T20. Late fireworks from Raut took Royals to a defendable 150.

150 was a good total to defend on a Newlands ground, but no ground or total is big when Gayle starts swinging, he makes it look ridiculously easy. Runs looks easy from a set batsman’s bat, pitch and conditions only start to matter when you lose him. Dada marshaled the innings up until the penultimate over, after which drama started. 7 required from 6 only I team that could have lost it was RR, but the match ended in a tie, thanks to wonderful last over by the tornado Kamran Khan. Owe it to the team spirit or captain spirit, Royals have the knack of pulling out victories out of thin air. One has to feel for Ganguly who almost took KKR to victory.

It takes great courage & guts to hand over the super over to a rookie, but that's Shane Warne, he gets the best out of the ordinary. 15 runs was good target of 6 balls. KKR missed the trick by using Mendis, probably a fast bowler would have been a better choice against Pathan. Now KKR have lost 2 out of 2 in the presence of Gayle, I just wonder their fate after Gayle's departure. Buchanan has to quickly convert his theory into practice, right now they neither look Knights nor the Ryders.

Royals Ryde the Super K(Night)