IPL Team Review - 2

Another weekend begins in the IPL tamasha and this time it’s the turn of CSK, Pune Warriors, KXIP, KKR and Dhakkan Dischargers to play their games in addition to the much anticipated return of Sachin Tendulkar after being injured in the opener. Any action is too short to see Tendulkar in action, really even after 23 years of watching him play.

The IPL has seen a few teams like:

•       Pune Warriors
•       Royal Challengers

being inconsistent with their matches. Winning few, then losing a few. And then there are few evil teams who are hated more than they are loved:

•       Chennai Super Kinks
•       Kolkata Knight Riders

Whose every defeat is cheered and every win is greeted with boooos.

But the standout teams are:

•       Delhi Daredevils
•       Rajasthan Royals

Who are not only consistent, but also winning the games comprehensively. Its been a delight to watch the twin hundreds scored by the players belonging to this teams – Rahane and KP.  Especially those 6 fours in S Aravind’s over were awesome display of orthodox batting. Unfortunately they were 4s, not 6s, else Rahane would have been in the league of Yuvraj Singh (6 6s) and H Gibbs.  Media didn’t cover much of those 6 fours,  but Rahane has proved enough that he belongs to the highest level and he certainly should find himself making a Test debut soon replacing Dravid, who incidentally is his IPL captain. No doubt that Rahane would be benefitting a lot from Rahul Dravid in terms of wisdom and temperament by sharing the dressing room with him.

Mumbai Indians look insipid without the talismanic Sachin Tendulkar and Harbhajan Singh is too classy as a captain, something that baffles his fans (including me) the way he approaches few games. In one of those low scoring games against Delhi when they were blown away for 92, Harbhajan didn’t care to bowl and went with 5 pacers.  Unfortunately his best fast bowler had a back problem, so he didn’t play that game. He has been ineffective as a bowler this tournament thus putting a lot more questions on whether he can ever be the bowler he was a few years ago.   The team doesn’t have a replacement for Tendulkar at the top and though they have rotated a lot of openers with Levi, none of them has actually provided them the starts that would boost the scoring.

Tendulkar needs to return back sooner than later before its all over for the MIs.

Saurav Ganguly has led well, but has flopped as batsman and that’s hurting the Pune team. Though they have Ryder, Uthappa, Mathews, Steven Smith in their lineup, the team’d hope a lot more from their legendary captain to score more runs.  Ashok Dinda has again boosted his confidence playing in IPL thus proving a lot to his detractors that he is from the tribe that thrives in IPL (likes of Jadeja, Ashvin, M Vijay etc) but fail miserably in international arena.  Or may be Ganguly is handling him well than Dhoni did in those ODI tournaments.

Punjab team is more reliant on its foreign players and they don’t have quality domestic players. Hussey, Marsh and Gilly form the Aussie trio playing for this team, but till now none of them have come good and that’s hurting the team. Add to it the drama of the owner who had an ugly spat with the match officials over dismissal of Shaun Marsh in that game against KKR. 

Deccan Chargers have lost 4 games of 4, 2 of them in last over. They just don’t have personnel to arrest this slide and are expected to be wooden spoon winners this time around too (lastly in 2008).

The big letdowns:

•       Suresh Raina
•       R Ashvin
•       MS Dhoni
•       Praveen Kumar
•       M Vijay
•       P Valthaty
•       Virat Kohli

The top 3 of this list have been playing in the champion team of last 2 years and this season they are big flops. Though you never say “finished” for Dhoni, but I think its time up for Raina for time being. He’d be too valuable to be dropped from CSK, but unless he doesn’t turn the tide with some consistent and big scores, he would be finding himself out of the contention from the starting XI in any format of the game. And given his T20 reputation, he’d be a big loss given this is a T20I world cup year.

Praveen Kumar is a poor bowler after his injury and he has got hit for runs, pace has dropped, no wickets have come up too.    Pragyan Ojha and Rahul Sharma are better spin bowlers than R Ashvin, but CSK connections and royal backing from CSK folks, he continues to play every game India plays in every format. 2 wickets in 6 games are poor returns, given the highs of 2009 – 2011 he has had with this franchisee.

The positive points (From Indian perspective) are:

1.      Munaf Patel is among the wickets and though he is a creepy character too, but lot better than the likes of Praveen Kumar, Vinay Kumar and Ashok Dinda who bowl at same pace, don’t take wickets. So he should be one of the contenders to come back in the limited overs team.
2.       Zaheer Khan has played every. Better news is his fitness looks good.
3.      Umesh Yadav with economy  rate of  6 and S/R of 14.  And pace too.
4.      Ajinkya Rahane in batting.