IPL4 Match 65 - Kolkata almost through to last 4

Kolkata overcame their ex-captain Ganguly (as part of Pune Warriors now) to win their match easily. The IPL is becoming a boring interlude now - seriously something has to be done next year or else this will eat into the profits being made so far.

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 53 - Mitchelle Marsh comes to the party

Sourav Ganguly made an emotional return while Manish Pandey scored his highest this season. But, it was Mitchelle Marsh's performance in the match that made it easy for Pune Warriors to stop their losses.

IPL4 Match 51 - Easy for Pune

Yuvraj Singh was back at his home ground (not that of Pune but his own) and that was one reason he was able to snap his team's run of losses. A good team effort on the field meant that his team had an easy target to chase down which was achieved without much strain.

 

IPL4 Match 44 - Pune lose their 7th successive match

One over! All it took was one over of Alfonso Thomas to take Mumbai to set Pune a target of 161. 28 runs were scored of that over by Kieron Pollard and Harbhajan Singh. Despite the heroics of Manish Pandey and Yuvraj Singh, the Pune Warriors were always behind the required rate.

IPL4 Match 38 - Taylor blasts his way past Pune

What was a different ask in the last 5 overs became easy thanks to Ross Taylor's blitz in the slog overs. Pune Warriors lost once again while Shane Warne's Rajasthan reached the top of the points table.

IPL4 Match 31 - CSK win again

CSK coasted to an easy win against Yuvi's Pune Warriors by eight wickets, completing a second win against the same time in 3 days. Badrinath and Suresh Raina completed the act, after the good start given by Murali Vijay. Yuvraj Singh and Robin Uthappa had contributed useful scores to help Pune post a score that eventually was not enough.

IPL4 Match 29 - Dhoni puts it past Yuvi

Good friends, MS Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh, were on opposite sides captaining their franchises. Michael Hussey once again provided the platform for a score that was above-par for the match. Supported brilliantly by Albie Morkel with the ball, CSK romped home in a convincing win over Pune Warriors. This win was probably the spark Chennai was waiting for - will they turnaround their campaign now?

Related articles

• Pandey back after ban as Pune field (espncricinfo.com)

IPL4 Week 1 Round-up

After a week of play, the IPL4 has shown that no team can be considered as favorites. Teams that were considered to be easy qualifiers (CSK and Mumbai Indians) have lost matches while entrants like Pune Warriors have notched up couple of wins already. But what is interesting to see is the march of young Indians who were not in the limelight so far. Two new teams meant that fourteen Indian players will get a chance to play against the best from around the world - this alone must be the single silver lining of adding more teams to the already crowded IPL.

The first match saw the rise of Anirudha Srikkanth - a player who has been under the influence of his father throughout his career. His innings saw CSK scrape through their first match at home but even he will admit that he has been overshadowed by an opponent he faced in CSK's second match - Paul Valthaty. Valthaty is now all over the papers as well as the television for his blistering knock to take his team past CSK. His tale has been an interesting one - playing the junior World Cup for India only to be sidelined by an eye injury and then make a comeback like this is nothing short of a fairy tale.

Bharat Chipli and Ambati Rayudu have been performing for their team in the opportunities received so far. Rayudu's innings against RCB got the praise of the legendary Sachin Tendulkar, who pulled him along to take the MoM award. Another junior World Cup player, Rayudu was lost to the world because of his ICL exploits but has been making a comeback of sorts through the IPL. Bharat, however, has not done much of note for his state team in the domestic tournament but has been regarded for quite a while as the one to watch out for. Manish Pandey might have overtook him in the popularity stakes but Bharat seems to have caught up with him.

On the bowling front, Iqbal Abdulla has been a revelation - consistently doing well for Mumbai state meant that he has been knocking on the selection doors. This performance will augur well for him in future assignments. Siddharth Trivedi has been steady for Rajasthan Royals - a role he has been doing consistently in the previous three editions also. Why he cannot make use of this and goto the next level is a surprise.    

Overall, it is heartening to see Indian talent shining through a number of international players - something to cheer about in this cricketainment show of BCCI.

Related articles

• IPL4 Match 8 - Mumbai thrash Bangalore (myhistoryisinteresting.blogspot.com)
• IPL4 Match 1 - CSK defeat KKR (myhistoryisinteresting.blogspot.com)

IPL4 Match 10 - Pune keep winning

Mohnish Mishra is the next Indian batsman who has come out of nowhere to be the star. He helped Pune chase the tough target with an over to spare. Where batsmen like Yuvraj and Robin Uthappa failed, Mishra took his team through.