Kridaya Cricket Blog

The last four matches of the IPL have gone against the team that was leading, thus creating a situation where even after 6 matches, every team has a reasonably good chance of making the semi-finals. Only 3 points separate the teams placed at No. 3 through No. 8. Even the hapless Bangalore Royal Challengers and Kolkata Knight Riders have a chance! Let’s take a quick look at each of the matches.

First, Bangalore reversed their 4-match losing streak by pipping Kolkata in a low-scoring match. Each team looked like they wanted to throw the match away, a contest that Kolkata won when their opponents needed 10 runs off the final over and they gave it away by some shoddy bowling. Except for a few of the bowlers, both teams looks extremely shabby in this match.

The second match was similar as Mumbai Indians chasing one of the lowest scores of this IPL against Kings XI Punjab succumbed by 3 runs. In the final over, Mumbai required 12 runs and Yusuf Abdulla held his nerve to restrict Mumbai. For the second time this IPL, we see a bowler giving away a wide in the final over, but getting the job done.

Deccan Chargers were winning everything in sight and Delhi Daredevils were recovering from their surprise defeat by Rajasthan. But an upset resulted when Delhi’s increasingly sharp bowling restricted Deccan to 148/9 and their batting recovered after early losses to take them to a comfortable win. Did Deccan peak too soon?

The fourth match saw the same old story of Rajasthan’s fragile batting mocking their bowlers for even trying to restrict their opponents. It almost seems that any score is difficult for the Rajasthan Royals to chase. Chennai Super Kings get a lifeline after sharing the bottom with Bangalore and Kolkata.

At this stage, the Top Four (DC, DD, KXP, MI) have played 5 matches each and the Bottom Four (CSK, RR, BRC, KKR) 6 matches each. The next two days will feature each of the Top Four taking on the Bottom Four. And if somehow the latter win all the matches, the IPL is wide open as the Points difference becomes less relevant.

Although it is silly to make predictions at this juncture when things are still very much in flux, we can make the following assessments:

• While it is theoretically possible for Kolkata and Bangalore to reach the semi-finals, they do not seem capable enough. They have had the most churn of all the teams employing 18-20 players each in a handful of matches. They still don’t have their game together.
• Unless Rajasthan’s batting improves significantly in the next few games, you can pretty much write them off. It is true that bowling wins matches, but only if the batting is at least average.
• Mumbai seems to be the most well-balanced team. They have had the least churn and their stars have clicked. Their batting and bowling are among the best in the tournament. Both their defeats have been close and because of mismanaged chases. They should be able to fix that.
• I fear that Deccan may not be able to sustain the momentum. For one, Fidel Edwards will be leaving the team to join West Indies in England. And the batting order seems a bit top-heavy. I don’t see Deccan easily coming back from a top order collapse.

By Sunday evening, we will get a better idea of the general trends or, if there are more surprises, we will have no idea at all! Hopefully rain will not play spoilsport. I do not see any surprises on Friday, but Saturday is a different matter.

Don’t forget to participate in our IPL discussions on our website.

Before the match started, I was very curious to know what each team would do if they won the boss. Delhi has a great batting lineup and they have been very comfortable in chasing down scores. They were also able to put the screws on teams batting first, especially with Vettori coming on after the “tactical” timeout. Rajasthan, on the contrary, failed miserably twice when batting second. Their bowling has been good enough to restrict opposing teams, but their batting let them down.

It would have been an interesting match if Delhi had decided to chase. But Delhi Daredevils seemed to look at Rajasthan’s weakness and decided, “Let’s play against their Achilles’ Heel instead of playing to our strength.” Unfortunately, even though the Rajasthan Royals had a typical batting wobble, this time, they were able to overcome it and reverse a troubling trend. Like their previous victory against Kolkata Knight Riders, they cannot avoid bringing some drama to their matches.

Earlier in the day, Delhi had lost too many wickets at the beginning of the innings, but once again Rajasthan didn’t keep the pressure on the 5th wicket pair who added 56 runs off 8 overs. de Villiers continued his good form in the tournament with a fifty and Delhi, aided by contributions from Vettori and Manhas, reached 143, which is not a huge total, but a plausible winning total against the fickle Rajasthan Royals batting order.

