It’s been a decent enough start for the 2013 Indian Premier League. Both of the games so far have gone down to the last couple of overs and we’ve seen some fine individual performances mixed in with some shockers.
Delhi Daredevils will be cursing their inability to find one more player able to score 25-30 runs and stay with Mahela Jayawardene, whose 66 was the latest in a string of classy innings. There are times when I’d rather pay to watch him bat rather than Sachin, Ponting and the rest. We’ll come on to them shortly.
Anyway, another 20 runs might have been beyond Kolkata Knight Riders, who stumbled a little before getting home, the English press making plenty out of the fact that Eoin Morgan hit the winning runs. It wasn’t a most polished performance with the bat but after Sunil Narine had taken four wickets, it didn’t have to be and Gautam Gambhir will have been pleased to have hit the ground running.
We knew Delhi would miss Ross Taylor, Jesse Ryder and Kevin Pietersen, but perhaps not to the degree that no middle or lower order player would even reach double figures.
I was looking forward to seeing Unmukt Chand bat and I still am after he was bowled first ball. Nevertheless, better players than him have forged successful careers after falling for ducks the first time they’ve been involved in a big game.
And the same fate then befell Tillakaratne Dilshan one day later. Fortunately for Royal Challengers Bangalore, they had Chris Gayle at the other end and he blasted his way to 92. Like Jayawardene, he didn’t get an awful lot of support but Virat Kohli and Arun Karthik gave him just enough. Jasprit Bumrah was a new name to me but his three wickets were a triumph. Not bad as he was effectively replacing Lasith Malinga in the side.
While it was nice to see Tendulkar and Ponting batting together, it is hard to argue that it is an opening partnership cut out for T20 cricket. Although they put on a half-century stand, they didn’t do it quickly enough and the running was shambolic. Chasing 130, they would have got away with it and they almost did in this game before 157 proved beyond the 2010 runners-up.
It put too much pressure on the batsmen to come and while Rohit Sharma wasn’t up to it, Dinesh Karthik looked to have turned the game with his 60, including 24 coming from one Daniel Christian over. This was, though, a match that twisted and turned throughout, and after a good penultimate over from Jaidev Unadkat, Ranganath Vinay Kumar stole a victory from the jaws of defeat by removing Karthik and Ambati Rayudu in the final over.
Kieron Pollard thumped his first ball for four but even he wasn’t able to finish this job off. Mumbai Indians refuse to learn from their mistakes in previous tournaments: Pollard simply has to be given enough time to get himself in before blasting off. Look at how long it took Karthik to get going.
Vinay Kumar deserves plenty of credit as the game looked to have gone when he was thrown the ball at the end and he showed plenty of nerve and guts under pressure. Whereas some Indians (Manish Pandey, Paul Valthaty) have produced one season but been anonymous the next, Vinay Kumar has always been a key component of Bangalore’s side, and gone on to represent India as well.
Which is exactly what the IPL should be all about.