IPL 2010 - A tournament one of its kind

Well hardly anyone comes across tournaments wherein none of its games are either washed out or truncated. And, one has to be fortunate that the third edition of the Indian Premier League was one such tournament where not even a single match was either truncated or abandoned either due to rain, bad weather or any sort of disturbances from the crowd. Of course, there was a threat to the second encounter between the Royal Challengers Bangalore and the Mumbai Indians where not only was there a mild bomb blast but also there were a could of low intensity bombs that went diffused.

If not for that ugly incident, none of the games were disturbed by any means as mentioned above. This was not the case even in the earlier two editions of the Indian Premier League in 2008 and 2009 respectively. Nor was this the case in the two editions of the world T20 held at South Africa and England. One can recall the match between India and Scotland which was abandoned without a ball being bowled in the inaugural edition of the world T20 in 2007. Though this was not a match of any great concern, it was more than enough to disappoint the Indian cricket fans who had come to see their team play for the 1^st time in the tournament.

Well, if not for that inconsequential match, the rest of the tournament proceeded as expected and scheduled when none of the remaining matches were affected by spoilsports. That tournament had just one black mark all because of the India-Scotland match. And then in the 2^nd edition of the world T20, the case was no different when the only encounter to be truncated was the final super eight match between England and the West Indies that was reduced to 9 overs after the ghost haunted England. But, if the earlier editions of the IPL are considered, this has so far not been the case.

In last year's edition of the IPL, 4 matches that returned without a result some of which were consequential and other not so. But, that was more than enough to spoil the fortunes of some of the deserving teams to advance to the next round of the tournament. So was the case in the inaugural edition of the IPL where 2 matches that didn't have a result and lot of other matches where the game had to be truncated owing to delayed start. And this was also the case in all the world cups which I have witnessed since 1996 till 2007 where atleast one game had to be truncated. But, the IPL 2010 can be remembered as a tournament where not even one out of the 60 games were either truncated or abandoned.

Amazing!

Well at one stage in the tournament, even though the Mumbai Indians were on a run, winning most of the games they came across, most of them were Sachin Tendulkar oriented who scored most of the runs for the Mumbai Indians, having the man of the match in 4 matches out of the 13 games he played and 10 which his team won. Moreover, if not for Sachin Tendulkar, there was not even a single international batsman in the Mumbai Indians squad after Sanath Jayasuriya was shown the benches to warm despite the fact that it is summer in India. Just joking!

When the West Indian 22 year old fresh face was purchased in this year's IPL auction, most of them thought that to be a bad investment and would harldy make it to the playing XI only to be deceived. For the second time in a row, this 22 year old was solely responsible for his team's success and this matterred more in the semis which didn't halt the Mumbai Indians' run in the tournament. Much to everyone's surprise, when Sachin Tendulkar wanted to lose the match against KKR, he rested Kieron Pollard who would have otherwise seen his team end up victorious.

Unlike Sachin Tendulkar, Kieron Pollard's contribution didn't last only with the bat but also with the ball when he had 3 wickets against his name in the semi finals yesterday giving away just 17 runs at over 4 runs an over. Regular bowlers like Lasith Malinga, Dilhara Fernando, Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan conceded more runs and took less number of wickets compared to this part time fast bowler. Perhabs! He was the only West Indian who shone in this year's IPL second to not even Chris Gayle. Of course, hardly any players from the West Indies have made it, with Chanderapaul, Sarwan opting otherwise.

When it came to nig hitting for the Mumbai Indians this season, one and the only player who comes to people's minds would obviously be Kieron Pollard though there was Harbhajan Singh who had an innings of 49 runs from 18 balls. But, this was nothing when compared to Pollard's 13 ball 45 runs against the Delhi Daredevils at Mumbai. With the West Indian team losing out on many occasions owing to lack of performance by most of its players, Kieron Pollard can be of some delight watching him in the upcoming T20 world cup and that too at Caribbean. Wonderful!