Indian Premier League, Week 3: Livestreaming On Valium

Let’s be real for a moment: there’s only one match that people are going to be talking about this week. All else counts for naught when a team with the likes of Chris Gayle, Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers is bowled out for 49. However, this blog is supposed to present a balanced, unbiased view of the week’s action in the IPL, and so I will do my very hardest to avoid dwelling unnecessarily on a match that had me in hysterics for the entire second innings. That’s not to say that the week has been lacking action in other areas – Gujarat won another match, inexplicably, and there was a bit of rain at the Chinnaswamy meaning that the Royal Challengers’ match against Hyderabad was called off with each team getting one point and RCB escaping an encounter with another bowling-heavy side with their dignity – mostly – intact.

Delhi Daredevils - W2 L4

The world’s most boring T20 team suffered through a winless week and, watching Kane Williamson and Shikhar Dhawan demolish the Dehli bowlers notwithstanding, delivered another set of incredibly dull performances. Case in point being their match against Mumbai where they made 128/7 in their full 20 overs and looked to all intents and purposes like a team that had filled themselves up on Valium and then decided to livestream it. The only thing that they can salvage from this week is the fact that Kagiso Rabada has finally been given a game. He only took one wicket, but made a very useful 44 from 39 with the bat which, along with Chris Morris’ 52*, provided the only really meaningful contribution to that staggeringly soporific 128. And that’s the extent of what I can write about the Delhi Daredevils this week. Hopefully next week there’ll be something interesting to write about; some arson, maybe a hot air balloon landing in the middle of the wicket, who knows?

Gujarat Lions – W2 L5

They won another one! I like it when Gujarat Lions win a match; I can make such a song and dance about the event. And what a team to win against – the seemingly unstoppable Kolkata Knight Riders. It was mostly down to Suresh Raina, whose 84 from 46 was too much for the Kolkata bowlers, despite a stellar foundation from their own batsmen. Still, it could never last, could it? The next game, they fell to KXIP when their batsmen couldn’t quite reach the 189 target set by the men from Punjab. Even with that loss, though, it’s nice to see the Lions winning the occasional match. A team with this quality – and a team that, very occasionally, plays that well – doesn’t deserve to be consigned to a bottom-of-the-table clash. This is a team that, on any other year, and perhaps with strike bowler Dale Steyn, could challenge for a spot in the playoffs. It just happens that this year hasn’t been their year. Of course, it’s mathematically possible for the Lions to get to the eliminator, but I think it’s more likely that my arse would start sprouting herbs.

Kings XI Punjab – W3 L4

Oh, Hashim Amla. I’ve been waiting some time to see an innings as purely wonderful to watch as Amla’s 104* from 60 balls in a losing effort against Mumbai. In some ways it doesn’t really matter that they lost, such was the magnificence of Hashim’s century (only the second in the IPL this year so far). To be fair to them, it was a surprise that they lost. KXIP made 198/4, and it was only a spectacular all-around effort from the Mumbai batsmen that allowed them to complete the highest-ever chase in IPL history. Kings XI didn’t escape the week totally empty handed – the perennially useless Gujarat Lions fell to another wonderful Amla innings (65 from 40) and a useful spell of bowling from Kondanga Cariappa (2/24). You would think, however, that only having three wins at this stage would put them out of contention for a playoff berth – weirder things have happened, though, and for Hashim Amla’s batting alone, I would love to see Kings XI in the playoffs.

 

Kolkata Knight Riders – W5 L2

Kolkata have a very undignified mark against them this season: they’re one of the two teams that Gujarat Lions have beaten. Despite some destructive batting from Robin Uthappa (72 from 48) and Sunil Narine (42 from 17, opening the batting once again), the usually surgical Knight Riders bowling attack had no answer for Suresh Raina’s 84 from 46, and Gujarat chased down 188 with over an over remaining. Clearly, the bowlers learned a lot from this match, because the next game, they were terrifying. Properly, blood-curdlingly terrifying. They reduced a batting line-up featuring Chris Gayle, Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers, three of the most awe-inspiring batsmen in the game, to a paltry 49 all out in 9.4 overs. Nathan Coulter-Nile (3/21) was man of the match, but equally important were Colin de Grandhomme (3/4 from 1.4 overs) and Chris Woakes (3/6 from 2 overs). The last of the wicket-taking bowlers – and the last of the bowlers full stop – was Umesh Yadav (1/15), but one gets the feeling that even without Yadav, the wicket would just have gone to Coulter-Nile, Woakes or de Grandhomme. I always said that Kolkata Knight Riders are most dangerous at Eden Gardens, and bloody hell, how they proved it.

