The IPL bandwagon is back

The IPL is back with all its Jazz and Razzmatazz in tact. So, IPL inaugurated its third edition, with a noble ambition of spreading the “go green” message, with a few rounds of fireworks – wow! I am glad that I was at office working late on a Friday evening so that I didn’t watch Lalit Modi’s speech in the opening ceremony even out of curiosity or for comic relief.

There’s so much to love about IPL but it’s just as easy to detest it too. If Tendulkar vs Warne is mouth-watering, Yousuf Pathan clearing the short boundary by a whisker (which would have otherwise been a wicket) is puke-worthy. What’s the point of bringing in the boundaries when every possible thing on earth is heavily stacked in favour of the batsmen already? This is worse than reservation. I remember watching the CSK vs MI match in the first edition of IPL at Chepauk. Suresh Raina hit 3 sixes, all of which would have been dismissals, if the boundaries were not brought in by 10 yards. I didn’t watch another match in the stadium. At least on TV, you only notice it when the ball goes to the boundary, but in the stadium it keeps bothering you throughout.

Having said that, I must also admit that there was some high quality cricket on display in the last 2 editions of IPL, which the last 20 ODI series that India has played put together cannot match. So with all its contradictions still in tact (and so is my ambivalence about it), the third edition is off to a fabulous start. It was heart warming to see hardly any usage of DLF maximums or Citi moment of success so far. Shastri though shamelessly plugged in “Karbon Kamaal” catch once but the crass commercialization has come down considerably (I spoke too early on this, as mentioned in the comment). Oh yeah, that ad in between the balls (feed from the stadium screen to TV one) is still too crass, but not sure if we should blame Set max or IPL for that. Will discuss the matches in separate posts.

I wanted to do a profile and analysis of each team in detail but March is just such a terrible month for such indulgence, with year end pressure piling up. Anyway, will do twitter style assessment as an alternative:

Delhi Daredevils: They look red hot favorites on paper. Gambhir, Sehwag, Warner, Dilshan and AB is a top order to die for, leave alone the final combination for the XI. With Nannes, Vettori (though not available till end of March), Mishra, Sangwan, Parnell – there’s enough fire power and variety in the bowling too. Rajat Bhatia & Yo Mahesh fulfill their roles reasonably well and Karthik is as good a T-20 Wicket-keeping batsman as you’ll get in the country outside of Dhoni. But let’s not forget that they were the hot favourites last time around too and one Gilly whirlwind put the trophy beyond their reach. That’s the nature of this T-20 beast – very little margin for error and time to recover.

Chennai Super Kings: Not far behind in paper strength is Chennai. Hayden, Vijay, Raina, Dhoni, Morkel, Hussey, Kemp and Badri (any combination of these batsmen) is a batting line which can chase down any score. Let’s not underestimate Justin Kemp. He was on his way to being the next Zulu (well, as close as it can get) till he lost his way. If he strikes form here, he’ll be unstoppable. Hemang Badani is a welcome addition to the squad this time. In my opinion he should be played ahead of Parthiv Patel. Bowling a is bit of concern for Dhoni. Oram is not available. Murali is not the best bowler in this format and also occupies that crucial foreign player slot. Ntini is too one dimensional. Tyagi looks good, Goni blows hot and cold, Balaji can hold his own in this format with his many varieties of slower of balls, but Dhoni may have to play Ashwin or Jakati ahead of Murali to get the balance right.

Bangalore Royal Challengers: This is the most weird set of players in one team. Dravid, Kumble, Steyn, KP, Kallis, Boucher – most if not all of these will figure in the best test team of the last decade. Then you have Ross Taylor, Robin Uttappa, Roelof Van der Merwe, Cameron White – all take to T-20 cricket like fish to water. In Manish Pandey and Virat Kohli, they also boast of the 2 young batting sensations in the country. What more, they also have 2 of the most promising fast bowlers in the domestic circuit – Abhinmanyu Mithun and Bhuvneshwar Kumar (though I don’t see these two playing much part). And Eion Morgan, for an Englishman, can be mighty effective in this format. All in all, B’lore has got players for all seasons, reasons and conditions. If they don’t make it to the semi-finals at least, they have only themselves to blame.

Mumbai Indians: It’s a well balanced side. Zaheer, Malinga, Bravo and Fernando is a fabulous bowling attack in T-20. I think Malinga is easily one of the best bowlers in this format of the game. Harbhajan is at his best in T -20 too. Ryan Mclaren and Dhawal Kulkarni are adequate back-ups and Jayasuriya can bowl some tight overs with his left arm-spin too. Sachin and Jaya opening with Duminy, Pollard, Bravo, Rayudu, Abhishek Nayar and Shikhar Dhawan to choose the middle order from, is quite a good batting line up. They also have a lot of relatively lesser known players in Aditya Tare, Saurabh Tiwary Ishan Malhotra, Ali Murtaza and Chandan Madan – Lets see how they perform. But the key for MI is the availability of Bravo and Pollard – till they join the team, the batting looks a little thin. If Pollard and Bravo play majority of the matches, my money is on MI making it to the semi-finals at least.

Deccan Chargers: By bidding for Kemar Roach successfully, Deccan tried to strengthen its weak link. It had a wafer thin bowling line-up in the first edition, which performed much better in the second in SA. Gilly, Gibbs, Symonds and Rohit Sharma is a dream of a top-order. It’ll be interesting to see how Mitchell Marsh fares in IPL. Can he take to the grand stage as easily as his brother did a couple of year back? But the problem for Deccan is that outside of Pragyan Ojha and RP Singh, they don’t have good domestic bowlers. And apart from Rohit Sharma they don’t have a great domestic batsman either – Venugopal Rao is just about adequate. For them to have a strong batting line up they have to necessarily play Gilly, Symonds and Gibbs which means they’ll have to choose either Vaas or Roach and not play both. Their bowling is way too weak for them to sustain the length of such a demanding and competitive tournament. How they did last year is a puzzle beyond me!

Kings XI Punjab: A line up of Yuvraj, Sanga, Mahela and Bopara suggests that the batting is in safe hands. But 3 of those 4 are foreign players, so balance goes for a toss. And Yuvraj, for some reason is not able to produce his usual T-20 form in IPL so far. They have further batting strength in the reserves in the form of Adrian Barath and James Hopes – but again they are foreign players. Kaif has been added to the squad but not sure if he can set the world on fire in this format. Outside of Yuvraj and Kaif, the next best domestic batsman in the team is Karan Goel – you know, that is not a comforting thought. Brett Lee, Yousuf Abdulla would be the first choice of bowlers – but for both of them to be picked, Sanga will be constrained to pick only 2 foreign batsmen. Sreesanth blows hot and cold and no different is Piyush Chawla. So on their day, Kings XI might be able to beat any team but to last the length of the tournament, Yuvraj has to be in the form of his life and then some more fortune to go with it.

Kolkata Knight Riders: This time KKR has started off the campaign on a quiet note. No multiple captains, no John Buchanan and hence more peace. They look a little more balanced this time. Shane Bond is such crucial addition to the team. He is that rare match winner with the ball even in this format. Like it is with Kings XI, the problem for KKR is the quality of domestic batsmen in the team. Outside of Ganguly (who’s also not really fired in the IPL much) there is nothing much to boast of. Pujara is one of the most promising batsmen in the country but not ideally suited for T-20, but I hope he does well. Manoj Tiwary's been promising for too long without delivering much. Rohan Gavaskar and Laxmi Ratan Shukla are just about on par. Gayle, McCullum are super stars in T-20, Owais Shah will be very effective too but not all of them can play. With Angelo Matthews putting his all round ability on the table, it will be quite a headache for Dada once Shane Bond joins in too. Only if Shane Bond and Chris Gayle have the tournament of their lives, can KKR hope to have a crack at the title.

Rajasthan Royals: They have abundant bowling riches to choose from – Shaun Tait, Morne Morkel, Munaf Patel, Shane Warne and even Siddharth Trivedi. But it’s the batting which is the problem for RR. Like India of the 1990’s they are way too reliant on man – Yousuf Pathan. Outside of Graeme Smith and Pathan, there are no match-winners with the bat. Maybe Damien Martyn will be able to reproduce some of his old magic. But that’s too much to hope for. With such a thin batting line up, I don’t see them making it to the semi-finals unless Yousuf Pathan plays like Sachin did for India in 1990’s.

In short, my bet for the semi-final spots - Delhi, Chennai, B'lore and Mumbai. And my bet for the title - Delhi or Chennai. Of course the usual disclaimers of T-20 being unpredictable and that the teams are so evenly matched in IPL etc applies!