The contest just seems to get dull

Three years back in 2008 when the inaugural edition of the Indian Premier League kick started, all eyes were glued to the television sets as though a major encounter would happen in the days to come. During that time, the sport was at its peak with the T20 version of the game having a high run with things like the ICL and the ICC world T20 having their say. Things remained the same until last year when there were takers for almost every game. But, the spirit happens to be no more or rather has got faded to a great extent.

There were players like Mathew Hayden, Sanath Jayasuriya, Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne etc who had retired from international cricket but could be seen in tournaments like the IPL then. But slowly and steadily, all the aforementioned players started departing from the tournament one by one. And people like Adam Gilchrist, Shane Warne have lost their glorious days. Someone like Mathew Hayden played his last game in IPL 2010 which was famous for his mongoose bat. Glenn Mcgrath has been shown the gates from Delhi Daredevils after the inaugural edition when his style of play suited only the longer formats of the game.

Sanath Jayasuriya, despite his fireworks was forced to warm the benches in last year's IPL and has never been chosen by any franchisee in this year. Adam Gilchrist, Andrew Symonds, Brendon McCullum etc are not the big hitters of the ball once they were. There were hardly any century scorers in the tournament though there were three batsmen who had amassed more than 500 runs. Only players from India are showing the spirit and enthusiasm since 2008. The list includes Sachin Tendukar, Suresh Raina, Dhoni etc to name a few. Overseas players include Paul Valthaty, Shaun Marsh and Chris Gayle.

The first blow came when Anil Kumble pulled himself out of the tournament. Added to that would be the fact that players have changed sides after they were picked up by a different franchisee. Chris Gayle had earlier played for Kolkata while Dravid played for Bangalore. So would be the case with Gilchrist, Gambhir, Ganguly, Muralitharan. Top spinners like Shane Warne and Muralitharan have been just ordinary players. In the years to come, there will be players like Gilchrist, Kallis, Sachin Tendulkar etc who will be missing from action. Shane Warne has already called it a day. With all these, will the IPL still be accepted by all?

Chris Gayle unparalleled in IPL 2011

Anyone who can go through the batting charts of this year's IPL would be amazed to find Chris Gayle on the top of the list in most of the batting records starting from the highest run getter in the tournament to the maximum umber of ducks. Yes, Gayle has two ducks to his credit which is luckily equaled by so many like Gilchrist, Sangakkara, McCullum etc but not exceeded. In a way, Gayle happens to be the king of them to have scored two ducks playing in 12 games which is more than any other batsmen who has scored two ducks in the tournament.

Other than this bad record, Gayle is the only other batsman in the history of the IPL after Sachin Tendulkar to have aggregated more than 600 runs in a single edition. Sachin Tendulkar did it last year when he had amassed 618 runs from 15 matches. Both of them were awarded the man of the series with both of them ending up as runners-up. Added to that, the tally of 44 sixes is far ahead of any other batsmen in this year's IPL. The second highest six hitter in the tournament happens to be Mahendra Singh Dhoni with 23 hits out of the ground.

The next major contribution from Gayle happens to be the fact that Gayle had two hundreds which was more than anybody else. In fact, only Gayle has managed to score 2 hundreds. Then we have Gayle once again having a strike rate of 183.13 and an average of 67.55 which is more than anybody else in the series needless to be said. Chris Gayle's tally of 56 boundaries was the second best only to Sachin Tendulkar who has 67 hits to the fence. However, Sachin Tendulkar has attained that feat from 16 games compared to 12 played by Chris Gayle.

Had Gayle played equal number of games as Sachin Tendulkar did, there was every possibility that Gayle would have overtaken Sachin Tendulkar's tally with 11 more hits. However, Gayle falls to the third position (shared by many) with Badrinath top scoring with 5 half centuries followed by 4 half centuries by Virat Kohli. However, with both 50s and 100s put together, Chris Gayle's tally is equaled by Badrinath. Coming to the end, Gayle was is the fastest to reach 600 runs in an IPL when he did it in 11 games compared to Sachn Tendulkar who took 15 in 2010.

Is there anything still left to say?

Well at last, the Royal Challengers Bangalore have to end their IPL journey only with a runners-up tag which would be the case for the second time. Previously, two years back in South Africa, they had the same fate with the Deccan Chargers grabbing the trophy from them. The game was one of its kind with the Chennai Superkings having their second title and the Royal Challengers Bangalore having their second runners-up tag as mentioned above. Whatsoever, one thing that the RCB needs to be satisfied with is that they will play the Champions League T20 for the third time.