143 definitely seemed an extravagant target after Rajasthan stumbled to 64/5 after the 11th over. However, a struggling Graeme Smith was determined to see the match through and a spectacular 30-ball 62 by Yusuf Pathan blew away the Delhi Daredevils. Daniel Vettori was totally ineffective this time around and Rajasthan won with 9 balls to spare, such was the ferocity of the assault.

The result of this match has been against the flow of events in the tournament. Delhi had momentum with 3 consecutive victories. And Rajasthan’s sole victory was courtesy the Super Over. Now, this throws open new possibilities for every team to reach the semi-finals. Let us have a look at the Points table again.

Team                          Matches Points   Points/Match   Net Run Rate

Deccan Chargers               4       8        2.00           +1.33
Delhi Daredevils              4       6        1.50           +0.21
Mumbai Indians                4       5        1.25           +1.65
Kings XI Punjab               4       4        1.00           +0.27
Rajasthan Royals              5       5        1.00           -1.11
Chennai Super Kings           5       3        0.60           +0.70
Kolkata Knight Riders         5       3        0.60           -2.01
Bangalore Royal Challengers   5       2        0.40           -0.60

The 1.00 score for the Points/Match is the safety line. The lower you go below it, the greater effort you have to put to keep yourself in the running for the semi-finals. A washed-out match could be disastrous for you because it prevents you from closing the gap with the others. Right now, Chennai, Kolkata and Bangalore are seriously in trouble. And conversely, Deccan is in a very comfortable position.

Rajasthan is not quite out of the woods yet because another defeat could pull them back. They still do not have their batting problems sorted out and they have a huge deficit in the NRR (the second worst in the league). They have played one more match than the Top Four, though that problem will be solved when Mumbai and Punjab meet tomorrow. Rajasthan would probably want Punjab to beat Mumbai because Mumbai has an easy match against Bangalore in its first round of matches, while Punjab has to face Chennai and Deccan next.

What that means in simple terms is that the bottom-placed teams need the top teams to lose a few among themselves, because if any team starts winning against everyone else, there is one fewer semi-final spot. At this moment, Deccan has almost eliminated one spot and Delhi seemed to be on the same path, but for their setback today. Rajasthan wouldn’t mind Deccan defeating everyone else if they could somehow snap Deccan’s streak thus gaining two points that no one gets.

[Photo licensed from Koshyk]

Last year’s runners-up Chennai Super Kings may end up as the best team not able to qualify for the knock out round. They have lost 3 matches now without embarrassing themselves, giving up by 19 runs, 9 runs and 6 wickets respectively. Today, they were able to prolong the match into the final over, and if they had a Kamran Khan-style last over, they may have awarded themselves two points.

As it is, they are now struggling to keep themselves among the Big Four. With three points from five games, they are astonishingly close to the hapless Bangalore Royal Challengers. Assuming that tomorrow’s match goes against the Rajasthanis, we are very close to seeing the semifinal lineup: Deccan, Delhi, Mumbai and Punjab. Of course, with Warne and Dhoni as two captains of the struggling teams, anything may happen.

The saddest person has to be Matthew Hayden who has been excellent in all the games so far. His scores so far has been 44, 65, 51 and 49, making him the leading run maker by some margin, and definitely the most consistent one. But three of his innings have been in vain as Chennai crumbled to defeats. And he was not rewarded for his 65, the Man of the Match going to Murali for his 3-wicket haul. What must also be galling for Hayden is that he would not be playing in the IPL today if he had the same form a few months ago and prevented his retirement from international cricket.

