Indian Premier League - General Discussion

[Bevab]

And Thala this season has gone back to his younger days!

I think he's just beyond the point of caring and it has conversely lifted a lot of pressure on his shoulders, he seems like he's back to just enjoying playing.

 

[Fenil]

And Thala this season has gone back to his younger days!

You do know that Dhoni has almost always played exceedingly well for CSK even as a batsman. It was in the International T20s that with all the skill and ability in the world that he batted like a 70 year old batting with a toothpick.

 

[Bevab]

Jinxed him but man tried his level best to win it.

Tewatia is a one dimensional hitter and this game does prove it. I've always thought he was underrated even going back to his days as a Daredevils player (I remember asking why Ponting refused to play him when he wasn't outright poor) but relying on him to bail out the team consistently is asking too much of him as is playing him as a pure batter. I'm not even going to entertain suggestions for an Indian call-up in a serious tournament due to his ability to 'handle pressure'.

 

[Fenil]

Gujarat Titans captain Hardik Pandya: "Obviously we would have taken 129 on any given day. Those last couple of wickets and at the end, Rahul got us back in the game. I tried my best but could not capitalize. It boils down to me."

Good to see him taking the responsibility unlike KL Rahul who on the other day said "I don't know how it happened". Hopefully, Hardik takes lessons and makes necessary improvements in his approach particularly when the national selectors see him as the next skipper.

 

[WubbaLubbaDubDub]

Tewatia is a one dimensional hitter and this game does prove it. I've always thought he was underrated even going back to his days as a Daredevils player (I remember asking why Ponting refused to play him when he wasn't outright poor) but relying on him to bail out the team consistently is asking too much of him as is playing him as a pure batter. I'm not even going to entertain suggestions for an Indian call-up in a serious tournament due to his ability to 'handle pressure'.

Twitter is all over right now how it baffles the keyboard warriors how Tewatia is not in Indian XI already!

 

[WubbaLubbaDubDub]

Good to see him taking the responsibility unlike KL Rahul who on the other day said "I don't know how it happened". Hopefully, Hardik takes lessons and makes necessary improvements in his approach particularly when the national selectors see him as the next skipper.

Hardik has always been a good leader, not great but good leader. He will take responsibility when needed. This is the reason my hatred for KL sees no end (hopefully should be less now a days) as his leadership is viewed like AWESOME by think tank in BCCI and some people here on the forum. I just wish KL instead of dipping hands in everything, would just step back asses and say, let me get back to be good at batting which I was before and have become another mediocre Murali Vijayish player

 

[Bevab]

Good to see him taking the responsibility unlike KL Rahul who on the other day said "I don't know how it happened". Hopefully, Hardik takes lessons and makes necessary improvements in his approach particularly when the national selectors see him as the next skipper.

Was about to post this, it was good that he said the batters and himself let Shami down and that he in particular was at fault for not finishing it having batted in a manner to try so multiple times during the post-match interview. I don't think he is going to necessarily change the way he bats for GT given their lopsided squad though but stranger things have happened.

 

[Fenil]

Tewatia is a one dimensional hitter and this game does prove it. I've always thought he was underrated even going back to his days as a Daredevils player (I remember asking why Ponting refused to play him when he wasn't outright poor) but relying on him to bail out the team consistently is asking too much of him as is playing him as a pure batter. I'm not even going to entertain suggestions for an Indian call-up in a serious tournament due to his ability to 'handle pressure'.

Right! Hardik and GT left far too much to recover. It's themselves to blame. I would actually applaud Manohar for his slow but steady Knock to support the captain but somewhere down the line, the skipper should have took it upon himself and also passed on the message to his partner to up the ante and finish off before it's too late. Manohar obviously is no muck with the bat and can hit sixes.

