Knight Riders’ Fast Start – IPL Roundup

Here’s a general rule of thumb when it comes to T20 cricket: don’t make predictions and don’t have any expectations. Who would have thought that England and the West Indies would contest the World T20 final a few weeks ago? Perhaps only Darren Sammy at the backend of one of his team’s notorious three-day party binges.

Thus far the IPL has been equally perplexing. The big teams are underperforming while three relative minnows occupy the first three spots in the league table … or ladder, or race to Srinivasan’s hidden gold, or whatever it’s called.

Leading the way in first place, with four wins and just a single defeat, are Michael Knight’s lot. Their policy of recruiting a plethora of world-class T20 bowlers, while completely neglecting the batting, is working its arse off.

Umesh Yadav, Andre Russell, Morne Morkel, Sunil Narine, Brad Hogg and Piyush Chawla have all been excellent. The lack of depth in batting hasn’t mattered because skipper Gautam Gambhir has basically scored enough runs on his own – 237 at an average of 79 to be precise. Robin Uthappa and Manish ‘my name’s not for girls’ Pandey have contributed when required.

Although The Knight Riders doing well isn’t a huge shock, it’s more surprising to see the Gujarat Lions and Delhi Daredevils in second and third place respectively. Nobody expected much from these teams but they’ve exceeded expectations so far.

The Lions’ good form is mostly down to the muscular Aaron Finch, who has scored 191 runs at an average of 64. The ever-impressive Suresh Raina, who has made 174 at 75, has also done well. The bowlers have all chipped in, with Dwayne Bravo, Ravi Jadeja and Pravin Tambe all in the wickets. It hasn’t mattered that Brendon McCullum, the Lion’s ‘mane man’, hasn’t fired yet.

The Daredevils have also quietly impressed by winning three times and losing just once. Leading the way in daredevilry have been Quinton De Kock, who has blasted 193 runs at 64, and Amit Mishra, who has taken seven wickets at an astonishing average of 10.

Mishra has probably been the bowler of the tournament so far. His economy rate of 6 is outstanding, and his figures of 4-11 against Kings XI Punjab are the best to date in this year’s IPL. It will be interesting to see if the Daredevils can keep their good form going. Their honorary president, Evel Knievel, must be delighted.

Talking of Punjab, the Kings XI have lived down to their reputation: they’ve lost four games, won just once, and find themselves anchored to the bottom of the ladder. Although Shaun Marsh and Murali Vijay have done ok, and the two Sharma’s (Sandeep and Mohit) have bowled well, some of their big guns have flopped alarmingly. Mitchell Johnson has taken just one wicket in two games at an economy rate of 9. My heart bleeds for him.

However, the biggest disappointment of the IPL so far – apart from the fact that Jack Shantry wasn’t snapped up for ten million dollars – has been the much-fancied Royal Challengers Bangalore’s form. Where has it all gone wrong? I assume Louis Van Gaal has been managing the team.

Although golden balls Kohli and AB de Villiers have done their bit – Kohli alone has scored a league leading 367 runs at an average of 91 – they’ve somehow managed to lose more games than they’ve won. One assumes it’s all Shane Watson’s fault. It usually is.

The Mumbai Indians have also disappointed: they’ve won just two, lost four, and find themselves in 6^th spot. Rohit Sharma has scored an impressive 230 runs at 46, and Mitchell McClenaghan has taken a league-high 9 wickets, but the other big names have contributed very little.

Unfortunately Jos Buttler has been disappointingly quiet – he’s scored just 98 runs in six games despite a breezy 41 against Kolkata. Kieron Pollard has also struggled. Meanwhile Tim Southee and Harbhajan Singh haven’t taken the wickets many expected.

The Rising Pune Silly Nannies have also played poorly. Despite the best efforts of Ajinkya Rahane and Naff du Plessis, they’ve mustered just one victory and lost four times.

It’s hard to blame one person for The Thingamajigs’ failure. It has been a collective cock-up. Ishant Sharma has bowled like a drain, Ravi Ashwin hasn’t taken many wickets, and MS Dhoni has just 87 tournaments runs to his name. Meanwhile, the much-vaunted Steve Smith, heir to Don Bradman, has scored even fewer runs than Jos Buttler. Told you he was crap (ahem).

The only remaining team to discuss are the Sunrisers Hyderabad. Despite recent proclamations from their captain, David Warner, that he really loves the person he’s turned into (I’m glad someone does, Davey), he won’t be too enamoured with the performances of his side. Although the Sunrisers have been far from terrible – they’ve won three, lost two and currently find themselves in fourth spot – they need to be more consistent.

The frustrating thing for Hyderabad is that some of their players are in superb form. Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mustafizur Rahman have taken 15 wickets between them and occupy second and third spot in the bowling rankings. Warner and Shikhar Dhawan have scored plenty of runs too. Even Eoin Morgan has contributed with 109 runs at 36. However, nobody has backed these guys up. If T20 cricket has taught us anything over the years, it’s that you can’t rely on one or two players indefinitely.

That just about wraps things up for now. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks to let you know how many times Danny Morrison has spontaneously combusted on air. Who knows, Sam Billings might have got a game by then? I wouldn’t count on it.

James Morgan

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