Here is the latest look at the Points/Match table:

Team                          Points/Match   Net Run Rate

Deccan Chargers               2.00           +1.33
Delhi Daredevils              2.00           +0.68
Mumbai Indians                1.25           +1.65
Kings XI Punjab               1.00           +0.27
Rajasthan Royals              0.75           -1.70
Chennai Super Kings           0.60           +0.70
Kolkata Knight Riders         0.60           -2.01
Bangalore Royal Challengers   0.40           -0.60

Rajasthan Royals has a slight edge because they have played one fewer game. But if they lose tomorrow, they join Chennai and Kolkata. The Net Run Rate is another evidence that Chennai has not been performing badly – they have a better NRR than both Delhi and Punjab. On the NRR basis, the team to beat is Mumbai. Remember that they had one match washed away and they only lost to Deccan by 12 runs.

[Photo licensed from WTL]

Another double header today. As expected, Delhi Daredevils beat Bangalore Royal Challengers, but not quite the way they would have liked. The Bangalore bowlers put up a stiff resistance before giving it away in the final overs. With enough wickets in hand, Delhi were able to raise their game and win with a few balls to spare. Bangalore’s batting continues to disappoint and with a single win from five matches and with little improvement in form, their tournament seems about to end.

The bowling of Rajasthan Royals continues to impress as they restricted Kings XI Punjab to a gettable 139, but another batting slump put them in the same zip code as Bangalore. With 3 points from 4 games, they are now second last. They have serious batting problems especially with the opening pair. Instead of a calm chase, too many batsmen threw away their wickets and at one point, Rajasthan threatened to beat their previous low against Bangalore. Whatever momentum they had gained against Kolkata has been lost. They are not yet as much in the doldrums as Bangalore, but they have to start turning things very quickly.

The only thing saving Rajasthan has been the erratic form of all the other teams and the rain factor which killed two matches and was partly responsible for Punjab losing their initial matches. With five teams at 3 and 4 points, teams that can turn around their form still have a chance. Tomorrow’s match between Kolkata Knight Riders and Mumbai Indians assumes greater significance. If Mumbai lose, that continues to keep everyone on the same level. Now, if they can just stop the runaway trains of Deccan and Delhi.

[Photo licensed from badjonni]

[This is a guest blog post by our friend Sundara Ramu Kamakolanu as he takes a philosophical look at life and cricket.]

One Day Cricket Match.
One Human Life.

One Day Cricket has 100 overs.
Human life span is 100 years.

Cricket has 2 teams.
Life has 2 kinds of people: Those who play a role in our life and who don’t.

Cricket is divided into 2 parts of 50 overs each.
A Day is divided into 2 (Day & Night).

We have an invisible Third Umpire in 1-Day Cricket.
We have an invisible God in Life.

Every team has 11 players + 1 extra = 12.
Every year has 12 months.

During the first 15 overs, batting is very quick.
Childhood goes by very fast. Kids grow very quickly.

During the middle overs, wickets are preserved.
During middle age, everybody is very cautious about the future & save money.

During the slog overs, cricketers go for massive hitting.
During the end years, because all responsibilities are over, people come forward to make other’s lives better if they can.

2 umpires.
Sun & Moon.

6 wickets.
6 seasons.

4 bails.
4 directions: North, East, West, South.

Players have lives while batting.
People have escapes from accidents that give us lives.

Players play while others watch, appreciate the 4’s and 6’s and criticize the outs.
In life, some people play a role in your life and others watch, appreciate or criticize.

A player faces batting and bowling in a match.
A person faces happiness and sorrow in life.

Cricket has a triangle situation: 2 teams playing for one victory.
Life has many triangle situations: Love, job, etc.

Every ball is a challenge in cricket. It could make a player a hit or a flop or just average.
Every moment is a challenge in life. It could make a person renowned or notorious or just normal.

Everybody loves teams and players who fight till the end even if they don’t win.
Everybody likes people who fight the tough situations in life even if they don’t overcome them.

Moral of the story: Watch more cricket. Learn from cricket. It is so close to our life.

My pick for the Man of the Match: Sangakkara. The Punjab bowlers deserve a collective kudos. That’s it for today!

Over 20: Kings XI are back in the running after their two rain-affected defeats. Their batting needs some more work, but they have the momentum and their bowling has been immaculate today. For Rajasthan, they are back to Square One.