 

[Bevab]

Hardik has always been a good leader, not great but good leader. He will take responsibility when needed. This is the reason my hatred for KL sees no end (hopefully should be less now a days) as his leadership is viewed like AWESOME by think tank in BCCI and some people here on the forum. I just wish KL instead of dipping hands in everything, would just step back asses and say, let me get back to be good at batting which I was before and have become another mediocre Murali Vijayish player

I'll not accept slander against Murali Vijay, the bloke played well past his peak and isn't a particularly likeable one off the field but he played vital knocks for us in two overseas tours.

 

[Fenil]

Was about to post this, it was good that he said the batters and himself let Shami down and that he in particular was at fault for not finishing it having batted in a manner to try so multiple times during the post-match interview. I don't think he is going to necessarily change the way he bats for GT given their lopsided squad though but stranger things have happened.

Well GT does have Sai Sudarshan who bats sensibly and was in good form as well. So if they play him, Hardik will have the freedom to be his old self.

 

[Fenil]

Tewatia is a one dimensional hitter and this game does prove it. I've always thought he was underrated even going back to his days as a Daredevils player (I remember asking why Ponting refused to play him when he wasn't outright poor) but relying on him to bail out the team consistently is asking too much of him as is playing him as a pure batter. I'm not even going to entertain suggestions for an Indian call-up in a serious tournament due to his ability to 'handle pressure'.

No please no. Tewatia is good but as you said, he is a one dimensional player and nowadays don't seem to be bowling much. We already have Axar who has been a revelation in batting (though not a six hitting batsman like Tewatia yet) and is a lot better bowler than Tewatia which helps with the balance of the team. If this was the way, Yashashvi Jaiswal, Yash Dhul and Tilak Verma would have been playing for India instead of Rohit Sharma, Surya and Virat Kohli.

 

[Bevab]

There's been some interesting discussion about the point of the IPL and the pitches in the last few pages and I thought I'd add my own thoughts to them.

My ideal T20 would be on a pitch that is tilted slightly towards batting at the least. This is simply because T20 as a format was originally invented to bring about entertainment via batting and boundaries. As entertaining and meme worthy as some of the low scoring thrillers can be, they become grating after a while if that's the only thing being served up. The last CPL (or the one before that, can't remember) was guilty of it as were those Bangladeshi series before the UAE WC. I will admit that watching Dan Christian smash sixes against Shakib and erasing the latter's smug grin off his face was one of the best cricket moments in recent times. This doesn't mean that I necessarily want pitches that lead to inevitable 200 vs 200 clashes, I find the 160-190 score matches to be the best personally with the opportunity for a team to score beyond 200 if they bat very well or try to be hyper aggressive and the risk pays off. Anything beyond the 220 mark starts getting into bowling machine territory.

To compensate for the pitch being more batting friendly, I would have boundaries placed much further behind. While this does run contrary to my original theory of T20 being all about boundaries, I find edges and mishits being rewarded with boundaries extremely annoying. There's no real skill in miscues of this variety. I don't mind outfields being on the slightly quicker side without too much advantage to the batting side to help with getting a few extra fours if well timed but watching batters clearly not put everything into their shot and still get a six because the boundary sizes are so tiny is just boring to watch after a point. It also leads into the mentality of bowlers deliberately bowling bad balls with pace off to throw batters off and get edges that simply can't be muscled to the boundary. It's just poor cricket all around. Having boundaries further back also means you still have a place in T20s for accumulators who can get you 6-8 runs per over smoothly without boundaries just with deft placement and strike rotation. It should also reward players and teams that prioritise fielding a lot more and lead to more athletic efforts from everyone involved. It's why I love games at a big ground like the MCG, watching a BBL game there where the boundaries aren't pulled in much you truly appreciate those who can hit a six with timing and power combined.