No other team from the IPL has been able to make it though the Chennai Superkings were the contestants in the inaugural edition in 2008 along with Rajasthan Royals, the Champions League tournament was not carried on with Pakistan hosting the tournament and owing to security concerns there. Since 2009 the RCB have been making it there which stands apart from any other team in the IPL. Coming to the game, it was well understood that the Royal Challengers are without a right hand in case Gayle fails with the bat needless to be said. This was the fourth match between the two teams in this IPL.

Out of the four games, three have been won by Chennai Superkings and one by Royal Challengers Bangalore. Thanks to Chris Gayle's unbeaten 75 from 50 balls that ensured a 6 wicket win at Bangalore. In those four games, Chris Gayle has featured in three of them where his scores are 75* fro 50 balls at Bangalore, 8 from 9 balls at Mumbai and 0 from 3 balls yesterday at Chennai. The match turned all critics wrong with the home team winning the match which has been otherwise in games involving Delhi Daredevils and Kolkata Knightriders to a large extent.

A total of 205 on the board desperately needed a lot of fireworks from Chris Gayle which unfortunately didn't happen. I can just correlate this to Sachin Tendulkat getting out in the very first over in the finals of the 2003 world cup at South Africa against Australia when the target to be achieved was a whooping 360. Sachin Tendulkar scored just 4 off 4 balls giving a catch to Glenn McGrath. The CSKs required just Hussey and Murali Vijay to tame the RCB who scored 63 and 95 respectively. Or else, Raina, Dhoni and Morkel were failures. The man of the series has no disputes whatsoever.

Result comes as expected

Well as all of us (or at least most of us) expected, the result of yesterday's match between the Royal Challengers Bangalore and the Mumbai Indians ended as per plan which relied on Chris Gayle. We have repeatedly on our blog cited the chances of the Royal Challengers Bangalore in case Gayle is able to continue or not. If Gayle could keep up his momentum then the RCB win or else no. Exactly the same happened when Gayle scored 89 runs to demilitarize the Mumbai Indians whose lone satisfaction was Sachin Tendulkar's 40 runs which was the highest any Mumbai batsmen could score.

Added to Chris Gayle, there was Mayank Agarwal and AB deVilliars who supported Gayle in his big hitting. In fact, it was Chris Gayle who allowed Mayank Agarwal to relax by taking most of the responsibility on his shoulders. Of course, AB deVilliars came after Gayle was dismissed. By then, he had scored 89 runs at the rate of almost two runs for every ball he faced. There can be no words that can praise Chris Gayle at the moment. If Gayle's devastating batting was one way, there were confused bowlers from Mumbai side. Sachin Tendulkar didn't take the risk of trying another bowler.

As usual, Lasith Malinga was the strike bowler for the Mumbai Indians who though didn't take any wicket could contain runs when his stats suggest that Malinga was the least expensive bowlers who gave away runs at the rate of 6.00 runs an opver from his quota of 4 overs. Sachin Tendulkar made a mistake by handing the ball to Rohith Sharma who went for 14 runs his lone over. With someone like Gayle striking at his best, this was something uncalled for. Whatever, Mumbai Indians had nothing to fear about because a defeat was always on the cards for them.

It was just fascinating to see Sachin Tendulkar trying too many things to settle scores with Gayle's team, one of which was bringing in Harbhajan Singh at number 3 after Bizzard got out. Of course, Harbhajan Singh had a promising start when he hit one huge six outside the ground off the bowling of Mithun, three deliveries after striking a boundary of the same bowler. But, i the end all that he could manage was a mere 13 runs. That was the first six of the Mumbai Indians and the next one came off the bat of Lasith Malinga who was in at number 10.

IT all depends on Gayle

Well when there is no one but Chris Gayle who can do the big hitting for the Royal Challengers Bangalore and making it still worse, Gayle has been known to take the full responsibility for the same, he can be considered the most important player for the RCB much more than the captain and the wicketkeeper. We have discussed the issue several times on this blog regarding what would happen to the Royal Challengers in case Chris Gayle fails to dominate with the bat. And, not making it too boring, the topic shifts to the forthcoming games in the IPL.

There are two more games to go in this edition of the IPL namely the final and before that the 2^nd qualifying final between the Mumbai Indians and the Royal Challengers that is scheduled in the next 24 hours from now at Chennai. With Chennai being a neutral venue, there cannot be any home team advantage or any curse of being the home team like it has happened in this edition of the IPL. As we have already mentioned, the winner of the second qualifying final would completely depend on Gayle though there are the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Lasith Malinga etc in the Mumbai Indians' squad.

It is Chris Gayle who now holds the record for the most runs in this year's IPL which in turn makes him wear the orange cap. Limiting our discussion about Gayle for the moment, one can observe the bad timing of the break between the final and tomorrow's match between the Mumbai Indians and RCB. There should have been a break after the second qualifying final between the aforementioned teams before the final is played. But instead, a break can be found between the second qualifying final and the elimination finals (between KKR and MI). Is this also for the sake of change?

