Kolkata get what they deserved

Finally as all would have expected, the Kolkata Knight Riders ended their IPL stint yesterday by losing to the Mumbai Indians, which was their last chance to prove a point in the tournament. One has to anyway congratulate the Kolkata Knight Riders for coming this far when their performances in the past three editions of the tournament were haphazard. Despite the presence of big guns like Sourav Ganguly, Ricky Ponting, Brendon McCullum and others, they ended at the bottom of the table in the past three editions of the tournament. This time there were more teams compared to the previous editions.

A loss against one team could be made up in their next game. And, may be that was the reason why the Kolkata made it count unlike last three editions. On the other hand, there was a re-auction of the players which meant another chance for the franchisee to have their bid on a player whom they think is a promising one. This time Kolkata had promising players like Gambhir, Kallis, Yousuf Pathan and Brett Lee to name a few. However, all that could help them was to place them fourth in the points table which was a jump from position No.8 last time.

Scorecard suggests there were the top order of the KKR failed miserably with hardly any contributions from Gambhir, Kallis, Goswami and Tiwary. So was the case regarding Yousuf Pathan and Shakib Al Hasan. It was fascinating to see one player from Holland and the other from Bangladesh having a major share in the Kolkata's batting with Ryan ten Doeschate top scoring with 70 and Shakib Al Hasan scoring 26. The second highest run getter in last year's IPL should learn from the player where cricket has taken a backseat. The aforementioned players didn't disappoint their franchisee who bid a huge sum on them.

Coming to the Mumbai Indians' batting, it was as though Aiden Craig Blizzard was introducing himself when stats shows that he never played international cricket at all and more over neither he could be thought to represent the same in years to come. The opening batsmen top scored with 51 runs off 30 balls at a decent strike rate of 170. One can see the route taken by KKR who went in for 7 of their bowlers to try something to stop the Mumbai Indians from scoring. But, who on earth cares for those when James Franklin was trying to undo the damage which he did with the ball?

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.