Half –Way Covered at IPL 2009
28 Matches have been played at the IPL 2 underway at South Africa. Not all the teams have played equal number of games some have played seven, some others just six and a couple have played eight games. The standings show the Deccan Chargers ahead of the rest followed by Kings XI of Punjab, Delhi Daredevils and Royal challenge Bangalore. The other three teams Mumbai Indians, Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals are not far too behind. Only Kolkata Knight Rider’s are staggering at a position where only a miracle can lift their chances of making it to be counted amongst Semi-Finalists.
There have been some tremendous competitions amongst the sides.. some have been one sided affairs and a few have been washed by rains.. two hames completely abandoned and two others affected before they could be completed for the desired 20 over levels.
Matthew Hayden, Suresh Raina, and surprisingly Brad Hodge of the Kolkata Knight Riders are among the top three run getters. Their teams do not find place in top four. Of course Gilchrist, Gibbs, Dilshan, Rohit Sharma, Duminy, Kallis, Dravid, Tendulkar, and even Yusuf Pathan are among good runs with their bat. Sehwag, Gambhir, Yuvraj and Dhoni are not counted too much, atleast not at this stage of the tournament. Pietersen and Flintoff did not match the amount of money their teams spent on them.
The bowling department belonged to Spinners, that too quite surprisingly, the game was actually considered a death bed for spinners when the first edition of IPL was about to start earlier last year. Yet the kind of success that has been enjoyed by Pragyan Ojha, Apanna, Jakati and Yusuf Pathan speaks more in favour of novices than the stalwarts like Harbhajan Singh, Muralitharan or even Kumble (his five for 5 spell standing). Among paceman too it was generally the young breed that did earn more recognition. Abdulla being the leading wicket taker followed by RP Singh and Malinga. Praveen Kumar and Munaf patel did better than most other known contributors to the game of pace attack. Kamran Khan might have been notified for his suspect action but he was too good for most of the opposition. Only Laxmipati balaji and Nehra counted greater deal from the experienced bowlers.
In a nutshell, the underdogs performed much more strikingly than the established names. Virat Kohli held maxiomum catches alongside de Villiers in the tournament. The two or four major contributors who counted on the higher side of the age were Hayden, Gilchrist and Dravid and Tendulkar. The south African factors of the team also helped the cause of teams doing well, de Villiers has the lone century, Duminy and Kallis have been among runs, Boucher and van Wyk behind the stumps and van Merwe counted with his spin attack.
The team that was picked by India on the basis of their performances in the current IPL season for the world Twenty20 World championship is quite acceptable or should I say the best picked team in the recent times. Though I thought one could make room for Virat Kohli and maybe also Munaf Patel. But then given the limitations of the number of players that could be selected and additional wicket keeper required for a long tournament, the slectors have done a splendid job. The omission of one of Sachin or Dravid does make one feel soar but then the game is supposedly to be played by young pair of legs in the field and it is quite understandable despite such a hoopla of oldies playing goldies by our news channels especially Aaj Tak. I give the selectors a 9 out of 10 marks.. 9 as they could not muster strength to leave out Harbhajan Singh and Gautam Gambhir, the latter has a tremendous batting record and his inclusion is seconded by me.. but probably I would have picked Virat Kohli as one of the true all-rounders in the team. Dinesh Karthik has been lucky with striking the form lately.. he is the only fortunate inclusion.. if Harbhajan is a somewhat dubious inclusion, it appears his huge hitting came to the rescue of non-performing spinner.
The second half promises to be as exciting as the first half or maybe much more exciting as some of the Australians might finally join the competition some of the West Indies players may also be leaving soon. Their young players did make quite a mark of their own especially Edward Fidel, Dwayne Smith and Dwayne Bravo. Gayle was out of colors as was McCullum and that could have been the reason for such a bad ranking of Kolkata..
Special mention must be made of the coveted hat-trick performed by Yuvraj Singh of Kings XI Punjab against Royal Challenge Bangalore and the lone century by AB de Villiers of Delhi Daredvils against Chennai Super Kings.
The two pages I am sporting at my angelfire website:
http://www.angelfire.com/ab/abhayasharma/top_ipl_2009.htm
and
http://www.angelfire.com/ab/abhayasharma/results_ipl.htm
Have a nice and great time with IPL 2 may only the best team win the second edition.
