Sunday, June 01, 2008

IPL Roundup

I was pretty unhappy Delhi didn't make it to the final. But, Rajasthan deserved to be in the final because of the way they have played in the IPL tournament. So, I wanted them to win against Chennai to complete a wonderful story of success of a team written off even before the tournament started.
What a match it was. Chennai played well to score 163. I was not watching their innings. But I started watching the Rajasthan reply. Was it crazy. It was so tense. Whenever a batsman was going great guns he got out. Asnodkar, the pocket dynamite, played very well to get out on 28. Then it was Watson, wh again got out for 28. In the mean time Yusuf Pathan was slowly (not really!!) making progress. He reached fifty and got out on 56 (whats with 28 and its multiples, i was thinking he crossed 28 so he is fine.. but he got runout on 56). Shane Warne came out to bat and I was wondering will this fellow finish it to win a great tournament for him. But like he has always done, he let his team do it for him by being with them. He hit a very important boundary of the last ball of the penultimate over. That boundary reduced the equation to 8 off 6. They won it off the last ball of the last over. Well done Shane is all I can say!! He has been a great leader and great performer when they needed him. but he was ably supported by Asnodkar, Pathan, Smith, Trivedi, Tanvir among others. Good Job Royals.

Spare a thought for Chennai. They reached the final and had a very good chance of winning it. But it wasn't to be. I was very impressed with the way Dhoni managed himself and his resources. But I was stunned by the way he addressed his team after the loss. That shows how good a leader he is!! I will have to agree he is the best person to lead India for a long time!!

The other semifinalists Delhi and Punjab also did well in the tourament. Sehwag made some crucial decisions as captain and most of them backfired. But as a batsman he, Gambhir and Dhawan played well. The rest failed. Their bowling was pretty good. Asif was a flop. McGrath was awesome. Amit Misra was good. He looks a nice prospect.

Punjab made it to the semis on the back of great batting from Shaun Marsh and Luke Pomersbach. Once they failed in the semis they lost. The captaincy of Yuvraj looked great because of the support from Mahel and Sanga. Everybody will know that. So, its pretty weird that Yuvi posed himself as a future India captain. I don't think he deserves that!

Among other teams, Sourav Ganguly proved his determination and fighting spirit for Kolkota. Mumbai played well in patches. Pollock and Bravo played well for them. Then the less we talk of Deccan and Bangalore the better. They had a torrid time. Especially it was painful to see Dravid the way the team performed. But they can only do better in the future. Gilly, Rohit and Venu played well for Deccan. But as a unit Deccan played very poorly.

Well, it surely was a very successful IPL. There have been many nice success stories with players like yusuf Pathan, Shane Watson, Shaun Marsh, Piyush Chawla, Manprett Goni, Sreevats Goswami, Praveen Ojha, Badrinath doing well to enhance their reputations. But the greatest success of IPL is surely the champion "Shane Warne"

Kudos to Warnie and his team!!

No comments: