Thursday 21 April 2011

Shivering Mumbai

Well, if anybody thinks twice on having their bet on new teams, one has to think no further because this is IPL and not some international cricket tournament. We understand that in international games but for a few, it is always the test laying nations that have an upper hand while the non-test playing nation has to compromise with just the participation. But, this is not the case regarding tournaments like the IPL where the new team if not for making their first appearance is not short of any talent with big names like Yuvraj Singh and Sreesanth still making rounds.

Recently, the Delhi Daredevils had a run for their money against the Kochi Tuskers Kerala and yesterday, Mumbai Indians had to wait until the last delivery to be bowled to achieve the so-called granted victory. If the batting of the Pune Warriors was thought to be below par, then either the Mumbai Indians' batting should also come under scrutiny for taking it to the ultimate delivery or else, the bowlers of the Pune Warriors should walk out with all the applause for making the batsmen under Sachin Tendulkar struggle under pressure. Both batting and bowling are vital parts of the game.

One has to think about the way the batsmen from the Pune Warriors went out with them losing their wickets with 5 of their batmen failing to get past the ten run mark and with 4 others making it just above 10 to see to that they don't get into the single digit club whatsoever. Putting it simple, only Robin Uttappa had a game when he scored 45 runs to see the total go past above 100 but still ended with a run rate below 6.0 runs an over. As though that was not enough, the Mumbai Indians also played the same way.

The efforts of the Pune needs applause with their captain Yuvraj bringing in 7 of his bowlers to bowl with three of them finishing their full quota of 4 overs. This worked to a greater extent when though the Mumbai team never lost wickets, they took it to the ultimate delivery of the match to score that winning run needless to be said. Point to be noted was that Murali Karthik and Parnell who gave away runs at the rate of over 7.0 runs an over were given four overs while Shrikant Wagh and Rohith Sharma who were among the wicket-takers were given 3 and 2 overs respectively.

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