Lessons From The IPL

The party’s over, the extravaganza is about to begin. The cricketing world has barely caught their breath after the high of the IPL, and the world cup is already looming, less than two weeks away. While weariness might afflict some fans, those players who took the stage in South Africa should be glad for their fine-tuned skills and the lessons they can pass on to some of their less fortunate team-mates. Here are some of the things they might be saying:

“Our spinners might hold the trump card…”

It is the feature that caught everyone by surprise in South Africa. No one had expected the spinners to play such a major role. Drift, dip, guile and ripping turn are not thoughts that are usually associated with Twenty20 cricket, where an innings ends while the ball is still new. Perhaps spinners might not play such a sensational role on the much fresher, early season wickets in England, but no one will want to be caught undervaluing them. They will still have great opportunity to out-fox batsmen, draw errors from desperate shots, and most importantly, get through overs in a flash, before the batsmen can even begin thinking about where the innings is headed and what to do next. Watch out for the likes of Harbhajan, Graham
Swann, Vettori, Muralitharan, Afridi and Botha. Even lesser bowlers like Rohit Sharma and David Hussey might have a role to play.

“Haven’t got enough runs? Well, no reason to panic…”

While chasing six and a half to seven runs an over might seem a piece of cake for modern day batsmen brought up on monster bats and a diet of sixes, it can appear deceptively easy. Teams fell short of such meager requirements on more than one occasion during IPL 2. 119 was defended successfully by Punjab in one game, and even in the final Hyderabad looked out of the contest when Bangalore had about seven overs to spare and less than fifty to get, before they clawed their way back sensationally. The truth is that in such a short, high pressure game, when a boundary is a necessity every over and playing out dot balls close to a crime, rash and often suicidal shots are an uncannily frequent occurrence. Yusuf Pathan did it, David Warner did it, and so did the usually calm and mature Rahul Dravid when Bangalore were coasting in the finals.

“Captain, if you wait too long, the ship might sink…”

Truly. Captaincy has taken on a new dimension with the onset of Twenty20 cricket. No longer can a captain choose a formula over bed and wait till the first hour drinks are being taken, before he reviews it. This game has no formulas. Any one of the eleven players on the field is a potential resource in any moment of the game. Decisions in the field may need to be made, reviewed and altered in the space of two balls, sometimes on nothing more than a hunch. Resultantly, teams who have energetic, pro-active and dynamic leaders go in with a huge advantage. No one has exemplified this better than Shane Warne, although Adam Gilchrist’s leadership was not lacking in either inspiration or energy this year.

“Big six hitters may hold the key, but then so may the silent accumulators…”

This was another major lesson from IPL 2. A lot of games were lost while chasing low totals because the strike wasn’t rotated often enough, and the lack of smart batting and loss of advantage in the cat and mouse game of stealing singles just put too much pressure on the late order hitters. On the other end of the spectrum, the accumulating kind, like AB deVillers, Duminy, Badrinath and Kallis played perfect foils when their more aggressive counterparts were going strong, and ended up playing important roles in chasing down big totals. Even in this format of the game calm, sensible batting and rational thinking is no less important than berserk smashing.

“Only youngsters good to go? Well, think again…”

When Saurav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid decided in 2007 that they would give T20 internationals a skip and leave it to the ‘youngsters’, everyone jumped on to the bandwagon. It was almost unanimously declared that this format of the game was not for the older guys. Kallis was one of those who faced the brunt. He was unceremoniously dumped from the South African team for the world cup. Come 2009, however, and the tide has turned. Kallis is back, two successive seasons of the IPL have been concluded, and what they have revealed has embarrassed everyone, experts and drunks alike, who had declared that ‘youth’ was where the buck stopped in T20. In fact, it has been the experienced players, with their unperturbed sense of calm, immovable, steadfast focus and equanimity, who have really stood up to the test of this format. Gilchrist, Hayden, Brad Hodge, Warne, Kallis and even Tendulkar himself have come out trumps. Teams who don’t have players with experience might struggle in the crunch moments of the world cup.

“Bowlers, there is no crime greater than being predictable...”

This is the one that everyone already knew. With batsmen ready to go for broke almost every moment, the only chance that bowlers have is to keep them guessing. Whatever Twenty20 cricket has been played so far has revealed that any kind of bowler can be successful, provided he is willing to be clever and mix it up.

“It is the last over that will hold the key to our fate…”

This is the one that it is difficult to plan for. After all, no team can decide how they will play the last over unless it actually arrives. Well, to some extent the bowling strategy can be planned beforehand because good ‘death’ bowlers are identified before the tournament. But whether bowling or batting, this is where the key to success or failure probably lies for every team. This is because the format is such that a lot of games inevitably come down to the last six balls. And that is when those two magical boundaries, that brilliant save or the four dot balls really matter. The kind of player who can keep his composure in high pressure, is invaluable in such a situation. Even in the first innings of a match, it is often seen that the team that finishes the last over strong wrests the momentum and has the mental edge. Don’t forget, it was a dramatic last over that decided the winner in the last edition of the Twenty20 world cup! In fact, This is where Kolkatta lost out on a few occasions in this edition of the IPL, and Hyderabad did very well. The final fate of both the teams is there for everyone to see.