Another thing that one needs to notice is that the final of the tournament is held on a Saturday rather than on Sunday when there would be more viewers glued to their television sets on that holiday. As a matter of fact, the finals of the world cup 2011 was also held on a Saturday reserving Sunday for all fans to rejoice their favorite team's victory. Coming back to the tournament, the CSK have a chance of winning the trophy for the second time but, against who they'll be doing it is still awaited. If it is against RCB, that will be their 4^th meeting in this IPL alone.

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?

When Chris Gayle failed..

Well in the last 24 hours or so, I had written about the fate of the Royal Challengers Bangalore in case Chris Gayle fails to dominate with the bat. And, to one's fortune the result has been evident right in front of our eyes within 24 hours when the Royal Challengers could not defend a mammoth total of 175 against the Chennai Superkings at Mumbai. A total of 175 should have seen the Royal Challengers Bangalore end up victorious but, scorecard suggests otherwise. The Chennai Superkings cruised to an easy win with 6 wickets still in hand but took till the last over.

Though Chris Gayle did not score much with the bat, the Royal Challengers felt the presence of Mayank Agarwal, Virat Kohli and Luke Pomersbach whose contribution promised something good on the cards for the Royal Challengers. Looking at the batting charts of both the teams, it can well be said that the pitch was a batsman friendly one. However, as a matter of fact the Chennai Superkings captain used only 6 bowlers, four of whom bowled their full quota of 4 overs and may be termed as successful looking at the nature of the pitch. Four out of the six returned with a wicket.

All that the match expected was some fireworks from Chris Gayle, failing which the Royal Challengers can hardly boast of anything. Though all gates are not completely closed for the Royal Challengers, fingers would definitely point towards them for relying on only one player. When someone like Mayank Agarwal and Pomersbach could contribute, there can be no reason for Chris Gayle not to do so. The match will no doubt go down as one of the biggest disappointment in the tournament with such a big total chased down effortlessly. For the Chennai Superkings, Suresh Raina was exceptional who was assisted by Dhoni and Morkel.

There were three Indian batsmen playing for one team giving it a deserved success. Of course, even Mayank Agarwal and Virat Kohli happen to be Indians whose contribution can never be thought less about. This confirms the name given to the tournament i.e the INDIAN PREMIER LEAGUE.Initial breakthroughs for RCB could not be cashed in when CSK had the scoreboard reading 7/2. By the way, Chris Gayle did contribute to the RCB when he was the bowler with the best economy rate of 4.75 runs an over but when it came to batting, his score was 8 from 9 balls with one six.

Finally a break from action

Well this was a well-deserved break for all players, fans and commentators who would have been in one way or the other associated with the IPL. Now with less than 24 hours left for the first play off between Kolkata Knight Riders and Mumbai Indians, something special would be needed regarding the past performances of all the teams and its players. The reason for the same would be that a blogger can hardly take a break from writing some or the other stuff regarding the tournament which has given lots and lots which makes us run out of pages and time.

One team that would never compromise with its victory or at least the runners-up tag would be the Chennai Superkings who have such match winnings payers like Mike Hussey, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Murali Vijay, Subramanium Badrinath and Suresh Raina who have been match winners in one game or the other. All the aforementioned players have been top class batsmen though they have little bit of problems with their bowling completely dominated by Bollinger and Tim Southee. Otherwise players like Suresh Raina and Badrinath are found taking the ball in their hands.And then, by chance the Kolkata Knight Riders have made it here replacing Delhi Daredevils.

Likewise, the Mumbai Indians on the other hand have a lot of match winning players like Sachin Tendukar (more than anybody else), Kieron Pollard, Rohith Sharma and Symonds to name a few with the bowling department consisting of Harbhajan Singh, Munaf Patel and Lasith Malinga who have proved to be wonders. There are people like Harbhajan, Pollard and Malinga who can be hard hitting at the bottom of the table. They take the second place after the Chennai Superkings to make this tournament theirs. But, with both RCB and CSK having a better chance, MI stand in the third place.

Much can be thought of regarding the RCB until now which has been totally dominated by Chris Gayle alone. One can look at the matches played by the Royal Challengers prior to the entry of Gayle and matches after Gayle was introduced. Moving still further, one can see the results of the RCB matches when Gayle has failed to dominate. All these would conclude that in case Gayle fails to provide the RCB with any sort of support with the bat then the RCB are bound to pack up their bags and head back home. Top three of these qualify to the Champions League.

