IPL4 Match 67 - Dhawan eliminates Punjab hopes

Shikhar Dhawan chose the right time to score his highest in IPL and thereby put up a target that was way beyond Kings XI reach. This eliminated their hopes to qualify for their top 4 - a sad end to a late surge by the Kings.

IPL4 Match 62 - Pune lose to Deccan's bowlers

The bowling lineup of Deccan Chargers is impressive - Dale Steyn, Ishant Sharma, Amit Mishra, Pragyan Ojha. A supporting cast of Daniel Christian and JP Duminy were more than a handful for Pune Warriors. The target was easy for the Chargers batsmen to chase down.

IPL4 Match 59 - Mumbai lose to Deccan Chargers

Surprise result for the top-ranked Mumbai Indians.

IPL4 Match 46 - Sehwag show all the way

Virender Sehwag had not shown his true face in the T20 format, especially in the IPL. He chose this match as the appropriate one to showcase his potential (as though there was any doubt) to the Deccan Chargers. A tough target set by Deccan was scaled down so easily that there was one full over at the end. Dale Steyn and Ishant Sharma were seen off - their 8 overs costing 40 runs only - while the other bowlers were targeted mercilessly.

IPL4 Match 42 - Yusuf comes to the party

Yusuf Pathan has had a relatively quiet IPL so far - he decided that Deccan Chargers presented the right opportunity for him to flex his muscles. His knock helped KKR reach a target that was always difficult for Deccan to chase down. Kolkata are almost on the verge of qualifying for the next stage, thanks to this win.

IPL4 Match 32 - Ishant flattens Kochi

What looked like a decent target to chase was made to look like a mountain for Kochi Tuskers by the incisive bowling by Ishant Sharma. Ishant, after a long time, delivered a spell that highlighted his potential - he is really enjoying the opportunity to bowl alongside Dale Steyn. Sangakkara had in the first innings, held the innings together and pieced a score that looked par for the course. In the final count, it was 55 more.

IPL4 Match 27 - Mumbai eases past Deccan

First it was the Rohit (Sharma) and Roy (Andrew Symonds) show. Then, Malinga took over with the ball and reduced Deccan Chargers to a chase that never was.

IPL4 Match 15 - Kings XI thrash Deccan Chargers

Whatever Paul Valthaty touches, seems to be turning to gold. Today, he turned his arm over and took 4 wickets before putting on a large partnership with his captain for the first wicket. Though, on paper, the target looked challenging, reality was much different. The ease with which Paul and Adam Gilchrist chased down the score is clearly evident from the worm below.

IPL4 Match 11 - Deccan have a home win at last

Deccan Chargers, thanks to Bharat Chipli and Sunny Sohal, put up a large score on the board against RCB. Facing Dale Steyn and co, RCB were always behind the asking rate - the worm below will show that. An easy win for DC - first win at Hyderabad ever.

IPL4 Match 6 - KKR notch up first win

KKR notched up their first win in IPL4 and put points on the table thanks to the exploits of Jacques Kallis and Iqbal Abdullah. As you can see in the chart below, the two overs of Bhatia and Iqbal (13th and 14th) increased the difference after which whatever Deccan Chargers tried to do, the (R-B) could not come close.

IPL4 Match 2 - Rajasthan Royals start with a win

Rajasthan Royals defeated the Deccan Chargers comfortably. Their batting carried too many punches for the good bowling of Deccan. The Chargers have Dale Steyn, Ishant Sharma, Pragyan Ojha, Amit Mishra in their arsenal - handful for any team on any wicket. But, even such a unit needs runs on the board, that was not put up by their batsmen. Rajasthan was led well in the bowling department by Siddharth Trivedi (a bowler who seems to display his best under Shane Warne).

The chart to the right, shows the ups and downs in the chase till the 16th onwards when it became easy. Ross Taylor and Johan Botha give the top-order  a solid look for Rajasthan. Interesting times ahead!

IPL4 - IPL becomes Indian again

It must have one hell of a weekend for all team owners that ended last night. The amount of money (even notionally) that they had to spend must have exhausted them physically and mentally. The team analysis has been done by various websites - Cricinfo has their analysis as well.

An interactive chart of the list of players selected can be accessed here. Google provides a good way to help users create their own analysis.

