IPL- the teams

last time, i wrote about the ipl without really writing about the cricket. so today, lets talk cricket...

1. delhi daredevils

whilst it wasnt my intention to pick a team to support at the start of the ipl, circumstances have forced my hand. delhi are an awesome team. and i particularly like the way they have gone about selecting their players. sehwag was their first player, given icon status and the captaincy. their first targets in the auction were delhi internationals gambhir and ishant sharma. kolkata outbidded delhi for sharma, but they got gambhir. then they went about procuring some of the best young talent from the delhi ranji team. again they missed out on virat kohli, but managed to get dhawan and bhatia. once the big international names were bought for incredible sums of money, delhi went out and snapped up mcgrath and asif for around half a million (a bargain in ipl). the batting was further strengthened with the young indians manoj tiwary (surprisingly not taken by kolkata) and dinesh karthik.

and as one would expect, with a world class bowling attack and a world class batting line-up (sehwag, gambhir, malik, devilliers), delhi are on top a third of the way into the competition. the top three, sehwag, gambhir and dhawan have scored about 80% of the runs and are amongst the top rungetters in the ipl. meanwhile, mcgrath, maharoof and vettori are some of the most economical bowlers in the ipl so far. i think delhi is going to be the team to beat in the ipl. their top players are going to be too strong for the competition.

2. chennai super kings

chennai heavily invested in their batting. hussey, hayden, dhoni, raina, badrinath, oram. however, with hussey, hayden and oram gone after 4 matches, the batting doesnt look quite as invincible. to bolster their bowling, they signed muralitharan, but the other bowling options are quite weak. this is a team that will heavily rely on big hitting for its victories.

chennai have particularly annoyed me by their treatment of raina and badrinath. raina at least has had a few chances to bat early in the innings, but badrinath, the best batsman in indian domestic and india a cricket for the last 2-3 years, has been continually denied opportunities to showcase his talent. the ipl is supposed to provide a stage for young indian cricketers to play against the best in the world, but for badrinath, this just hasnt happened. even after the international exodus, vidyut sivaramakrishnan, a pinchhitter, came into the side and batted at first drop. it just seems to be a ridiculous waste of talent.

3. bangalore royal challengers

an expensive outfit full of world class players. predictably, bangalore have been very slow to start. they have not picked up any sloggers apart from ross taylor who has already left the ipl for international duty. instead, they have stacked their team with proven test players like dravid, kallis, boucher, jaffer, khan, steyn, kumble and misbah. add some inexperienced indian players like u-19 star kohli and the recently successful praveen kumar, and it appears to be a very good team on paper, albeit one unsuited to t20 cricket. this is exactly how the opening exchanges have panned out. however, a team full of class players like this is only going to improve as these players learn to adapt their formidable skills to the new format. i'm expecting a strong finish from bangalore.

4. kings xi punjab

wow!! punjab are an imposing team. just the fact that the departure of simon katich and brett lee hasnt effected their performance gives you an idea about how strong they are. before the start of the tournament, this was the team most people were expecting to win. after 2 quick losses, eyebrows were raised, but since then yuvraj singh's team has looked invincible. a powerful bowling attack comprising of irfan pathan, sreeesanth, chawla, vikram singh (and lee) has lead the way for punjab with excellent support from a star-studded batting line-up that is yet to really strike form. sangakkara, yuvray and jayawardene are going to explode at some stage, but punjab are already winning without huge contributions from them. a possible problem for punjab is going to be that their bowlers, all of them, on a given day can be ridiculously expensive, and we have seen repeatedly that it only takes 2 good overs to get 180-plus scores. i can envisage some problems for these when defending totals...

5. rajasthan royals

the ipl has been rocked by the shane warne led royals. widely expected to struggle, they have swept all before them following a humiliating 9 wicket loss to delhi in the first match. every single player who has played a match has contributed to the effort. this has been the real key to rajasthan's success. whilst chennai have relied on hayden and hussey for all of their wins, and hyderabad on gilchrist for their only win, the royals have produced true team efforts in every one of their games. warne has to be given credit for the way in which he has galvanized an inexperienced group of players into a tough, unforgiving team. his tactical nous has also come to the fore- he has repeatedly outthought and outmanouevred his indian counterparts.

however, despite all of this, i dont think rajasthan will win in the end. i think their lack of true quality players will be their undoing. they are already playing close to their best, whilst many of the other teams are only beginning to gel now. i do think that class will prevail at the end, regardless of shane warne's brilliance.

6. mumbai indians

sachin tendulkar's injury has really hampered mumbai's progress so far. there has been no stabilizing influence on their batting, nor has anyone looked like getting a big score. then there was the harbhajan fiasco. but they are too good a team not pick up the pieces and climb the ladder. once sachin comes back, watch out!! i think having been sidelined for the first half of the tournament, sachin will be desperate to make his mark on t20 cricket, the one form of the game he hasnt yet mastered.

7. kolkata knight riders

after a smashing start to the tournament, kolkata have fallen away. spending heavily on international stars, kolkata was expected to be one of the top 4 teams. but the poor form of their 2 most experienced batsman, ponting and ganguly, as well as the departure of mccullum, have hurt them really badly. ishant sharma has not been as incisive as one may have hoped- his india teammates sreesanth, khan, pathan, agarkar, rp singh have all been more successful than him. kolkata is probably going to finish last now. every other team is going to get better, but i dont see much improvement in kolkata. of course, hodge and hussey are a proven middle order pair in t20 cricket in australia and england, so they shouldnt be written off completely, but i dont give them much hope.

8. deccan chargers

a team selected with one thing in mind- big hitting. apart from laxman, the icon player and captain, the team reads like this: gilchrist, afridi, symonds, gibbs and rohit sharma. kevin pietersen and chris gayle is all they're missing. unfortunately for deccan, t20 is not all about big hitting. this was a surprising revelation to me during the t20 world cup- a team only needs one, or at most two big hitters to win a match, the rest need to be good batsman or bowlers. having spent all their money on batsman, the bowling options for laxman are limited. rp singh, one of the best bowlers in south africa during the world cup, shoulders most of the burden, with support from the promising spinner, pragyan ojha. they will win some games, on the occasions when the batting clicks, but a bottom 4 finish beckons i feel...