 

Mumbai Indians – W6 L2

Mumbai Indians are good this year, right? It’s a fact. We all know it. We’ve all seen how this team performs, we’ve all seen how they can beat any opponent… or can they? The Indians have met the Rising Pune Supergiants twice this season, and lost both encounters. So how does a team with an almost completely average win-loss record seem to have Mumbai’s number quite as well as it does? Well, this week it was the most expensive of gingers, Ben Stokes, and a painfully economical bowling spell of 2/21 including one vitally important maiden over. Rohit Sharma was the only Mumbai batsman that really fired, and at the end of the day, they just couldn’t get over the line – despite coming incredibly close (158 in a chase of 161). Of course, there were a couple of wins for Mumbai earlier in the week, but it’s always more exciting to watch the giants fall than it is to watch them win (even if they did achieve the biggest chase in IPL history during one of them). Two losses out of eight matches isn’t something to worry about, though, and I think that even with their bad luck against the Supergiants, Mumbai will be just fine.
 

Rising Pune Supergiants – W4 L3

After a lacklustre start to their campaign, the Supergiants have thrown their hat well and truly into the ring with a pair of wins this week, against defending champions Sunrisers Hyderabad and top-of-the-table Mumbai Indians (for the second time). The game against Hyderabad was a last-ball thriller, a real display of game winning batsmanship from MS Dhoni who battered 61* from 31 balls including smashing the last ball of the innings – from which Pune needed 2 – for four, sealing the win in emphatic style. The bowlers too, while not taking many wickets, restricted Hyderabad to a manageable total with some relatively economical bowling from Washington Sundar and Dan Christian. There was more of the same against Mumbai, but this time it was the economical bowling doing the work in the second innings defending a smaller-than-they’d-have-liked total of 160.  Ben Stokes, who hasn’t looked convincing with the bat this year, shone again with ball in hand, taking 2/21 and, more importantly in a low-scoring match, only going at 5.25 per over – Washington Sundar (6.00 per over) and Dan Christian (6.00 per over) also helped to clog up the Mumbai batting line-up. I’m starting to wish I hadn’t written the Supergiants off so early, because they’re starting to look like real contenders – their bowling is starting to resemble that of Hyderabad  when they first burst onto the scene, back when they had Dale Steyn, Amit Mishra and Ishant Sharma.

 

Royal Challengers Bangalore - W2 L5 D1

Not the greatest week for RCB; they spent most of the second game watching their home ground get slowly damper until the umpires finally decided that there was no chance of a game unless the fielding team managed to lay their hands on eleven hovercrafts to navigate the small bog that had built up on the outfield of the Chinnaswamy Stadium. However, that pales in insignificance to the – let’s be honest, this is the kindest way to describe it – utter shitshow that they suffered through two days previously against Kolkata at Eden Gardens, where – and I can’t believe I’m writing these words – no batsman scored above 9 for the Royal Challengers. The team made a paltry 49, which I think I’m right in saying is the lowest score in IPL history. They lasted just 9.4 overs, during which the highest scorer was Kedar Jadhav with a mighty 9. And… I’m running out of things to write about RCB this week. They played a total of 28.1 overs of cricket, and bowled 19.3 of them. The bowling was slightly more incisive than it had been in the past, but much of that can be attributed to the pitch at Eden Gardens which behaved like it had just been let out on day release from an asylum. To qualify, RCB need to win every single one of their six remaining games, and that is going to be one hell of a challenge for the Royal Challengers.

Sunrisers Hyderabad – W4 L3 D1

The Sunrisers added 1 to every column this week, registering one win against Delhi, one loss against a weirdly revitalised Rising Pune Supergiants, and one washed-out match against a battered RCB that both teams gleaned a point from. The Delhi match was majestic: Kane Williamson, in his first match for the Sunrisers, hit 89 with Shikhar Dhawan contributing 70 to take the overall score to 191/4 which was steadily, if not easily, defended, bringing Delhi 15 runs short after their twenty overs. Against Pune, there wasn’t much that could be done. After all, when MS Dhoni gets in the mood to hit some sixes and deliver another game-winning performance as he has done for so many years for India and Chennai Super Kings, who can stop him? After a promising start to the season, it looks as if Hyderabad are destined for a solid mid-table finish, possibly scraping through to the playoffs. The only thing in their favour is that none of the matches seem to be predictable, so they’ve got every chance of beating Kolkata and Mumbai (the two real heavyweights in this year’s tournament).

Ethan Bale