IPL picks up pace

With the cash rich Indian Premier League taking off from the Rainbow Nation of South Africa, the word ‘recession’ will take a back seat for at least a month. It will be a honeymoon period for the Franchise owners from India who hope to make the IPL the next big thing in world sport. Mr. Lalit Modi has even compared the IPL with the UEFA Champions League and has asked the governing body of world Football FIFA to take a lesson from it. As the focus shifts to cricket, viewers all across the world should be in for a cracker of a tournament with most of the international players being available, making each team perform better.

The initial stages of the tournament bring to mind an old maxim ‘the older the wine, the better it tastes’. Senior statesmen of the cricketing world have stolen the show from their junior counterparts, who were expected to hog the limelight. The first three days of the IPL proved the old adage that cricket is a game of glorious uncertainties with the defending champions and the runners up of last year being outplayed in the opening two matches of the tournament. The Mumbai Indians led by Mumbai’s favourite son and Madame Tussauds’ latest entrant, Sachin Tendulkar, rode an all round show to stop last year’s runners up Chennai Super Kings in their tracks. The greatness of Little Master’s batting lies in the manner in which he adapts himself to different situations. Although he played an uncharacteristically sedate innings according to T20 standards, it was his innings around which the team could build a respectable total. However, some experts felt that Abhishek Nayar should have been the man of the match. Can’t disagree altogether…but as a Sachin fan could not have asked for more…..

The outcome of the day’s second match, which pitted last year’s best against the second from bottom, proved to be a shocker. Rajasthan Royals, who had surprised everyone with their “royal” performance last year, crumbled like nine pins against a Royal Challengers Bangalore team which supposedly had “Test” players in them. There were two vintage performances – a Rahul Dravid half century that made the Challengers’ total look at least challenging and an Anil Kumble classic that made us remember what the great man’s contribution to Indian cricket has been. But it was the “Wizard of Oz” who stole the thunder. The scene seemed to roll back to the time when Shane Warne was bowling his stipulated quota of 4 years. It felt like it did when, getting up on a winter morning, one watched an Ashes series with Warne bamboozling the English batsman with his array of menacing tricks. With a classical leg spinners’ performance, Shane Warne might prompt the Aussie selectors to send him an SOS to come out of retirement ahead of this year’s Ashes.

Rain hogged the limelight for most of the 2nd day’s play. The match between Kings XI Punjab and the Delhi Daredevils was reduced to mere brutal hitting from both sides in which the Delhi openers, Sehwag and Gambhir, proved more than a match for Preity’s boys. The only positive for the Punjab Boys was Karan Goel’s batting. This lad seems to have the potential to make it big. As the sun shone amidst the clouds, the most anticipated match of the day began – the Kolkata Knight Riders pitted against the Deccan Chargers. It was a match that had both teams play for pride .The Chargers were, on paper at least, the best side in last year’s IPL, but they failed to win a single home game. The Knight Riders, with so much controversy behind their coach’s multiple captain theory, were looking for a fresh start. What ensued was a completely spineless performance by the Knights— it looked as if they had left their armours at their camps. Sourav Ganguly was given some harsh chin music by Fidel Edewards as he found life after retirement a raw deal. Former India Captain Ravi Shastri summed up the Knights’ plight when he said that “the way they have played even eleven captains can’t make this team win “. It’s high time Buchanan utilised some of his time in making wise decisions rather than proving to Sourav Ganguly who is the boss. Some of the decisions were shocking— not playing Ajantha Mendis and bringing in Akash Chopra completely took the momentum out of Brad Hodge. If the Knights of King Khan don’t get settled quickly, the South African safari might prove to be a nightmare for “All the King’s Men”.

The magnificent Monday provided a perfect headline for the British Media which always seems to find something or the other to overhype its country’s sportsmen. It was expected to be a Flintoff vs Pieterson show— it instead turned out to be a Hayden and Murali show, with the two giants from Australia and Sri Lanka respectively outshining the two costliest players at this year’s IPL. The Bangalore Royal Challengers were routed by Dhoni’s men who are slowly starting to live up to their reputation. The sight of his team crumbling like a pack of cards just a day after his Force India driver, Adrian Sutil, crashed from glory to gloom at the Chinese Grand Prix would not have been good for Dr. Mallaya.

Deepanjan Deb