I also think this IPL has been fairly entertaining for the most part as a whole. The home and away system helps a lot as we're getting a wider range of conditions which is keeping things fresher compared to the recent past. What has been boring without a doubt has been watching the matches in close detail. The games are simply too long for a format that was brought in originally to be short and crisp. We have too much time wasting with unnecessary referrals by the umpires for clearly obvious run-out calls, DRS calls for wides and no balls that don't really seem to produce any positive result for the team reviewing, the moronic ad break disguised as a 'strategic timeout' (seriously, what the fearsome tweak are you going to discuss in those two and a half minutes strategically that you haven't already planned out before the game or during the overs?), captains taking too long to adjust their fields for every damn ball and bowlers/batters wasting time in every over in all ways possible.

The experience of watching a game is also becoming stale with every space being shoved in with ads or product placement (can't help but cringe everytime Styris says "..and that's a Visit Saudi beyond the boundary" after a six), commentators becoming monotonous and repetitive barring very few. The Dugout was originally supposed to be a place for insightful analysis with recently retired pros and coaches, no ad breaks and some light banter. Now it's just ads every over, Swann trying his best 'boomer trying to be relatable to the younger kids' impression with his sarcasm, whatever nonsense they keep stirring up between Styris and Swann under the guise of banter, Smith and Morgan being cliche machines and the Indian commentators just being limited in what they have to say. The next place for Reliance and co to revamp after their excellent work on bringing more languages, broadcast angles, video quality and additional information to their viewer experience is to get good commentators.

I do think the IPL has diverged off into it's own thing at this point. There are a lot of Indians who simply watch the IPL alone religiously every year for the most part, have a passing interest (or sometimes none) in Indian cricket and don't bother with the rest of world cricket. That portion is significant enough to sustain the IPL for the foreseeable future. One reason that I don't see being mentioned almost anywhere is the IPL's competitiveness. Today's match is the perfect example, the tenth placed team defeats the first placed team and the defending champions in the last over and people are just mildly surprised that it happened due to the former having injury issues and having multiple stars out of form. If Afghanistan had beaten India or Australia in the 2019 WC in this manner, you'd have it being called the 'shock of the tournament' and it being included instantly in the list of WC classics with a public inquest into the team's performance and tournament results happening within a month alongside heads falling. In the IPL, that's just a regular Tuesday. It is simply a more entertaining product to follow on average because the level of competition is so high which is why you get so many last over finishes. Whilst it may have lesser quality than a T20I between two full strength top four teams, it still provides enough high quality cricket to be watchable enough.

 

[pillowprocter]

There's been some interesting discussion about the point of the IPL and the pitches in the last few pages and I thought I'd add my own thoughts to them.

My ideal T20 would be on a pitch that is tilted slightly towards batting at the least. This is simply because T20 as a format was originally invented to bring about entertainment via batting and boundaries. As entertaining and meme worthy as some of the low scoring thrillers can be, they become grating after a while if that's the only thing being served up. The last CPL (or the one before that, can't remember) was guilty of it as were those Bangladeshi series before the UAE WC. I will admit that watching Dan Christian smash sixes against Shakib and erasing the latter's smug grin off his face was one of the best cricket moments in recent times. This doesn't mean that I necessarily want pitches that lead to inevitable 200 vs 200 clashes, I find the 160-190 score matches to be the best personally with the opportunity for a team to score beyond 200 if they bat very well or try to be hyper aggressive and the risk pays off. Anything beyond the 220 mark starts getting into bowling machine territory.

To compensate for the pitch being more batting friendly, I would have boundaries placed much further behind. While this does run contrary to my original theory of T20 being all about boundaries, I find edges and mishits being rewarded with boundaries extremely annoying. There's no real skill in miscues of this variety. I don't mind outfields being on the slightly quicker side without too much advantage to the batting side to help with getting a few extra fours if well timed but watching batters clearly not put everything into their shot and still get a six because the boundary sizes are so tiny is just boring to watch after a point. It also leads into the mentality of bowlers deliberately bowling bad balls with pace off to throw batters off and get edges that simply can't be muscled to the boundary. It's just poor cricket all around. Having boundaries further back also means you still have a place in T20s for accumulators who can get you 6-8 runs per over smoothly without boundaries just with deft placement and strike rotation. It should also reward players and teams that prioritise fielding a lot more and lead to more athletic efforts from everyone involved. It's why I love games at a big ground like the MCG, watching a BBL game there where the boundaries aren't pulled in much you truly appreciate those who can hit a six with timing and power combined.

