Things We've Learned From The IPL Today (27/04)

April 27:

Punjab v. Delhi
Mumbai v. Deccan

Star among stars... Adam Gilchrist (Deccan Chargers)
It was only a matter of time, really. It also didn't hurt his cause that the opposition set their bowling machine settings to "Short & Legside" for the entire innings. Even so, there is still something uniquely special about a Gilchrist barrage, as opposed to any other batter's. I think it must have something to do with the way he hits those legside sixes -- he instinctively understands the physics of projectile motion to maximise the distance of every one of his hits. Watch the way he always pivots and rotates his body in the same way to create the optimum angle on which to swing the bat. He's like the Galileo of the legside slog.

Old-timer on an egg-timer... S. Sreesanth (Kings XI Punjab)
Not the best of weeks for Sree. First he loses all of his street cred after getting bitch-slapped by Harbhajan and crying on-air about it, then he goes for 12.5-an-over, in an innings where the rest of his team only went for 7.4-an-over, and has to get taken taken out of the attack after two overs. (If you want an actual "old-timer" for the award, how about Shaun Pollock, who bore the brunt of Gilchrist's aggression and went for 16-an-over?)

Catch from the catchment... Abhishek Nayar (Mumbai Indians)
Yet another impressive performance with the bat from the sinewy left-hander, sticking it to the Chargers' bowlers on a day when even Sanath Jayasuriya scored at less than a-run-a-ball for Mumbai. Nayar also deserves some love after being sent as a sacrificial lamb to face the wrath of Gilly when the mainline bowlers decided it was just too much to take. He went for 22 in his one over.

3 Bullets to the head...

• For those counting, that's 10 games so far won by the team batting second, compared to only 4 by the team batting first in the tournament. Why Sehwag and the D'devils chose to bat today after winning the toss is anyone's guess.

• Now that it's becoming clear that Harbhajan Singh won't get to play for pretty much the rest of the season, and given that Tendulkar still seems no closer to returning from injury, is it time yet to start setting odds on Mumbai going 0-14 for the season? Another fact that doesn't bode well for their chances is that their replacement captain is Shaun Pollock, who for all his experience and all-round athletic abilities, also happens to be one of the least perceptive (to put it mildly) international captains in recent memory. This is a man who couldn't work out how to read a Duckworth-Lewis sheet, remember?
  
  
• If only Gautam Gambhir would grow a moustache...

                                                        =                                         

Comments

[Avik]

Correct about Mumbai team... I don't think they have any hopes. BTW, i was expecting to see Tiwari, in the 'catchment' sections. He did play a good knock in pressure situations... any comments?

[D.S. Henry]

True, Avik, Tiwary's knock seemed quite good and was in consideration for the award. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see the innings in real time, and then was only able to watch brief highlights of it later on. So I went with Nayar's, which I saw in its entirety, this time... but Tiwary is firmly on my radar now, don't worry.

[Pontings_Baldspot]

Does this mean, Bill Parcells wil be taking over the Mumbai Indian next year?

[lefty j]

I'm guessing the sides batting second will continue to win the majority of the games, until teams learn how to engineer match winning totals. That means pinch-hitting at the start, with the field restrictions in place, and generally getting your batting order set for maximizing runs.

This could take a while though, so in the meantime, there's no excuse for not batting second. Don't let some bogus tradition get in the way! Fear is not the way forward!