Having seen Ishant for quite some time now, I have a pet theory.
Somebody has told him that there are two kinds of bowlers - ones who create wickets for others to take and ones who take them, reap the rewards so to speak. With his potent in-dipping deliveries and awkward bounce allied nippy pace he belonged to the former group originally. Halfway into his fledgling career the leg cutter started making an appearance. Thereafter there was this mysterious loss of pace. And guess what - Ishant no longer had that nip back into the right hander which left Ponting red in the face and frothing at the mouth because the ball had for the nth time passed between the bat and his body, shaving nothing but air.
One can only be what one is built to be. Ishant is another Srinath or another Flintoff. They are pressure creators. And a team needs all kinds of performers. He just needs to get his in-dipper in place and at pace. The rest will follow. His newly learned leg cutter should be a surprise weapon - sort of like a coup de grace. Not one to be used every other ball by any means.
Lets put it this way. Chennai were not only the better team yesterday. Dhoni was the better captain too. I know a lot of people would focus on having that straight mid off as well as a long off. And yes, nothing succeeds like success. But that is not what ultimately won the game for Chennai. The little moves - such as investing trust in Murali even when the great off spinner was not having a great tournament, having fielders such as Badri and Raina at the right spots almost throughout the match and razor sharp wicket keeping allied with intelligent use of his part timer (again Raina) - those were the ones that won Chennai the game.
At the point that Pollard got out, the MI would have required a combination of West Indian voodoo and Indian mantra-tantra to get them across the finish line.
There is also a lesson in this. It is that it is very essential for the captain to sit down and discuss permutations and combinations and probabilities and decisions to be taken in key moments with his vice captain as well as the coach. Tendulkar came out in the post match press conference and said that Pollard was held back a bit too long. What does that imply? That he would have preferred to send Pollard in early? Perhaps so, we may never know. But I am happy that Tendulkar thinks that Pollard should have gotten in early. On the Pollard batting slot, I have heard a lot of people say that he ought to come ahead of Duminy. I will go one better. I would say that he ought to have come in ahead of even Rayudu. Or at the very least before Saurabh Tiwary.
Mumbai's fielding and its dependence on five specialist bowlers to do the job perhaps held them back. I thought somebody like Jayasuriya with the ability to roll his arm over may have made sense, but then you know what people say about hindsight.
The IPL started yesterday with a big bang featuring a gala opening ceremony, another ceremonial 'Spirit of Cricket' oath and a Green initiative featuring all the IPL team captains. With Ravi Shastri constantly testing the upper limits of his voice, there was no opportunity left to remind the viewers that they were supposed to be excited and charged up. I thought Lalit Modi's opening speech was strange and fairly lengthy for the crowd collected at the D Y Patil stadium, Mumbai. He started off explaining the whole IPL initiative and what was being done new in this edition and then went on to attack the 'elements' which tried to stop the IPL from taking place and finally celebrated India as being the foremost cricketing nation (or something to that effect).
Just viewing the opening ceremony reminded us that we were seeing an amalgamation of sorts. Entertainment cross-bred with business and being introduced to sport. A lot of the folk I know started watching the opening game between Deccan Chargers and Kolkata Knight Riders with a headache owing to the 'gala' opening ceremony. I wonder if the IPL commissioner could get a poll going among the general public and see how many actually like seeing the opening ceremony. The point about bringing in world class musicians is absolutely lost if proper sound arrangements are not made. The musicians themselves would cringe at listening to their sound coming over our TVs.
We are constantly reminded that the IPL is just not for us - the passionate cricket fans. It is also for non-cricket fans - those who are in for a good time basically. Even so, I am not so sure that the opening ceremony ticked all the boxes. And this is not the first time that the IPL opening ceremony has given rise to such an effect.
Moving onto the match itself, the cricket was fine. There was a lot of heart and skill on display - starting with Chaminda Vaas' beguiling swing to fine hitting from Angelo Mathews, Owais Shah and to an extent Gilchrist. For me the most entertaining innings though came from VVS Laxman who revelled in the opening position and even smote a straight six off a medium pacer! Something which I have never seen him do at the international level in any form of the game. Chalk one up for yourself, VVS! And there Harsha was,clucking disapprovingly at what he termed agricultural strokes by VVS. The man is turning over a new page in his mid 30's for god's sake, Harsha! The least we could do is applaud the effort and recognize the effectiveness. We would be deluded to look for just grace and elan in the game's shortest form! The Knight Riders won in the last over although the result itself was not in doubt after Rohit Sharma's exit.
Any mention of the match action is incomplete without calling to attention the latest advertisement gimmick that IPL has introduced. While I did not notice too many DLF maximums in use from the commentary box, that relief was short lived when various advertisement snippets came full screen in the 5 to 10 second gap that a bowler takes while walking back to his run up! To say that I was incredulous would be to understate the case. Have the advertisers themselves given any thought to how irritating this could be? Have they considered that this could potentially work against them in the market with people getting irked at being forced to watch these ill-advised ad breaks smack in the middle of cricket action? That the advertisements themselves were cringe-worthy is quite another case.
On reflection the IPL tries to woo a huge section of people. Hardcore cricket fans, casual cricket fans, general sports fans, curious business people, interested investors, people from the entertainment industry, housewives and children. Given that it tries to provide a package which is supposed to be everything to everybody, it is no wonder that a few of these groups might feel shortchanged. It is also no wonder that this amalgamation is giving rise to an entirely new breed of sports fan in India and abroad. There is no room for judging the IPL. Nor is there time for such endeavours with the commentators exhorting us and goading us towards wild abandon. Lets just enjoy it then. The best part of it is that you will find some aspect of IPL interesting - no matter which group you fall into out of the ones quoted above. How I wish our TV broadcast would allow us to pick and choose the elements of IPL that we like.
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