Things We've Learned From The IPL This Weekend (03-04/05)

                                              

It was bound to happen, really. You can't go around trying to cover a daily tournament lasting six weeks, being played eight time zones behind you, and not expect that pesky old thing called life to get in your way sometimes. I caught glimpses of the cricket over the weekend, arresting passages here and there, but not enough to merit full individual recaps. And I'm glad.

It's only for so long that a lifestyle like that can work -- university student by day/night, IPL blogger by early morning. Those kinds of enforced schisms to the psyche are never healthy.  Before you know it, you could become like one of those creepy Republican senators in the US, touting "family values" at the cameras, while later getting anonymous crank handjobs in airport bathroom stalls. 

(By the way, this is not my "going to rehab", or "need to spend more time with my family" post. Coverage of the league will continue uninterrupted -- only somewhat abbreviated, arranged differently, and  sharpened thematically. The Star..., Old-timer..., and Catch... "awards" will continue, plus some others will be added, but they won't necessarily appear on a daily basis. They will only be awarded to those who show they really deserve the honour. There's no point in my scouring archived Cricinfo commentary trying to find a local player who bowled two consecutive dot-balls to give him a Catchment... award every night.

There will also be a longer column wrapping up the first half of the IPL season later this week, and hopefully a fantasy analysis by a contributor at some point. Until then, here's what we caught through the cracks of the IPL coverage during the weekend....)


Star among stars... Sohail Tanvir (Rajasthan Royals)
Swing bowling's answer to Paul Adams (on top of being everyone's favourite Bond henchman), S. Tanvir, struck early, struck often, and came out with the best figures we will see in Twenty20 for half a decade. (And to think that eleven of his conceded runs came from his last over. Which one would have looked more impressive: 5-3 off 3 overs... or 6-16 off 4?  Opinions may vary. I've got to go for the former.)

Catch from the catchment... the entire fielding unit (Mumbai Indians)
The chances of this team becoming a cult favourite are rising by the day. It may not be Ewing Theory-related, but ever since Harbhajan left, this has been a changed squad. They're bustling with energy, they're alert, they're loose -- yesterday they were fielding like it was a World Cup grand final, not some matinee offering from a weekend double-header in the middle of the season.

And I know I've been a big doubter of his captaincy skills (I still have serious doubts about his tactical acumen), but I can't deny that a big part of that transformation was due to Shaun Pollock's leadership. He's helped foster a fun, scrappy, passionate team, held together by a great atmosphere among the senior players, with Jayasuriya and Bravo playing perfect jack-of-all-trades roles, and even Dominic Thornely adding the the obligatory "overachieving Aussie whom no one particularly seems to like, but whom everyone knows can help them win" to the mix. I almost wish Tendulkar not to be back for a while, since I'd like to see where this Cinderella story can go on it own.

2 Bullets to the head...

• During the 5th over of Sunday's second match, between the Royals and the Super Kings, Chennai's Suresh Raina and S. Badrinath ran the kind of 3 that I've never once seen a pair of Indians take in my life. They had run a good 2, and had absolutely no right to run a 3rd, but they did so anyway, without hesitation. This put all the pressure on the fielder in the deep, who ended up misfiring the throw slightly, allowing the batters to scrape through. It was a pure "we just had Hayden and Hussey in our team for the past 2 weeks" kind of 3... and it could the change the complexion of Indian batting as we know it.
  
  
• Oh, so that's why Graeme Smith was so successful in his rise through the ranks in South African cricket -- he's a funny prick! Now it all makes sense. Being funny and jovial -- while still framing it in a physically imposing, Hulkish exterior -- is the best, most effective way to disarm critics and to make them overlook the top-down dogmatism and intolerance for dissent from a leader with borderline messianic tendencies (like Smith). You could  hear it from the commentators when they talked to him on the field.... they were virtually gushing, like the geeky kids in high school who are on the same bus route as the popular, funny jock, and who get to talk to him and hence feel a little cooler by osmosis.
  
  

Comments

[Pontings_Baldspot]

talking about henchmen, was it just me or did Aamir Sohail act as the leader of the Afghan Terrorists in Iron Man??