The chart shows the split of players selected by the franchises in the different specialities (batsmen, bowler, wicket-keeper, all-rounder, etc). Very surprising points come up here:

• Deccan Chargers and RCB dont have any all-rounders selected so far
• Rajasthan Royals dont have a designated wicket-keeper !!
• CSK and Kings XI are the ones who have spent a considerable amount on wicket-keepers (Dhoni and Sangakkara being the ones involved - no wonder)
• KKR, Pune and RCB have stacked their teams with batsmen
• Deccan Chargers have spent the most on bowlers
• Indian players are in demand...finally

The remaining players to be picked become crucial now - no wonder Dr.Mallya is all worried about them.

IPL4 news - players retained by franchises announced

IPL4

Wednesday was the deadline for the IPL teams to announce the players they were planning to retain. All of them (including the ones who are doubtful of competing in the next version) have announced the names.

I had done my bit of crystal-gazing earlier on the probable retentions. While I had suggested correctly that most of the seniors like Rahul, Kumble and Ganguly will not be retained, there were few surprises otherwise.

• Chennai SuperKings has decided to part ways with Murali the spinner while retaining Murali, the opening batsman.
• I had expected RCB to retain Uthappa (local player), Kallis and Taylor. But, I guess, the team must have looked at the price quoted for these players earlier and decided to let them go (this must be true for all other teams as well)
• Mumbai opted to retain four players - the only surprise to me was retaining Malinga for Zaheer Khan. Zak would have provided a bit more local support but there is no doubt on the effectiveness of Slinger Malinga.
• It was surprising to see Delhi Daredevils leave out Gambhir, David Warner (who is definitely a future superstar in this format) and Dilshan. Again, their costs must be weighing on the mind of the franchises.
• KKR let go of McCullum - a real loss to the team that is anyway not making a difference in any of the IPL so far. They expect Gayle to lead the team in the next season, looks like.
• Deccan Chargers could have retained Andrew Symonds but again his high price paid earlier will prey on the Management. I am sure, given an opportunity, DC will take him again on a lower price. It will be interesting to see how many players will be taken back by their previous teams for a lower price.
• At 41, Shane Warne still commands respect in Australia - reporters asking him to make a comeback to test cricket which needs much more stamina than a T20 match. No wonder, Rajasthan Royals have retained him. Another surprising omission from them is that of the latest hero, Yusuf Pathan.

Many questions arise after these announcements. What happens to the retained players if Rajasthan is shown the door? Will Kochi and Pune teams be given the first option to grab some marquee players? Time, as usual, will reveal more answers.

Related articles

• IPL 4: Dravid, Ganguly, Gambhir up for grabs (cricketnext.in.com)
• MI retains key players (thehindu.com)
• Rajasthan retain Warne and Watson (espncricinfo.com)

IPL3 Performances - Post-mortem

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The IPL finished yesterday with Chennai SuperKings winning this version but the news today was overshadowed by the Modi-factor. Newspapers feel that readers are more interested to know more about LKM than the final match itself.


Over the course of the tournament, there were a large number of performers who shone. Let us try to decide the best player in each category (I am not including players who are obvious - ones like Sachin Tendulkar, Jacques Kallis, etc) 


The promising bowler from my perspective was Pragyan Ojha. Others who put in performances that were interesting in a couple of matches included Harmeet Singh (slower ball specialist), RP Singh, R Ashwin (opened the bowling in the latter part of the matches which revived CSK fortunes), Shadab Jakati (probably the best spinner in a squad consisting of Muralitharan - doesn't it say something?). Jaskaran Singh, A Uniyal, Umesh Yadav, Sumit Narwal, Abu Ahmed, KP Appanna, Jaidev U were some of the younger bowlers from different teams to notice going forward.


The promising batsmen was Saurabh Tiwary. The ones who shone as well included Robin Uthappa (amazing performance by the RCB batsmen in the end overs), M Vijay(came into the Indian team based on his performances at the top of the order), T Suman (One of the consistent performers of the Deccan Chargers team), Ambati Rayudu(must have gone up the pecking order for a backup wicket-keeper). Lone performances came from Manoj Tiwari, Manvinder Bisla, Manish Pandey, Abhishek Jhunjunwala, KM Jadhav, Kedar Jadhav.

From the all-rounders, it was clear that Angelo Matthews started well but did not sustain the level till the end. R Sathish, Yusuf Pathan, Juan Theron were the others who did well in both departments but not consistent enough. India definitely needs a bowling all-rounder who bowls medium-pace and if Sathish can play this role, it will be a great step forward for the team.


Naman Ojha is the keeper who has played well in the matches throughout the tournament other than the make-shift keepers like Uthappa or Rayudu. The duo of A Tare and Dinesh Karthick did well in matches but again, nothing startling.