9 vacancies filled in CSK

If the match between the Chennai Superkings and Royal Challengers Bangalore played yesterday at Bangalore is considered, then one has to first go through the batting display of the Chennai Superkings which was dominated completely by Dhoni and to some extent by Saha. If the scores of Dhoni and Saha are removed, then the Chennai Superkings would have scored just 36 runs 50 balls at a rate of 4.32 runs an over which would have fetched a mere 87 runs on the scoreboard with extras included. The way Dhoni played was just superb and a little bit of support from Mike Hussey, Suresh Raina and Badrinath would have helped a lot.

All the aforementioned names were big hitters of the ball and a lot were expected from them. All the above mentioned names have known to bail their teams out from trouble many times and it is just unfortunate to all these players not to contribute for the Chennai Superkings yesterday. Had the above mentioned batsmen made their contribution, then may be Chris Gayle would have had more responsibility on his shoulders. One can never take his eyes off Chris Gayle in this tournament whatsoever.His unbeaten knock of 75 runs off just 50 balls was just another instance of power and commitment.

I have all kudos to Dhoni for maintaining his patience and seeing to it that his team didn't lose all ten wickets which assured that his team played all the 20 overs. The entire Chennai Superkings' innings saw only two scores above 10 20 out of which only Dhoni's 70 was a highlight. Adding to the excitement, Dhoni did it in style with 6 sixes and 4 boundaries at a strike rate of 175 which was more than Gayle's 150. Dhoni scored five runs less than what Gayle could manage. It would not have been a bad choice had Dhoni been awarded the man of the match.

But, it was just the difference between a win and a loss that made Dhoni miss the award. I just run out of words when it comes to describing the batting of the RCB which was dominated by Gayle. Had Gayle failed, then there would have been a far closer competition between the two teams. There can never be anybody in the RCB who can hit the ball hard and in case Gayle fails, so would be the entire Bangalore team. Names that make up the RCB squad include Saurabh Tiwary, Mayank Agarwal, Kaif and Pomersbach who can score balls as much as Gayle.

Dare to chase 198!

Well needless to be said, whenever a team scores 198 on the board, it is well understood that majority of the bets would fall in favor of that particular team. Any something more is that majority of the times that particular team wins the contest and yesterday was no different when the Deccan Chargers simply crushed the Kings XI Punjab by 82 runs at Dharamsala. Something more special would be that someone like Shikar Dhawan made his presence count in the playing XI. Until then, Shikar Dhawan was there in the team just because the rules of the tournament had forced his inclusion.

As all of us know, there is a restriction on the number of foreign players that a team can have in the playing eleven and Shikar Dhawan being an Indian makes his move faster into the playing in the XI member squad. Now, anybody who would have thought of dropping Shikar Dhawan upon the slightest of all opportunities will have to think many times I suppose. However, in addition to Dhawan, there was Ravi Teja who became another master piece in the IPL scoring 60 when until then all he was expected to was to strike the ball blindly to gain some extra runs.

The tough job of laying a foundation to their team is held by experienced people like Adam Gilchrist, Paul Valthaty, Chris Gayle etc and someone like Ravi Teja is expected to just continue the good work initiated by them. In case the top order fails, the middle order is bound to fail majority of the time. Coming to the match, two batsmen were more than enough to belt the bowling of the Kings XI Punjab. In the Kings XI side, if not for Adam Gilchrist, no other batsmen stood up to the occasion. The pitch was a batsman's paradise which is evident from the scorecard.

However, in addition to Shikar Dhawan and Ravi Teja, there was Amit Mishra who once again had a magical spell scalping 4 wickets giving away just 9 runs from his quota of 4 overs at 2.25 runs an over that included one over maiden as well. In my opinion, it should have been Amit Mishra who should have been awarded the man of the match and not Shikar Dhawan. But, it looks like the organisers of the tournament hardly cast their eyes on bowling department and are focused on the batting department alone. Restricting someone like Gilchrist, Shaun Marsh etc is tougher than belting some Bhargav Bhatt and Piyush Chawla.

Shane Watt-son Mega Watt performance

Well one sight on yesterday's match between Mumbai Indians and Rajasthan Royals suggests that the Rajasthan Royals would have an easy won the match. But, I wonder how many of them would have thought the Rajasthan Royals would have won the match without losing even a single wicket and Shane Watson belting a 47 ball 89 run. The moment the Mumbai Indians ended their innings for 133 on the board, it was more or less understood that they would end up losing. But, something which was not thought about was the even with Lasith Malinga they couldn't grab a single wicket.

There were two Mumbaikars in Rohith Sharma and Sachin Tendulkar who did something for the Mumbai Indians' side by emerging as the top batsmen of the game scoring 31 and 58 respectively. But, as it already evident by now, that was of no use to the team. All that those scores could do was to save the face for the Mumbai Indians without which the total would not have even crossed 100. One has to wonder why the Mumbai Indians preserved 5 wickets when no one had the guts to belt the bowling of the opposition. Why was Franklin sent ahead of Symonds?