Abhaya India May 4 2009 7:39 PM IST
28 Matches have been played at the IPL 2 underway at South Africa. Not all the teams have played equal number of games some have played seven, some others just six and a couple have played eight games. The standings show the Deccan Chargers ahead of the rest followed by Kings XI of Punjab, Delhi Daredevils and Royal challenge Bangalore. The other three teams Mumbai Indians, Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals are not far too behind. Only Kolkata Knight Rider’s are staggering at a position where only a miracle can lift their chances of making it to be counted amongst Semi-Finalists.
There have been some tremendous competitions amongst the sides.. some have been one sided affairs and a few have been washed by rains.. two hames completely abandoned and two others affected before they could be completed for the desired 20 over levels.
Matthew Hayden, Suresh Raina, and surprisingly Brad Hodge of the Kolkata Knight Riders are among the top three run getters. Their teams do not find place in top four. Of course Gilchrist, Gibbs, Dilshan, Rohit Sharma, Duminy, Kallis, Dravid, Tendulkar, and even Yusuf Pathan are among good runs with their bat. Sehwag, Gambhir, Yuvraj and Dhoni are not counted too much, atleast not at this stage of the tournament. Pietersen and Flintoff did not match the amount of money their teams spent on them.
The bowling department belonged to Spinners, that too quite surprisingly, the game was actually considered a death bed for spinners when the first edition of IPL was about to start earlier last year. Yet the kind of success that has been enjoyed by Pragyan Ojha, Apanna, Jakati and Yusuf Pathan speaks more in favour of novices than the stalwarts like Harbhajan Singh, Muralitharan or even Kumble (his five for 5 spell standing). Among paceman too it was generally the young breed that did earn more recognition. Abdulla being the leading wicket taker followed by RP Singh and Malinga. Praveen Kumar and Munaf patel did better than most other known contributors to the game of pace attack. Kamran Khan might have been notified for his suspect action but he was too good for most of the opposition. Only Laxmipati balaji and Nehra counted greater deal from the experienced bowlers.
In a nutshell, the underdogs performed much more strikingly than the established names. Virat Kohli held maxiomum catches alongside de Villiers in the tournament. The two or four major contributors who counted on the higher side of the age were Hayden, Gilchrist and Dravid and Tendulkar. The south African factors of the team also helped the cause of teams doing well, de Villiers has the lone century, Duminy and Kallis have been among runs, Boucher and van Wyk behind the stumps and van Merwe counted with his spin attack.
The team that was picked by India on the basis of their performances in the current IPL season for the world Twenty20 World championship is quite acceptable or should I say the best picked team in the recent times. Though I thought one could make room for Virat Kohli and maybe also Munaf Patel. But then given the limitations of the number of players that could be selected and additional wicket keeper required for a long tournament, the slectors have done a splendid job. The omission of one of Sachin or Dravid does make one feel soar but then the game is supposedly to be played by young pair of legs in the field and it is quite understandable despite such a hoopla of oldies playing goldies by our news channels especially Aaj Tak. I give the selectors a 9 out of 10 marks.. 9 as they could not muster strength to leave out Harbhajan Singh and Gautam Gambhir, the latter has a tremendous batting record and his inclusion is seconded by me.. but probably I would have picked Virat Kohli as one of the true all-rounders in the team. Dinesh Karthik has been lucky with striking the form lately.. he is the only fortunate inclusion.. if Harbhajan is a somewhat dubious inclusion, it appears his huge hitting came to the rescue of non-performing spinner.
The second half promises to be as exciting as the first half or maybe much more exciting as some of the Australians might finally join the competition some of the West Indies players may also be leaving soon. Their young players did make quite a mark of their own especially Edward Fidel, Dwayne Smith and Dwayne Bravo. Gayle was out of colors as was McCullum and that could have been the reason for such a bad ranking of Kolkata..
Special mention must be made of the coveted hat-trick performed by Yuvraj Singh of Kings XI Punjab against Royal Challenge Bangalore and the lone century by AB de Villiers of Delhi Daredvils against Chennai Super Kings.
The two pages I am sporting at my angelfire website:
http://www.angelfire.com/ab/abhayasharma/top_ipl_2009.htm
and
http://www.angelfire.com/ab/abhayasharma/results_ipl.htm
Have a nice and great time with IPL 2 may only the best team win the second edition.
Abhaya India May 4 2009 7:39 PM IST
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