Finally, the IPL Dream Team XV of the entire tournament who should be invited to play the World T20 winners - Sachin Tendulkar, Jacques Kallis, MS Dhoni(c), Suresh Raina, Andrew Symonds, Robin Uthappa (wk), Angelo Matthews, Zaheer Khan, Dale Steyn, Pragyan Ojha, Lasith Malinga

Best Catches - Watch here for the ones I feel are great in the tournament.

R-B Charts of all IPL3 matches are available here. What is R-B? Check here if you dont know.

Men of the Matches, their home-towns and home-grounds can be seen here.

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IPL3 - semi-finalists identified

Image by warrenski via Flickr

The first phase of IPL3 came to a logical conclusion if not a complete stop on Sunday, with four semi-finalists finalized. Let us have a quick look at them:

• Mumbai Indians - The favorites going by their form so far. The batting is a bit wobbly dependent on the legend (SRT) who might want to win this one since he is the captain and more necessarily, no one expected him to fire so well this season. The bowling looks good with Zaheer, Harbhajan and Malinga. If the Caribbean duo of Bravo and Pollard as well as the ex-ICL duo of Rayudu and Sathish excel, no one can stop the Ambani's team.
• Royal Challengers - No one knows what happened in the league stages - why the momentum was lost after such a fantastic start. Kallis, Uthappa, Pietersen, Kohli, Taylor form the batting strength which has got a good bowling attack to support (Kumble, Steyn, Praveen Kumar, Vinay Kumar). They need to get their act (and head) together before the semis as they will lose their home-advantage as well.
• Chennai Super Kings - Definitely, one of the favorites, for their explosive power - the match against Kings XI Punjab showed what MSD could do, on form. Hayden, Vijay, Kemp, Raina, Morkel, Badri other than MSD is great batting. If the bowling could do better than just Bollinger alone, they will give Mumbai a good fight.
• Deccan Chargers - five matches in a row!!! They are on fire. Symonds, Rohit Sharma and T Suman (my vote for the best Indian youngster in the league matches) have been doing a great job while Vaas, Ojha, RP Singh take care of the bowling.

 The final might be between Mumbai and CSK which will be a definite treat. Let us wait and watch. Who is your favorite?

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The tale of 2 overs

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The match between Kolkata Knight Riders and Deccan Chargers hinged upon 2 overs - one each in either innings. These 2 overs were the turning points in the match.

The 1st over was in the KKR innings - Sourav Ganguly and David Hussey were repairing the KKR innings and slowly but steadily accumulating the runs. The run-rate was still not something for DC to be alarmed about. Pragyan Ojha, the left-arm spinner, was brought on by Adam Gilchrist for his last over - very bad choice since Sourav was at the crease.

For your convenience, I have added the Cricinfo commentary below:

End of over 16 (9 runs) Kolkata Knight Riders 125/3 (RR: 7.81)
DJ Hussey            19* (19b 1x6)        SC Ganguly           70* (50b 9x4 2x6)

16.1 Ojha to Hussey, no run, another missed stumping, beaten by the turn there, landed outside leg stump, Hussey came down the track but couldn't get his bat to it as it turned away, he missed and so did Gilchrist

16.2 Ojha to Hussey, 1 leg bye, spun away after pitching on leg stump, goes for the slog-sweep, is struck on the pads as it turns away, steals a leg bye

16.3 Ojha to Ganguly, SIX, massive, turning into him and he bends low to sweep that powerfully over the deep backward square leg boundary for a big six

16.4 Ojha to Ganguly, 1 wide, full and wide, saw him coming down and fired it wide but Ganguly got back into his crease in time

16.4 Ojha to Ganguly, SIX, Ganguly has spoiled Ojha's figures here, flighted on middle and he swings it miles over deep square leg, took it from a length and punished it

16.5 Ojha to Ganguly, 1 wide, Ojha is struggling, tried to get him stumped again off a wide ball but Ganguly's not falling for it, it's called by the umpire

16.5 Ojha to Ganguly, SIX, Ganguly's on fire, full toss by Ojha and Ganguly shovels that gift ball over deep midwicket, the crowd is delirious, long time coming

16.6 Ojha to Ganguly, OUT, holes out in the deep, the shot was on, on middle and on a length, Ganguly was in position to send that into the stands but connect this as well as he had the earlier ones, found Rohit in the deep
   
SC Ganguly c Sharma b Ojha 88 (54b 9x4 5x6) SR: 162.96

That ends an excellent innings, giving Kolkata a great chance of posting a more than challenging score on this slow pitch

The run-rate of KKR jumped by almost 1 run per over after this blast by Ganguly. Even if KKR had a good over of about 10, the score would have been 10 runs less. Thanks to Dada's trio of sixes, the run-rate became a healthy 181. The missed stumping of David Hussey also added to DC's pain.