Symonds was a bigger hitter than Franklin and Harbhajan. One has to applaud the Rajasthan Royals' captain for experimenting with his bowlers and at the same time criticize him for failing in his experiment. There were four bowlers from the Rajasthan Royals' side who bowled their complete quota of 4 overs and much to anyone's surprise, they all ended up successful. But, the ones who didn't get to complete their full quota of 4 overs, namely Siddhart Trivedi, Maneria and Amit Singh bowled the costliest of over giving away runs at the rate of 9.00, 10.00 and 12.00 runs respectively.

However, there is not much that can be written about the batting performance of the Rajasthan Royals which was finished by just two batsmen - Dravid and Watson. Watson's 47 ball 89 might not be of that great interest but, his combo of 3 wickets and 89 runs definitely falls into the best of all-round performances. There were 7 over to spare for the Rajasthan Royals which could have been compensated in case of a rain affected match. With this, Shane Warne could be last match in the IPL and he has outplayed his famous rival-Sachin Tendulkar. Just a gr8 way to finish a splendid career.

Defend 118!

Well the moment a team scores 118, anybody who would have had his bet on that particular team would have to leave the stadium or switch off his television sets. And may be that was what fans of Pune Warriors who would have bet their money on that team been doing yesterday after they crashed to a 7 wicket loss at the hands of the Kolkata Knight Riders. At such a run rate, the Pune Warriors couldn't even manage to win a 50 over match let alone a 20 over one. Very rarely does a team win matches defending 118.

The highest individual score happened to be from the blades of Yuvraj Singh who scored 24 which only he could boast of. One can just consider Yuvraj Singh as a topper among failures. I just cannot understand why Kolkata Knight Riders could not get the Pune Warriors all out. There were three more wickets left in the Pune Warriors' kitty. It is not always that the win or loss that matters but the way a match has been won or lost needless to be said. Pune Warriors were as though they just wanted to convince their fans saying that they were playing for the 1^st time.

Pune Warriors might have been playing for the first time in the IPL but certainly, Yuvraj Singh, Sourav Ganguly, Jesse Ryder etc have featured in all three previous editions of the tournament. This is Sourav Ganguly's third match in the IPL and this has been his second under rated performance after scoring a naught in the game against Deccan Chargers. One has to definitely appreciate the efforts of the Kolkata captain who bought in 8 of his bowlers knowing that the Pune Warriors were at their knees. The entire Pune Warriors' innings consisted of just one six from the blades of Ganguly.

Whatever, Sourav Ganguly would have been a happy man despite the results of the game because, the team which eventually won was Ganguly's home team while had the Pune Warriors won, that would be the team which Ganguly is now representing. The total of 118 hardly requires any team work where finishing the job is more of a formality than any sort of achievement. Still, there was Gautam Gambhir who scored the lone half century of the match aided with an all round performance by Yousuf Pathan who grabbed 2 wickets and then went on to score the winning runs for his team.

Blame it all on Chris Gayle

There was a time in Indian cricket when the absence of star batsman Sachin Tendulkar would mean a massive loss for the team. That was in the 90s where Sachin Tendulkar used to be the key man for his team's success in at least 75% of the games India played. Now, the same problem is found to haunt the Royal Challengers Bangalore who can hardly come close to winning in case Chris Gayle fails with the bat. Yesterday's game was the best example in the match against Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kings XI Punjab. Bangalore lost to Punjab by 111 runs.

Chris Gayle's score in that game was nothing but zero. This was the match that all RCB fans would have been looking forward to having very high expectations from Chris Gayle. And, one cannot just blame Gayle for disappointing his fans. Chris Gayle has been entertaining his fans ever since he entered the contest after his national duty involving the series against Pakistan. However, what if Chris Gayle didn't score a ton; There was Adam Gilchrist who did everything that was expected from Chris Gayle. Adam Gilchrist scored a hundred when he ended his innings at 106 from 55 balls.

This was more than enough to ascertain that the viewers were not deceived from any sort of cricketing action on the field no matter from which team it comes. Any Indian fan would have loved to see the entertainment on the field irrespective of which city or state is playing. One can take a look at the scorecard to see 9 sixes hit from the blades of Gilchrist which I'm afraid whether any batsmen has been able to overtake. I might just have to take time to see whether the total of 232 is the highest by any team in the IPL.

