IPL Season-2 Re-visited
Yes..it's a comeback of sorts for me to cricket blogging. And no points for guessing the topic. Oh yes..it is the end of the carnival that kept millions of Indians glued to televisions, with their daily time tables re-scheduled.Indian Premier League Season-2.
Often it's easy to keep track of short tournaments and revisit the moments at the end.But due to the sheer volume of the matches played and that too without any time to recover (both for the players and for me to track the matches), its more for the reason of remembering the event, is why I am blogging some of the IPL 2009 memories.
So here I go...in no order of preference:
The Match of the tournament: 3 choices - Rajasthan v Mumbai, Rajasthan v Kolkata and Deccan v Kolkata. I would go for the 1st one, since it was more Topsy-turvy than the other two and for the fact that Rajasthan miraculously won it from nowhere.
The Jaw dropping moment of the tournament: Undoubtedly has to be Adam Gilchrist literally killing Delhi Daredevils bowlers.A knock of 85 off 35, right up there with his knock of 149 in the 2007 ICC World cup final at Barbados.
The best commentary quote: In one of the matches involving Royal Challengers Bangalore, when Anil Kumble's best figures of 5-5 flashed on the screen, Harsha Bhogle said - "These are outstanding figures.Something you associate with, in a match between 4th std-A and 4th std-B".
The most cliched words said: No prizes for guessing. It has to be "Thats a DLF maximum". As the tournament progressed , so called ROCKSTAR Danny Morrison made it as "Thats a DLFer"...
The Ice-man : 3 contenders for it - Rohit Sharma,Irfan Pathan and Munaf Patel. However Rohit Sharma takes the cake for his breath-taking brilliance in the final over against the Kolkata Knight Riders and almost repeating it against Kings XI Punjab.
The SOUTH AFRICANS : This coveted crown sits on the head of Mumbai Indians, for showing all of us how not to handle pressure situations. Whats more, they were coached by Shaun Pollock and led by Sachin Tendulkar. That should tell it. (with due respect to both!!)
The best media coverage for the tournament: It has to be the Fake IPL player(http://fakeiplplayer.blogspot.com), who faked to be a 'real IPL player' and gave us all the masala that we needed.It ended in an anti-climax, with him not revealing his identity. However, will we get a glimpse of him again at the ICC World T20??
Time will tell....
Captain of the tournament: MS Dhoni,Gilchrist,Kumble and Warne stood out.But without an Iota of partisanship here, Kumble it is, for simply making the Royal Challengers rise from the ashes like a phoenix. Hats off Anil...I salute you!!
Statement of the tournament: Ashish Nehra was on cloud nine taking a bunch of wickets and went out saying - "I can do whatever Zaheer Khan can do". The very next day, Adam Gilchirst plundered him for 18 runs in his first over and brought him back to earth !!
The glamour icon: No.. it was not Mandira Bedi this time.Danny Morrison,with a goatee beard and extravagant English, had his fair share of moments with cheer leaders. On one day, he had an Aircel Cheer leader sitting on his right lap for an interview and on another day, he had one of Mallya's 'White Mischief Gals' sitting on his shoulders. I wonder what's in store for him,if he does the same things next year in India.
Now the Mandira Moment: Prior to the match between RCB and MI, in an interview with Neil McKenzie,Mandira refered to Abhimanyu Mithun of RCB as a Wicket Keeper.He turned out to be a medium pacer!!!.The best thing was Neil McKenzie too did not know about it. And SET Max never bothered to care about it..Mandira continued to anchor at-the-venue reports !!!
The Joker: It has to be that man again - Sreesanth. He gave Hayden a mouthful after dismissing him,despite being bludgeoned for 22 runs off the previous 5 balls. And he went for a victory run after castling MS Dhoni with an inswinger when the teams met the next time. Perhaps he was venting out his anger for not having been selected for the India T20 WC team, and making his case worse with the sprint!!
The Guffaw Moments: Suresh Raina,Shadab Jakati and Badrinath messing up with the ball like school kids against Deccan Chargers.And I never saw MS Dhoni as grumpy as he did that time.Another moment was the entry of the dog on the field to stop play for 20 mins in the first match of the tournament(CSK v MI).Not to forget, Shilpa Shetty introducing her beau to Geoffrey Boycott, when Boycs was searching for attention from Shilpa.
Catch of the tournament: Rather it would go to 3 people. I cannot remember any better catches in the tournament than the ones held by Roelof van der Merwe and Vinay Kumar at PE, to dismiss Dhoni and Hayden respectively. And they came in a must win game for the Royal Challengers.
The other one was Suresh Raina pulling off a screamer at Point to get rid of Gautam Gambhir at Jo'Burg.
Ego-hurting moments : Abhishek Nayar carting Andrew Flintoff for 3 sixers in an over in the tournament opener.Later in the tournament,Sourav Ganguly never batted in the game against Daredevils, after Knight Riders got a good start.What's worse, Morne van Wyk, Moises Henriques and Wriddhiman Saha got to bat ahead of him !!
Biggest BOO's: These are reserved for Greg Shipperd and John Buchanan for their cries to allow more than 4 foreign players in the playing XI. It made sense for Shipperd, since he had to keep Glenn McGrath out.But Buchanan showed the world that he's the biggest fool.He played Langeveldt and Mortaza for one game each after they were out of the tournament, and gave extended runs to ordinary players like Moises Henriques and Morne van Wyk....!!! Come on..This is the INDIAN Premier League..!!!!
Penultimately, the only thing that was good(if at all there was!!) about SET MAX's extraa innings T20 was the theme song composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy!!!! I better not mention anything else about one of the worst post and pre match shows,(in terms of content) ever presented.
And finally....Special mention to youngsters like Manish Pandey, Amit Singh, KP Appanna,Pragyan Ojha,Tirumalasetti Suman,Vinay Kumar,Ravindra Jadeja & Raina,Rohit and others for keeping the Indian Cricket's young talent flag flying high.
Kudos to Adam Gilchrist's Deccan Chargers for the spectacular IPL victory.
IPL season-2 certainly lived up to its standards !! But IPL-1 was the best... Only because, I was virtually helpless about what to do in the evenings, after the tournament ended. But no such feelings this time around !!! And as Lalit Modi said...Hope the IPL comes back bigger and better next year in India..!
