The Indian Premier League brings out the talents of Indian
players and give them a chance to don the blue jersey. And also bring out some
overseas talents being Marsh from Season 1 to Maxwell this season.
Now what was spl about this edition, the tournament was
played right after the World T20, So the players did not need to change their
batting techniques, and most of the squads were changed and this meant players
need to form a smooth environment soon with the squad and the support staff,
and one team that did that well was the Kings XI Punjab, retaining Miller and
Vohra forged a teamwork and the outcome was seen in the Dubai leg of the season
This Season also brought in contest among the Indian
bowlers for the Purple Cap which is normally unusual and the Indian Batsmen
were not in Contention for the Orange Cap till Robin Uthappa came with all guns
blazing which was also unusual...
When a tournament is played in India you get to see some
100s but this season produced only 2 hundreds, One from Virender Sehwag and d
other from Lendl Simmons. This showed that the bowlers are now even able to
dismiss a well set batsmen using variations.
How the 8 teams fared in the tournament??
The most expected batsmen of the tournament Chris Gayle
could not replicate the success of his previous seasons due to injuries and
this dented the Bangalore opening a lot. And also their expensive batting line
up failed to fire in unison for a big part of the season. They had 5 players
amounting to 43 crores and it backfired a lot for them.
The Kings XI who rode mostly on the success on runs coming
from the blades of Maxwell and Miller and they were ably supported by Sandeep
Sharma in the Bowling ranks. As the season went along, the openers Sehwag and
Vohra joined the party and Kings XI had a strong batting line up.
Next are the Mumbai Indians. They failed to retain a
strong set of players(considering their form in the initial phase) and also their buys from the auction failed to showcase
their talent in the initial matches but came with some match winning
performances later. Who can forget Corey Anderson's 95 on the final league game
to take the Mumbai into the play offs?? Still now they have not solved the
Pollard problem, of when to unleash the swashbuckling WestIndian. They sooner
they solve the better it would be for their batting line up.
Next are the other team from the Northern Part of the
country, mostly spending their time at the bottom half of the standings
previous seasons this time round changed the full thing from Player 1 to the
Coach and the Support Staff. Yeah the double Ds. The Delhi Daredevils, showed
more talent on paper for the cup contention with their squad boasting the likes
of Pietersen, Dinesh Karthik, Murali Vijay, Ross Taylor and many more batting
talents. But they lacked consistency and also their bowling did not have any
big names around they leaked runs. A smart buy of bowlers for the next auction
would be good choice for them.
If Delhi had the squad like they were India of IPL, there
must be a Pakistan as well. And this came in a squad consisting Steyn, Bhuvansehwar
Kumar, Irfan Pathan, Amit Mishra, Sammy, Ishant Sharma. The Sunrisers Hyderabad
were truly the Pakistan of the IPL and many times their bowling came to their
rescue counting to their batting failure except David Warner. Batsmen like
Shikhar Dhawan failed to produce runs from his willow under pressure as the
skipper but once he was taken off as skipper his bat did some talking. If Delhi
failed due to lack of quality bowlers, the Sunrisers failed even with quality
batsmen in their ranks.
Next the lone team from the Eastern Part of the Country,
the Kolkata Knight Riders. They retained their skipper Gambhir and their
mystery spinner Narine and brought back Yusuf Pathan and Kallis during the
auctions and bought Indian talents like Uthappa, Vinay Kumar the two heroes in
Karnataka's historic treble this domestic season. Though they failed for the
initial phase of the season, they came with full power in the second half
winning all their return matches. They changed many things in their squad and
finally the Pair of Uthappa and Gambhir clicked and they went on a roll and now
they are playing the finals. They were also supported by contributions from
Shakib al Hasan, Yusuf Pathan in the batting, Vinay Kumar, Umesh Yadav and
Sunil Narine in the bowling.
Are all the teams discussed???
Sure??
Missing someone??
Yeah the Men in Yellow, the Australia of IPL, the Chennai
Super Kings. They too like Rajasthan retained the main core and they brought in
McCullum, Smith who formed a good opening pair which was left by Vijay and Hussey
(Sr). And the other batsmen chipped in with some Match Winning Knocks. But the
bowling which was lead in front by the Purple Cap holder Mohit Sharma and was
not ably supported. Bowling is always a cause of worry for MSD, be it the
domestic level or the International level. Quality bowlers could make up for
the good of the team.
So with an entertaining season over, it's over... (Apart
from the finals today).Let see what next season brings.....
S.T. Guha Karthikeyan...
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