Of course, 232 is the highest team total in this year's IPL. Chasing this big total would have been possible only had Chris Gayle continued from where he had left it in his previous game. But, that very busy man had no time to help his team mates in this game. And, what better treatment can one get when he hands over the ball to Virat Kohli? Making it his day, it was Gilchrist who took the catch of Chris Gayle behind the stumps. Likewise, another major contribution that needs to be applauded is that of Piyush Chawla who ended his spell with 4 wickets.

Ganguly scores a Naught

This would be the match for all Ganguly crazy fans who would have been delighted by the return of the King and secondly for getting out for a naught in his second match for the Pune Warriors. However, it is not all about Ganguly in the game between Pune Warriors and Deccan Chargers. There were ten other players leaving Ganguly who could have got the job done for the Pune Warriors. But, all they could manage was a mere 136 runs which had chances of being chased down with minimum effort. But, the Deccan Chargers needed more than minimum effort to reach that target.

One thing for which the Pune Warriors need a pat on their back would be because they didn't lose all their ten wickets by saving one wicket toward the end of their innings. Some reconsideration needs in the Decan Chargers' captain giving the ball to J P Duminy when Ishanth Sharma could have been given another over who was not only a major strike bowler but also one among the bowlers who maintained a decent economy of 6.33 though not enough. Very rarely does a bowler end up with an over maiden in a T20 game and Amit Mishra was the lucky one in this regard.

In the Pune Warriors' innings, the highest individual score came from the blades of Mitchell Marsh who batted at number 8. And, may be because of his strokeplay, the Pune Warriors crossed the hundred run mark. One can imagine the fate of a team which has to rely on a number 8 batsmen to complete the innings. If that was all about the Pune Warriors, the Deccan Chargers were no less when it came to showing a dismal performance when they had to wait until the last over to score than winning run. A band of Yuvraj Singh, Ganguly, Uttappa and Jesse Ryder could only fill in the vacancies.

With limited resources, the Deccan Chargers did more than what was expected from them. The big names from the Deccan Chargers include Sangakkara, Dhawan and Duminy. But, that much was more than enough to chase down 136 successfully. Whatsoever, this is not the end of the roads for both teams and according to me, both teams lost when it comes to performing up to a certain level. But, as far as the rules of the game go, there can be only one winner at the most and that happened to be the Deccan Chargers. There are much more games to come.

Sweet revenge for Kings XI Punjab

Well the last the Kings XI Punjab team faced the Delhi Daredevils at Delhi, the home team made it count for them by registering a 29 run win over their neighbors. And, much to everyone's surprise this time, the Kings XI Punjab did exactly what the Delhi Daredevils did to them a month ago this time at Dharamsala by the same margin of 29 runs. Thanks to some power hitting by Paul Valthaty and Shaun Marsh at the top, whose contribution with the bat laid the foundation after their team put up a mammoth total of 170 on the board.

In addition, there was Dinesh Karthik who aided the duo with his handy 27. Like it has always been the case with most of the teams, their captain never seems to experiment with their bowling no matter what. This time as well, James Hopes never got into experiment by opting for just 6 bowlers, four of whom bowled their entire quota of 4 overs. One over that made the difference between a victory and a loss for the Delhi Daredevils was that of Sridharan Sriram whose lone over cost him and his team 25 runs. May be this is the reason why captains don't experiment with their bowling.

Looking at the debacle of the Delhi Daredevils, the reason for the same can be thought of due to the lack of any quality players for them. There was Gautam Gambhir, A B de Villiars and Dilshan who have been picked up by different franchisees this time. Added to that is the absence of Virender Sehwag which creates a deeper hole in the Delhi Daredevils' worries. This time, some big names that can be read in the Delhi Daredevils side would be David Warner and James Hopes. Or else, why would Hopes be captaining his side. Gambhir would have been an asset had it been last time.

There was no batsmen in the Delhi side who scored even a 30. The best score was 29 from the blades of David Warner. Likewise, five bowlers were enough for the Kings XI Punjab to restrict the Delhi batsmen to a score 29 runs less than what the Kings XI Punjab managed. Perhaps! There was no Sriram in the Punjab team to give away 25 runs. Piyush Chawla made his presence felt not only by claiming the man of the match award but also by grabbing 3 wickets at 4.00 runs an over which makes him deserve the honor more than even Valthaty.

Totally illogical

This point has already been thought about by so many experts about the illogical nature of the D-L method for which there was yet another example yesterday in the match between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kolkata Knight Riders. The match was reduced to 13 overs even before the Kolkata Knight Riders were put into bat by the Royal Challengers owing to bad weather. But, towards the end of the first innings, the Kolkata Knight Riders ended their innings at 89/4 but the target that the Royal Challengers Bangalore were supposed to chase down to record a victory happened to be 102 from 13 overs.

