Things We've Learned From The IPL Today (25/04)

April 25:

Mumbai v. Punjab

Star among stars... Kumar Sangakkara (King's XI Punjab)
This is a sign of how good his innings was: at no point did I find myself thinking "Wow, that's a small ground", or "Damn, what kind of freaky material are those modern bats made out of?!" In fact, at times I found myself wondering the opposite -- the delivery on which Sangakkara was dismissed looked like a long six off the bat, only to land about 5 meters inside the boundary rope. A purist's dream.

Old-timer on an egg-timer... Sanath Jayasuriya (Mumbai Indians)
He got thoroughly worked over by Brett Lee's pace early on, to end up with his lowest innings strike rate since the 20th century, and then he didn't even get a bowl during the Kings' innings. In fact, he's only bowled once this tournament, which is odd for a man with 317 international wickets in limited-overs cricket. (In Twenty20s, his bowling ave. is 17.22, with an economy rate of 7.44.) You can thank Harbhajan Singh's inept captaincy for that.

Catch from the catchment... Dhawal Kulkarni (Mumbai Indians)
He got appreciable bounce from a number of deliveries (the ball that took Sreesanth's glove on the way to the keeper  was 2005-Ashes-Harmison-worthy), he showed good variation, and was rewarded with two wickets in the end. Best moment: he came back from a no-ball to bowl a perfect yorker outside off to Brett Lee and conceded no runs off the free hit.

3 Bullets to the head...

• We (bloggers, fans, pundits, commentators) are always quick to piss on the work of the umpires, but sometimes they deserve credit... throughout the tournament, umpires on the field have only been referring the marginal run-out chances to the 3rd umpire, and giving the obvious ones out immediately. They're using discretion (remember that?) and they're doing it so well that no one's even noticed it.
  
  
• I think we should start a petition demanding that Yuvraj Singh grow a bushy moustache and an afro. That's what the IPL needs to spice things up -- facial hair. Can't you picture it already? Yuvie, with porno-ready whiskers, wearing a tight, faded t-shirt, looking like he should be hanging outside a low-rung bowling alley, trying to convince young teenage girls to check out the inside of his van.
  
  
• This match had -- by far -- the best overall fielding display we've seen in the tournament. First, Dwayne Bravo took one of the cleanest low outfield catches you could imagine. It was so good that even after referral it was still given out, something which rarely happens these days, since it's almost impossible for the ball to avoid grazing at least one blade of grass on the way down.
  
  Then Brett Lee pulled off two stunners in consecutive balls: a c & b to dismiss Jayasuriya and then a Symonds-type flick off his own follow-through to run out Luke Ronchi. But probably the best of the lot was Yuvraj's full extension one-handed catch to get rid of the Shaun Pollock. The brilliance of the play was in the jump -- had he leaped a fraction of a second sooner or later, he surely would've missed it. It was timing worthy of George Carlin...
  
  

Comments

[straight point]

there are something common between wicket keeper and umpires...

if both go unnoticed they obviously are doing good job...

[lefty j]

Sangakkara's innings was majestic for sho. Can't get enough of that chap. I've noticed he's leading the 'keeping it the realest' poll too. Well done sir!

[Miriam]

That Yuvraj hair petition is obviously working.