I also think this IPL has been fairly entertaining for the most part as a whole. The home and away system helps a lot as we're getting a wider range of conditions which is keeping things fresher compared to the recent past. What has been boring without a doubt has been watching the matches in close detail. The games are simply too long for a format that was brought in originally to be short and crisp. We have too much time wasting with unnecessary referrals by the umpires for clearly obvious run-out calls, DRS calls for wides and no balls that don't really seem to produce any positive result for the team reviewing, the moronic ad break disguised as a 'strategic timeout' (seriously, what the fearsome tweak are you going to discuss in those two and a half minutes strategically that you haven't already planned out before the game or during the overs?), captains taking too long to adjust their fields for every damn ball and bowlers/batters wasting time in every over in all ways possible.

The experience of watching a game is also becoming stale with every space being shoved in with ads or product placement (can't help but cringe everytime Styris says "..and that's a Visit Saudi beyond the boundary" after a six), commentators becoming monotonous and repetitive barring very few. The Dugout was originally supposed to be a place for insightful analysis with recently retired pros and coaches, no ad breaks and some light banter. Now it's just ads every over, Swann trying his best 'boomer trying to be relatable to the younger kids' impression with his sarcasm, whatever nonsense they keep stirring up between Styris and Swann under the guise of banter, Smith and Morgan being cliche machines and the Indian commentators just being limited in what they have to say. The next place for Reliance and co to revamp after their excellent work on bringing more languages, broadcast angles, video quality and additional information to their viewer experience is to get good commentators.

I do think the IPL has diverged off into it's own thing at this point. There are a lot of Indians who simply watch the IPL alone religiously every year for the most part, have a passing interest (or sometimes none) in Indian cricket and don't bother with the rest of world cricket. That portion is significant enough to sustain the IPL for the foreseeable future. One reason that I don't see being mentioned almost anywhere is the IPL's competitiveness. Today's match is the perfect example, the tenth placed team defeats the first placed team and the defending champions in the last over and people are just mildly surprised that it happened due to the former having injury issues and having multiple stars out of form. If Afghanistan had beaten India or Australia in the 2019 WC in this manner, you'd have it being called the 'shock of the tournament' and it being included instantly in the list of WC classics with a public inquest into the team's performance and tournament results happening within a month alongside heads falling. In the IPL, that's just a regular Tuesday. It is simply a more entertaining product to follow on average because the level of competition is so high which is why you get so many last over finishes. Whilst it may have lesser quality than a T20I between two full strength top four teams, it still provides enough high quality cricket to be watchable enough.

I honestly thought the Aus and NZ tours of Bangladesh made for really good viewing. Proper scrapfest

 

[SaiSrini]

@SaiSrini - Would it be fair to assume that your love for IPL and it being entertaining is because you only follow IPL/T20 cricket in general?

@Bigby Wolf - Fair point! Maybe different time zone, KKR playing like shit and something which I am not able to pinpoint is putting me off!

I still feel 2 months for this tournament which has atleast 1 match a day is overkill. Somehow it has to be 30-40 days max including playoffs!

Could be! But if you go by that theory, then maybe your dislike of the IPL could be stemming from 'cricket overload exhaustion', aint it?

From my perspective of following scores of other formats and watching IPL/T20 cricket live, I have definitely found this IPL to be more entertaining and making me watch more non-CSK games. For e.g. today's game was great in the 2nd half and I tuned in live to it post my work meetings. I've rarely done this in the past (for CSK games, I would watch it while working and mute audio while keeping video on, if in meetings; been WFH for the past 3+ yrs).