According to not only me but many of them, the target that the RCB were supposed to score should have been 90 and not 102. But it is the magic of the D-L method that makes the target exceed by 12 more runs than expected. Recently, there was a game between Kolkata Knight Riders and Chennai Superkings where despite batting second the Kolkata Knight Riders won the match by ten runs which is impossible in a regular LOI. Going by the rules of cricket, a team batting second can win a match by so many wickets and by so many runs.

If this happens to be the case after the introduction of the D-L method, what if a 20 over match happens and the team batting second requires more than one run compared to the score put up by the team batting first in order to attain victory? The debate has been going on for decades altogether but a proper permanent solution is awaited and that is in case someone is serious in solving the problem rather than terming the match as a bad luck for the losers. However, a total of 102 never seemed to bother Chris Gayle's team.

This time as well, there was no one stopping Chris Gayle who scored runs at a rate of 316.66 runs for every 100 balls he faced. Had there been no Chris Gayle, the Royal Challengers Bangalore would have been termed as an unlucky team for, despite the presence of Chris Gayle and his timely contribution with the willow, the RCB took 12.3 overs and losing 6 wickets en route to reach their target. So one can imagine RCB without Gayle. Likewise there was a noted bowler in Charles Langeveldt who shone with the ball scalping 2/10 from 3 overs at 3.33 runs an over.

Surrendering to Dinesh Karthik!

Well the cricketing world has seen players like Sachin Tendulkar, Anil Kumble, Sehwag and Dhoni to name a few who have won many games for their teams single handed. But, if someone like Dinesh Karthik does the same, either the cricketing world has seen a new talent or has the same been dreaming. Yesterday was one such day when Dinesh Karthik did exactly what was expected off him but not anticipated. Dinesh Karthik was individually instrumental in chasing down a huge target of 178 against the Kochi Tuskers. For a change, this was a neutral venue hosted by neither of the teams.

A total of 178 has rarely been found to be chased and that too if any team has been able to chase it down successfully with as many as 7 balls to spare, the efforts of that particular team should not go unrewarded. One thing that can be realized from looking at the scorecard is that the pitch definitely favored the batsmen which in turn favored the T20 game of cricket. This is the third time a team has successfully chased down a total in excess of 170 runs. Previously, the Delhi Daredevils chased down 187 against Pune Warriors, days after Punjab won against Chennai after successfully chasing down 188.

I beg your pardon; there was a match where Kochi Tuskers Kerala successfully chased down a total of 183 against Mumbai Indians which takes the tally to 4. Coming to the game between Kochi Tuskers and Kings XI Punjab, there were four major contributions to the Kochi Tuskers with Mahela Jayawardane being the daddy of them all scoring 76 runs. Lesser contributions include Owais Shah's 23 and McCullum's 32. Can anyone of you spare the Kings XI Punjab bowlers for bowling as many as 19 wise deliveries that equally contributed to the Kochi's score? Added to that was using only 5 bowlers.

The Kings XI Punjab captain used only five bowlers which happen to be the minimum number of bowlers any team can use. But, everything got washed away as the Kings XI Punjab team eventually won the game by 6 wickets. One more player who made it count for his team was R P Singh who grabbed 4 out of the 6 Punjabi wickets that fell. This feat should no doubt go down as one of the great bowling performances in IPL. Now, once again, the man of the match debate should inevitably pop up when RP Singh stood the chance better than anybody else.

Dhoni does a Sehwag

Well we have seen in the past in this edition of the IPL that whenever the Delhi Daredevils perform, it is mainly because of their captain Virender Sehwag. However, yesterday in the match between the Delhi Daredevils and Chennai Superkings, it was the Chennai captain - Mahendra Singh Dhoni who stood for his team when he ended the innings at 176 with his personal contribution being an unbeaten 63 runs off just 31 deliveries. Had it not been for Dhoni's feat, may be the Chennai Superkings might have just ended on the losing side whatsoever. Dhoni has just done a Sehwag.

This time for a change, the home team returned victorious which most of the time doesn't happen to be the case. The scorecard suggests that Dhoni was previousy aided by Suresh Raina, Badrinath and Murali Vijay, both of them being Indians by laying a solid foundation to their mammoth total that was four runs behind the ideal total of 180. Unfortunately, Bravo and Morkel lost out entertaining the facs with their tail end hitting. Though the target of 176 was far more than enough to register a win, the game could have been a little more entertaining. Had there been Sehwag, things would have been different.

It was yet another example of team work by the Chennai Superkings where as mentioned Raina, Dhoni, Murali Vijay and Badrinath contributed for their team's batting success. Similarly, the bowling of the Delhi Daredevils also aided the Chennai batting who didn't experiment with their bowlers. One can sense the late run giving technique of Pathan who went at 10.0 runs an over. It is mysterious that Pathan and Agarkar were allowed to bowl their complete quota of 4 overs despite going in for so many runs while James Hopes was stopped after bowling just two overs. Coming to the Delhi's run chase, they left no stone unturned.

