IPL 2023: The Afterthoughts

After a gap of few seasons returning to this blog with a post on the IPL After-thoughts (A name inspired by the times when IPL After-party was as important a feature of the tournament as the games itself!)

So what will we remember this season for? Lets see

1. The battle of the eyeballs: the biggest matchup was not between the teams on the field but between Star Sports and JioCinema. One product on two different media with different broadcasters for the first time. Not sure about whose numbers to believe, but in the end the viewer was the winner!
2. The circle of Life: Gujarat Titans played against Chennai Super Kings in Ahmedabad to kick start the tournament. Almost a couple of months down the line, the same two teams were at the same venue fighting for the title!
3. Performance of the tournament: Rinku Singh clobbering 5 sixes off the final 5 balls to win KKR a seemingly lost game. And this wasn’t the only heist he pulled off.
4. The Yellove: Or rather it was just the love for MS Dhoni which turned almost every single away stadium into a sea of yellow! End result, this was one of the more popular CSK tournament wins ever.
5. Six: That’s the number of IPL titles Ambati Rayudu has, as he walks away into the sunset. A career which could be qualified as a success and as well as leaving you wondering, “what could have been”.
6. Tales of Redemption: Like phoenix they rose from the ashes – Mohit Sharma, Piyush Chawla, Ajinkya Rahane, Amit Mishra. A series of feel-good stories.
7. The Rise of the Young Uncapped Indian Batters: Rinku Singh, Sai Sudarshan, Tilak Varma, Prabhsimran Singh, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Nehal Wadhera, Dhruv Jurel, Jitesh Sharma – what a wonderful crop of talent. Unlike the previous lot, they are not all top order run-accumulators.
8. On the flip side, where are the new Indian bowlers?
9. Impact Player Rule: Gave something more for the team strategists to mull over, but has it diluted the role of some players. Shivam Dube and Rahul Tewatia hardly bowled. Gill, Jaiswal, Rayudu. SKY mostly did not even have to field. From the need for multi-dimensional players, we may swing the other way to single skilled specialists.
10. Game of Small Margins: If Sandeep Sharma’s last delivery against SRH had been legal, Rajasthan Royals would have been in the play-offs. Instead, it was a no-ball and the subsequent delivery was deposited in the stands.
11. And finally on the raging debate: running out the non-striker. At least, now it can be safely said, it does require skill. Just ask Harshal Patel. And is probably the only mechanism to keep batters within the line. 

And so it was, an action packed tournament concludes and more “serious” cricket returns.

IPL7: Notes #2

The UAE leg of the IPL is over. Every team has now played 5 games each and some paaterns are beginning to emerge. Yet its still a long way to go and as it is said in sports - "It ain't over till its over". Here are a few random thoughts & memories form the games so far.

• Catches Win Matches - The old adage still holds true. If you need proof, just check Chris Lynn's effort which changed the course of the KKR-RCB game. Also a high number of catches have been dropped which have enabled some batsmen to simply blaze away.
• Steve Smith's cool-headedness in calmly tapping away Sunil Narine for two, instead of going for glory in the Super Over [Aside - if you have a system of counting 6s & 4s, why have the Super Over business at all?]
• Indian fast bowling is suddenly looking in good health with the likes of Zaheer, Bhuvneshwar and Aaron leading the charge. Then we have Sandeep Sharma, Vinay Kumar & Balaji also putting in good performances. Either the pitches have all seamed around or the bowling has been exceptionally good.
• India's batsmen somehow have not fired with the exception of Rahane and Manish Pandey.
• The Mumbai Indians advisory board has a better chance of success than their playing XI. Just why have they managed to let so many of their existing players go off to other franchisees is confusing to say the least. The likes of Maxwell, Dwayne Smith, Chahal, Dhawal Kulkarni, Suryakumar Yadav are some of the names who should have been in the Mumbai team
• Chennai Super Kings seem to have shrugged off their off-field distractions and are back into their sail-into-the-knockouts-form
• The RCB squad looked a batting powerhouse but is looking more like a powermouse (to quote the interim BCCI head Sunil Gavaskar). 70 all out against Rajasthan Royals being a a case in point.
• Keeping the uncapped players into the auction has actually limited the number of potential backup players.
• The schedule is a little lopsided. Now some of the franchisees have 5 "home" games while others have 4 remaining. For all practical purposes the UAE leg was neutral to all all concerned. Although the defintion of "home: and "away" is getting quite blurred in some cases..e.g. With Dhoni captaining CSK, who will dare to term KKR as the home team in tonight's encounter in Ranchi?

Till next time...