The 2nd over that sealed it for KKR was the penultimate over - of course, the target was huge - 40 runs from 2 overs but Andrew Symonds was at the crease and he was looking in good form. Shane Bond was brought into the attack by Sourav Ganguly.


Commentary from Cricinfo added below:

End of over 18 (8 runs) Deccan Chargers 142/4 (40 runs required from 12 balls, RR: 7.88, RRR: 20.00)
A Symonds            38* (29b 4x4)     TL Suman            7* (7b)             
18.1 Bond to Symonds, FOUR, low full toss and he connects well, strikes it cleanly over the bowler's head wide of long-off for a one bounce four, first four since the 14th over says the TV commentator, took a while to come

18.2 Bond to Symonds, no run, trying an inswinging yorker there, moves away to steer it past point but it's fuller than he would have liked, misses

18.3 Bond to Symonds, no run, mixing it up very well, it takes some wily bowling to keep Symonds in check, the slow legcutter there, he didn't pick it and missed, another dot ball

Symonds says he can't quite see the ball, but the umpires have refused him a newer one

18.4 Bond to Symonds, no run, failing to get them away, short on middle, tries to swat that past the bowler, ends up playing it straight back to him, dot balls galore

18.5 Bond to Symonds, no run, another one, tight line, bowled on a good length on the off, strikes it back to Bond, big cheers from the crowd

18.6 Bond to Symonds, 2 runs, another superb over, finishes off with just a couple, driven wide of long-off

Shane Bond bowled exceptionally with a combination of slow balls, length balls that did not allow Symonds to attack at all. Other than the first and last balls, Symonds could keep tapping every ball. Amazing. Again, if not for Bond's control, DC could have easily scored at least 10 runs more in this over. Of course, KKR played really well in the last 5 overs of DC's innings - the runs were hard to come by and Sourav shuffled his bowlers around to keep DC guessing.

At the end of the day, KKR came out victors in the match by 24 runs. These 2 overs did make their mark in the match and ensured that KKR notched up another win over Deccan Chargers.

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IPL3 - First 5 matches

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

After the first 5 days of the IPL, the excitement has (re)started!!! Last over finishes in the first 3 matches meant that the games were truly on.

What one noticed that, as usual, T20 and that too IPL is very hard to predict. Front-runners for this version have lost (Chennai SuperKings, Deccan Chargers in their first match) whereas last year's "wooden-spoonists" have come back to win the first 2 matches (I can say with modesty that I was not surprised).

The T20 specialists have made their mark already - check Angelo Matthews in the first 2 matches, Yusuf Pathan's century (another of my prediction came true), Gautam Gambhir's knock (though he no longer is just a T20 specialist) - in the first few matches.

KKR seem to have got their strategy right even though it is early days to form any opinons - Ganguly and Akram together seem to have brought about a change with the attack that promises (and delivers) more.

Deccan Chargers have their stars at the top of the order but they seem to depend a lot on Adam Gilchrist (who seems to start well but his body seems to pull him back). Gibbs and Symonds seemed to struggle but stayed at the crease to score runs quickly. Chaminda Vaas is another veteran who has impressed this year with his incisive bowling.

Delhi Daredevils are looking formidable thanks to the top-order (filled with stroke-players like Viru, Gauti, Dilshan, AB de Viliers).

RCB has the domestic stars in their team but still have to get their composition right - give them 1-2 games and they will show their mettle.


CSK will be looking forward to the forthcoming matches to get their act straight. MS Dhoni has the domestic stalwarts as well but they seemed to be overawed by the occasion.

Rajasthan Royals - Yusuf Pathan won the match for him (almost) but the others should also carry their weight and come to the game.

Kings XI Punjab - one feels for the effervescent Preity since she has a weak team and does not know how she will win. Lack of bowling firepower is clearly evident.

Mumbai Indians - Good knocks by the youngsters (Tiwari, Rayudu) was just enough to stall the heroics of Yusuf - their bowling looks good but needs tightening still.

PS - Check the venues and the home-towns of the MOM recipients here.

Deccan Chargers shut out by TT

R-B Chart


R-BpOR Chart


R-BpWR Chart


Problem understanding the charts - Refer here for description.