The Spectator

The IPL with its sheer longevity throws up a large database for statisticians to work upon, fans and followers to stay involved and for observers to derive trends and delineate observations. The home-away format returned to the IPL after a blip last year. The format which endeavors to the dilute the advantage of playing conditions has been tested after manipulation with the scheduling. This season we have now had a couple of teams playing each other twice in a space of less than a couple of days! The thought advocating this schedule suggest the rivalry and the sense of ‘revenge’ as a tool for superseding bore and repetition. Somehow this season we have had an incredible observation for such matches - either team winning one game apiece! While the above observation can have different reasons, here is another - team’s struggling to win home matches! Chepauk (Chennai) & Sawai Mansingh (Jaipur) have been breached, Deccan hasn’t won a game at home, Punjab & Mumbai have won mo...

‘.. and it’s time for the Strategic time-out’, the commentator says to reappear or more appropriately to be reheard about 5 seconds short of 2.5 minutes, counting down those last few seconds on the ticker. In between we have all the brands who have affiliated with the IPL promote their products. Cricket is probably the only sport which gives such live airtime to its advertisers, and probably the reason why the broadcaster attempts at providing all possible time space to its investors. Nothing wrong with the advertiser or the broadcaster for each entity is trying to maximize its potential gains. During the current season we now have had two outstanding high-scoring ‘afternoon’ games, involving teams chase down big totals (CSK vs RCB & RR vs DC), followed by the 2 nd game of that day. In between the broadcaster manages to squeeze only the post-match presentation and 2-3 minutes of packaged highlights; for a TV viewer this is too short a time to recreate the match that has tra...

The first leg of IPL 5.0 has been about teams finding their feet into this tourney; it hasn’t been the usual explosive start one would have expected - high scoring tight games but more of a steady show with the ball dominating as much as the bat. ‘Indian’ Premier League could be perceived, prime facie, as a contest skewed towards the batsmen but IPL-5 has begun slightly different and promises a better summer for bowlers of all genres. 7 of the 11 matches have been won by team batting first; and only once has a team managed to chase successfully more than 120. Pundits would advocate for the pitch not changing much over the 40 overs; hence pitch and conditions cannot be a factor to rationalize the above observations. Scoreboard pressure can be one aspect, but the line-ups that have failed to chase are too good to have this factor as a reason. So what is it then? For a change we have quality bowling spells as the reason for deciding T20 match results! Thus far we have had 6 fifties...

A change always takes a while before it is accepted by those practicing and observing the activity, but the big debate around the ‘Switch-Hit’ is about its validity and not about its inclusion as a batting shot. (If my memory serves right) Only Pietersen and Warner have had a try at the ‘controversial’ hit to decent success. Pietersen sort of discovered the shot in 2008; the cricketing fraternity hasn’t converged upon an assertion regarding the legality of the shot 4 years later. MCC (custodian of the laws of the game) had endorsed the shot in 2008 and had reaffirmed that stand 2 months ago, when Warner executed that hit (in a T20I vs India). If the law-makers are to be believed the switch hit is an exciting addition to the batting skills. There have been opposing views and it would be silly to banish these thoughts without answering them justifiably. The logical counter-argument is the undue advantage the batsman gets when he attempts to execute the shot - the LBW will still re...