Over 19: Jadeja gone. The partnership with Warne served to get Rajasthan to a respectable total. They will have to seriously tackle their batting failures in this match. Punjab’s bowlers were excellent and helped with some atrocious shots by the Royals.

Over 18: Punjab almost there. Keeping Rajasthan down to singles. Their game to lose now.

Over 17: Better over. 10 off it. But not enough. 44 off the last three overs. Wickets are no longer part of the equation, though each wicket means a wasted ball. Rajasthan needs some sixes if they want to survive this one.

Over 16: Definitely the wrong match to live-blog about. 4 runs off the over. Rajasthan’s challenge almost certainly dead.

Over 15: This chase is going nowhere. 7 runs off it. RRR almost upto 12. 58 runs off 30 balls. Punjab bowlers giving nothing away.

Over 14: Yuvraj gives just 5 away. Rajasthan are fast running out of balls.

Over 13: Good over by Chawla tightens the screws on Rajasthan. RRR now 10 per over. Rajasthan need a very big over to turn things around. And they need to do it without losing any more wickets. 71/6 – halfway there.

Over 12: Rajasthan silently pass their lowest score. A boundary in the over, but miles to go. Punjab still hold all the cards. 66/6.

Over 11: Whatever the Rajasthan players drank during the break did some good as they hit two boundaries without any loss. 58/6.

Over 10: No damage this time. But Rajasthan are well behind the RRR and with only four wickets in hand, staring down the barrel. It remains to be seen if they can even overhaul their Bangalore total first. Timeout time.

Over 9: Another Rajasthan Royal throws his bat around and plunges the team further into the dumps. Warne comes in. Let’s see if he can bring some captaincy heroics this time.

Over 8: Required Run Rate starts coming into play. It is now up to 8.25. With the demons in the pitch, that may be too insurmountable. Kudos to the Punjab duo of Sangakkara and Pathan to get them to where they are. Rajasthan need a similar partnership.

Over 7: This should be done soon. It is painful watching the reigning champs play like chumps. And seeing Deccan reverse their form from last year, it seems that all prior predictions can be thrown out the window.

Over 6: A boundary every over for Rajasthan – the wickets are what is killing them. They could have easily won this one by singles and the odd boundary. But without wickets in hand, the required run rate keeps mounting.

Over 5: Will Rajasthan repeat their performance against Bangalore? Another two wickets go down for Rajasthan. Chasing does not seem to be their game.

Over 4: Yusuf Pathan strikes two terrific blows to the boundary on each side of the wicket off his brother. He has to stay there for Rajasthan to close this one out. Irfan Pathan still swinging.

Over 3: Better over for Rajasthan. Warne should spend some more thinking time on the batting side of the equation from the next match onward.

Over 2: Powar the fielder gets a wicket off Pathan as Swapnil Asnodkar throws away his wicket. Pathan snags Smith off the final ball to put Rajasthan in deep trouble. Rajasthan should get a new opening pair after this match.

Over 1: Punjab surprisingly open with Powar. The result does not point to any captaincy brilliance as Rajasthan milk him for singles and he gives away a wide.

Rajasthan need 140 to win.

Over 20: Good final over keeps Punjab down to 139/6. Rajasthan need to score an easy 7 runs an over to win. If there is no repeat of their fiasco against Bangalore, they should win it. Much depends on the pitch.

Over 19: Two wickets fall just when Punjab had to accelerate. Sangakkara makes a good fifty. Kamran keeps impressing.

Over 18: Shane Warne concedes 12, but Punjab still behind where they need to be. Check out our user community at http://www.kridaya.com to chat with other cricket lovers.

Over 17: Kamran Khan comes back and reduces Punjab’s momentum a bit by conceding only 3 runs.

Over 16: A well-struck boundary brings up the 100 of Punjab’s innings.

Over 15: Irfan thrashes another one out off his brother’s bowling. Punjab puts its foot to the pedal. 12 more runs. 98/4.

Over 14: Cheeky shot by Sangakkara brings runs. A better over for Punjab. 10 runs off it brings them to 86/4. 10 each off the next 6 would help them reach a competitive 146.

