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| Lessons from IPL 2 |
| Wednesday May 27, 2009 , New Delhi |
| The dust has now settled. The adrenaline is not pumping as it did during the T20 matches. During primetime for television, there are no pom-pom girls to cheer or jeer anymore. The cricket fanatic will not have to bear with Mandira Bedi on the screen to analyse every move of rival captains. Thank God for that! Mercifully, sanity has returned for the cricket lover for the next two weeks. So, perhaps, it is just the time to sit back, take a bird's eye view of the 59 matches that had the cricket world glued to their television sets. These could also be tested when the T20 World Cup happens next month in the UK. Whether you were watching the early or the late stage match, the importance of singles could never be emphasised. If the bowler hurled one at you and you could not take a single, bad luck! What was shocking that some of the matches had over 40 dot balls of the 120 legal deliveries that each side gets. That is a criminal waste. An example from a single-wicket tournament two decades ago would buttress my point. Batsmen like Gordon Greenidge, Vivian Richards and David Gower, among several others were participating in a single wicket tournament. The highest scorer, obviously, was the winner. But if he got out, runs were deducted from his total. The destructive West Indians and others thought of hitting their way to success. David Gower, cool as a cucumber, decided to stick to singles and ended up a surprise winner. While the fours and sixes are very important (Yusuf Pathan and Adam Gilchrist would vouch for that), don't forget the singles. In cricket they say, a run saved is a run scored. For T20, one run scored makes the target only more difficult. Did the likes of Michael Gatting and Dean Jones not do that with great success in ODIs? Michael Bevan was a great finisher and did he not rely so heavily on singles? Lesson 1: The importance of the mundane single can never be overestimated. Shadab Jakati, Pragyan Ojha and Amit Misra have only shown what the masters like Muralitharan and Warne can do. Tossing the ball up, whether you are an off spinner or leg spinner is the best weapon that a spinner has. Lure the batsman into making a mistake and half the battle is won. And if the batsmen have given spinners the cushion of a good total, a six here or two does not matter. Purchase the wickets. That has been the classic way spinners have always go wickets. So what if it is the first six overs with fielding restrictions. Anil Kumble did it in the finals. Yusuf Pathan did it during the league matches. Amit Misra managed three wickets against the Deccan Charger even when Gilchrist was in his murderous mood. Lesson 2: You can spin your way out of trouble. Manish who? Manish Pandey! Not many had heard of him before the tournament. Shadab Jakati too has been one of the fringe players, with not the most electrifying first class career to talk about. Pragyan Ojha does not even have the first class experience that Jakati has. But look at the impact that they have made on the tournament, particularly the two spinners. Just like two-minute noodles, instant coffee changed the eating habits over the years, this is cricket in the age of the instant. That can also make instant heroes. Like Manish Pandey winning two consecutive Man of the Match awards. Lesson 3: One or two great performances can catapult you to the big league. During the Sharjah tournament after India won the Benson and Hedges World Series Cup in 1985, Sunil Gavaskar, Mohinder Amarnath and Madan Lal and were being called OTs, acronym for those who were 'over thirty'. Being OT was supposed to be a handicap since one day cricket, still at an evolutionary stage at the international level, was seen as a game for the young and the agile. Gavaskar took four catches in that famous match when Pakistan was bowled out for 87 while Mohinder was agile enough to run out the opener Mohsin Khan, which started the Pakistani slide. India won by 38 runs despite being bowled out for 125. IPL2 also had several instances when the OTs took charge of the game whether it was Jayasuriya and Sachin's explosive opening stand, Hayden hitting the bowlers all over the ground or Gilchrist decimating the Delhi bowlers. Abhishek Nayar could not score six runs in six balls against the Deccan Chargers when the match was all but wrapped up. Lesson 4: Nothing can beat experience. Old is gold. Saurav Ganguly led the Indian team to believe in one thing - fight till you die. And did that indomitable spirit not show in their wins against England, West Indies, Australia and Pakistan! Imran Khan taught the same to the Pakistanis, leading them from a hopeless position in the 1992 World Cup to emerge champions or even winning the series against India in 1987. And for this IPL, Brendon McCullum, down in the dumps with the team, decided to play spoilsport. If only they had not lost their way midway through the tournament, perhaps, they could have turned the tables. There is nothing as good as one win after another. Although KKR cannot vouch for that feeling. That is also what the Deccan Chargers believed in, when they were down in the dumps, midway through the tournament. Lesson 5: You have a chance to win till you die trying to win. |
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Ashutosh Sinha is a business journalist, whose day job involves tracking the stock markets. He enjoys juggling with the numbers at the stock market and ones from the cricket field. Ashutosh believes that the job of Sunil Gavaskar has been one of the most difficult in cricket history and that the West Indian pace battery of the 1970s was the best ever bowling attack. His religion is cricket. 