The Delhi Daredevils did everything right to chase down the total of 176 with Naman Ojha, Venugopal Rao, David Warner and Irfan Pathan showing good confidence with the bat but lacked the temperament that Virender Sehwag would have had. The Delhi Daredevils didn't have a Sehwag for a Dhoni. A score of 158 though was not enough to win the game, was more than enough to show that the Delhi Daredevils are still in the race at least for the play offs. At the end there could have been only one winner and that happened to be the Chennai Superkings.

Watson+Rahane+Dravid < Gayle

Well whenever in this season of the IPL is heard about Royal Challengers Bangalore, one name that flashes everyone's mind would be that of Chris Gayle, the reasons which are not unknown or need to be told separately. Yesterday as well in the game against Rajasthan Royals, it was Chris Gayle who did most of the damage to the host team first by having a wicket under his name and secondly needless to be said by belting another splendid 70 runs off just 44 balls and remaining unbeaten in the second innings chasing a modest total of 147 on the board.

There were batsmen like Dravid, Shane Watson, Ajinkya Rahane and Ross Taylor who got into double figures but the noteworthy scores were just that of Dravid and Watson. Neither were there any major strike rates for the Rajasthan to boast about. Not to mention that a combination of all the aforementioned scores were out shadowed by Gayle from the Royal Challengers Bangalore. With someone like Gayle out there in the opposition, the teams facing should have been a little lot more careful at least when it came to saving their faces let alone winning or even coming close to winning one against the RCB.

On the other hand, other than Chris Gayle, there were the likes of Dilshan, Virat Kohli and A B deVilliars who could have done the job for the Royal Challengers Bangalore with a target of just 147 on the board set by Rajasthan. One can take a look at the scorecard to see the bowling chart of Rajasthan Royals who bought in 7 of their bowlers mainly to bowl Chris Gayle which happened to be a valiant effort. However, the Rajasthan Royals' efforts got paid for when they had one wicket towards the end of the RCB's successful run chase.

The Rajasthan Royals had Dilshan out with half the target already achieved. But, had they got Gayle out atleast late in the innings, that would have bought in much satisfaction for the Rajasthan Royals. Once again popping up the man of the match debate, I bet none can explain why Gayle was deceived of the award. Is it because that Gayle has received that award thrice earlier in the tournament or is it because the match officials wanted to give bowlers a chance to go up and collect something? To mention, Gayle had a wicket against his name which wasn't noticed by match officials I supppose.

Another debacle by another home team

This was one of the rare matches in T20 cricket where bowlers have everything to say right from the target what they understood would be chasable on that ground and secondly aiding their batsmen to try everything new. One can go through the scorecard to see that neither did the Deccan Chargers lose wickets nor did they be instrumental in getting to a match winning score. There have been matches that follow suit. So would be the fact that it is the home team that faces the music like yesterday Deccan Chargers lost to Pune Warriors. Lucky are those teams that do not host IPL matches.

The Deccan Chargers got off to a decent start with their top six batsmen getting double figures with notable ones being Shikar Dhawan's 24 followed by Ravi Teja's and J P Duminy's 30 runs. But, in the end what mattered was the big hitting factor which all the batsmen of the Deccan Chargers lacked. The highest strike rate was that of Shikar Dhawan with 141.17 and a score of 24. Or else there was Dale Steyn who stroke 183.33 runs for every 100 balls faced but managed an unbeaten 11 which was to hardly any avail. It is indisputable that the pitch favored the bowlers to a greater extent.

This time as well the Pune Warriors didn't quite experiment with their bowling by bringing 4 of their bowlers to bowl their complete quota. Yes, it is understood that there was no need to experiment with the bowling when the going was so smooth for them. Can anyone of you explain why Bhuvneshwar Kumar was allowed to bowl 3 overs when Shrikant Wagh bowled just 1 over when both of them gave away runs at 8.0 an over? The only thing that the Pune bowlers didn't do was to bowl extra deliveries if not for one wide delivery. So was the bowling accuracy of the pitch.

Mitchell Marsh's 4/25 from should I guess go down as the best bowling performance of at least this year's IPL. Life was not easy even for the Pune Warriors who took 18.2 overs to chase down that total which should have been achieved in at the most 15 overs. Kudos to Jesse Ryder and Manish Pandey who laid a solid foundation despite the ball doing its own tricks and joining hands with the bowler. If not for Duminy, no other bowler got belted from the Pune Warriors'. One man's presence that everyone would have been waiting for was Sourav Ganguly who didn't disappoint his fans.