Over 13: And now 5 singles. An ugly slog by Sangakkara fails to connect. Punjab 76/4 at a RR of 5.84.

Over 12: One four per over is not going to be good enough. Punjab needs to get going faster. Rajasthan rushing through their overs.

Over 11: Rajasthan keeps Punjab tied down. Just three singles from the over.

Over 10: Irfan Pathan was dying to hit Warne out of the ground. Warne thwarted him twice, but he was not to be denied. The first six of the match. But Punjab still struggling at 60/4 mid-way through their innings.

Over 9: Jayawardene goes to a bad stroke. It is obvious that one side of the pitch is offering much more than the other.

Over 8: A quiet over. This is not looking good for Punjab. So far, only a few boundary hits and no sixes.

Over 7: Yuvraj departs. Rajasthan keeping Punjab in check. The Sri Lankan power duo at the crease.

Over 6: Last ball four and 3 wides spoil an otherwise good over. Rajasthan should watch the extras.

Over 5: Bopara goes as Kamran comes back. Not sure why Shane Warne made this decision, but it worked. An almost run-out, 2 wides and a boundary. Keeps Punjab in the hunt, but 2 wickets down is not a place to be.

Over 4: A pre-meditated stroke from Bopara flies to the boundary. Sangakkara goes the aerial route and succeeds.

Over 3: Aah, Beautiful stroke from Ravi Bopara. But another good over from Rajasthan. Kamran held back after the first over. What plans does Warne have up his sleeve?

Over 2: The edged boundary gets Punjab some runs.

Over 1: First-ball wicket for Rajasthan. You never want to lose a wicket through a silly run-out and definitely not off your first ball. Almost maiden-wicket if it weren’t for the wide.

Punjab wins the toss and elect to bat. This is a battle of two giants who surprisingly are down in the Points Table after three matches each.

When the first IPL tournament began, no one knew what to expect. There were no favorites, except those created by the hype of which team spent the most amount of money. With teams changing form because of international players moving out after a few games, it was very difficult to predict what would happen. Things took a few weeks to settle down.

This year though, we had the benefit of last year’s results to guide us. The biggest losers in 2008 were Bangalore (with 4 wins in 14 matches) and Deccan (with 2 wins). While Rajasthan and Punjab topped the charts, the other teams were neck to neck until the final matches separated them for the semi-finals. It was natural to expect something on the same lines.

Bangalore seemed to break this conventional wisdom by winning their first match via a stunning collapse by Rajasthan, but they reverted back to their form with three consecutive losses. So it has been left to Deccan Chargers, who have now won three on the trot, beating their 2008 performance with 11 more to play. They have won all three games comfortably and now sit at the top of the Points Table.

Deccan’s performance means trouble for the other teams. Assuming Banglore will be the whipping boys this time, it means that all except one of the teams will be competitive this time and every match counts more than ever. Of course, before we completely buy into Deccan’s surge, we have to remember that all their victories have come against the teams that failed to qualify to the semi-finals last year.

In addition to Deccan, rain is creating chaos with the plans of other teams. Today, rain led to the abandonment of the match between Chennai and Kolkata. Assuming no more rained-out matches, this means that Rajasthan and Mumbai have been joined by these two teams with an odd number of points and Net Run Rate will be a factor in breaking ties between the teams when deciding SF spots.

Let us look at the real Points Table where we have the Points/Match that is a better indicator of where the teams are at than simply Points which is meaningless when some teams have played fewer matches.

Team                          Points/Match   Net Run Rate

Deccan Chargers               2.00           +1.63
Delhi Daredevils              2.00           +0.99
Mumbai Indians                1.00           +0.18
Rajasthan Royals              1.00           -1.88
Chennai Super Kings           0.75           +1.07
Kolkata Knight Riders         0.75           -0.89
Kings XI Punjab               0.67           -0.36
Bangalore Royal Challengers   0.50           -0.67

Sunday’s matches will decide if Bangalore can make a return from the dead or will slump further, whether Delhi can keep up their winning ways, whether Rajasthan Royals can finally win a game outright and whether Kings XI Punjab will avoid Bangalore’s fate. Of course, keep your fingers crossed about the rain.

[Photo licensed from diongillard]

I sincerely feel sorry for Ron over at cricketanalysis.com. He has been trying very hard to get his predictions for the Indian Premier League matches correct by tweaking the necessary parameters, but he seems to have hit a dead end, one reason being the illogical decisions that teams make. As he says,

I have learned quite a lot from doing the predictions over the first 11 games, even though my record is pretty dismal. The first thing is to never assume that teams will play their best lineups, by “best” meaning the lineup that I think is best, or the lineup that I think common sense would dictate. [...]

Another thing I have learned is that teams will never stick to five bowlers only if they have other people in the lineup that can bowl, no matter how much better or worse their part-timers are than their regular bowlers.

UPDATE: Apparently, he quit making IPL predictions around the same time I was writing this post – I noticed this after I put up this post. Here he goes:

No more predictions for IPL games. [...] Probably I will go 10-0 from now but whatever. Actually if things keep going against the model so accurately, it might have some value for fade purposes. [...]

One big problem I have is that fielding isn’t measured well by stats. For international cricket this isn’t a problem, because bowlers bowl with their international team consistently and so the collective fielding abilities of the side are incorporated into the bowling statistics. But the IPL is much different obviously. Maybe I will look at a way to measure fielding. I have some ideas.

In T20, one over can change the entire complexion of the game. We saw this in clear terms during the Rajasthan-Kolkata match. Rajasthan was easily in front when Munaf Patel effectively gave away 13 runs in one ball. Kolkata should have won the match in the final over, but Kamran Khan bowled a tight over against the flow of events and took Rajasthan to the Super Over where they won. In 50-over matches, a bad over is not necessarily a cause for surrender. Teams have easily recovered from the depths because of the large number of overs.

The smaller number of T20 overs means that wickets have an additional significance in terms of balls lost. If a team loses 10 wickets, that is almost 2 overs lost. It could mean the difference between a tough score of 180+ and an achievable 160-odd. This means that wickets in the last quarter of an innings can effectively kill a team’s ability to post a challenging target.

Finally, don’t understimate the effect of the “tactical” timeout in the middle of the innings. In quite a few matches, it has made a tremendous difference in the final score. What we have seen repeatedly is that big starts do not seem to materialize into huge totals.

Nice to know that Ron is a fan of Baseball Prospectus which uses statistical analysis techniques. I would like to see more of that to cricket, but I believe that Twenty20 is not mature enough to allow that possibility. Test and ODI cricket are much better avenues for predictions.

[Photo licensed from disrupsean]

Ducking Beamers points us to the world record created by two cricket teams who played a Twenty20 game on Mount Everest. They have now officially participated in the “highest game of cricket ever played” at the “highest altitude ever recorded for a field sport.” The match was played at a height of 5165 metres after a nine-day trek through the Himalayas. The atmosphere at this level only has 66% of the oxygen found at sea level.

The place where the teams played the match is called “Gorak Shep“. It is not rock. It is a frozen lakebed that is covered with sand. As their website says:

Gorak Shep, one of the world’s most inhospitable environments, is the highest plateau on earth where an official game of cricket can be played. It is over twice the altitude that FIFA allow professional footballers to play due to health risks (up to 2,500 metres).

The two teams were named “Team Hillary” and “Team Tenzing” after the first men who scaled Mount Everest, Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. Each team had 15 team members in the eventuality of some persons falling sick. Team Hillary (the team in blue) won the match. It looks like they scored 152 in the first innings and bowled out Team Tenzing for 116 in 18 overs.

In addition to their website, most of the team members have blogs. Here is a snippet from the last post:

Today was a rest day, but as is the nature of this trip, the word ‘rest’ is pretty misleading! We had an acclimatization walk up to 4850 metres, which took us higher than any mountain in Europe and higher than ever before for most of us on the trip.  All but one of the group took part, and we’re confident he will be fit to join us tomorrow as we move towards Loboche.