I can understand cricket exhaustion if IPL/T20 is not the primary formats that you follow.

There's been some interesting discussion about the point of the IPL and the pitches in the last few pages and I thought I'd add my own thoughts to them.

I also think this IPL has been fairly entertaining for the most part as a whole. The home and away system helps a lot as we're getting a wider range of conditions which is keeping things fresher compared to the recent past. What has been boring without a doubt has been watching the matches in close detail. The games are simply too long for a format that was brought in originally to be short and crisp. We have too much time wasting with unnecessary referrals by the umpires for clearly obvious run-out calls, DRS calls for wides and no balls that don't really seem to produce any positive result for the team reviewing, the moronic ad break disguised as a 'strategic timeout' (seriously, what the fearsome tweak are you going to discuss in those two and a half minutes strategically that you haven't already planned out before the game or during the overs?), captains taking too long to adjust their fields for every damn ball and bowlers/batters wasting time in every over in all ways possible.

The experience of watching a game is also becoming stale with every space being shoved in with ads or product placement (can't help but cringe everytime Styris says "..and that's a Visit Saudi beyond the boundary" after a six), commentators becoming monotonous and repetitive barring very few. The Dugout was originally supposed to be a place for insightful analysis with recently retired pros and coaches, no ad breaks and some light banter. Now it's just ads every over, Swann trying his best 'boomer trying to be relatable to the younger kids' impression with his sarcasm, whatever nonsense they keep stirring up between Styris and Swann under the guise of banter, Smith and Morgan being cliche machines and the Indian commentators just being limited in what they have to say. The next place for Reliance and co to revamp after their excellent work on bringing more languages, broadcast angles, video quality and additional information to their viewer experience is to get good commentators.

I do think the IPL has diverged off into it's own thing at this point. There are a lot of Indians who simply watch the IPL alone religiously every year for the most part, have a passing interest (or sometimes none) in Indian cricket and don't bother with the rest of world cricket. That portion is significant enough to sustain the IPL for the foreseeable future. One reason that I don't see being mentioned almost anywhere is the IPL's competitiveness. Today's match is the perfect example, the tenth placed team defeats the first placed team and the defending champions in the last over and people are just mildly surprised that it happened due to the former having injury issues and having multiple stars out of form. If Afghanistan had beaten India or Australia in the 2019 WC in this manner, you'd have it being called the 'shock of the tournament' and it being included instantly in the list of WC classics with a public inquest into the team's performance and tournament results happening within a month alongside heads falling. In the IPL, that's just a regular Tuesday. It is simply a more entertaining product to follow on average because the level of competition is so high which is why you get so many last over finishes. Whilst it may have lesser quality than a T20I between two full strength top four teams, it still provides enough high quality cricket to be watchable enough.

Nicely put! I am among those people now who watches IPL religiously and has a passing interest on Indian cricket / world cricket. Good to hear that such people are significant enough

On the game watching experience, it doesn't seem as bad watching it from the USA on Willow. I am strongly guessing that this watching experience is radically different from viewers living in India

 

[icyman]

KL did not aggravate anything. It is also important to understand that this was a T20 and a moving goalpost. No way anyone could understand how severe the injury was. Perhaps he felt that him at 30-40% was better than most other options.
And the reason I say that he behaved like a leader was because in all that nonsense that happened post match, he kept his head and tried to resolve things with a cool head although he should've been on the first car out to the hospital.

Man, the KL saga is tough to fathom. My only point being, he shouldn't have come out to bat if he wasnt going to win the game (not that in his rime he would have). This wasnt a Test match where he could hold one end and delay the inevitable.
As for the post match antics- KL and Virat are friends, he probably knew Virat might calm down if a friendly face appeared. Nothing great about that. Going by what you mentioned, Mishra should also be lauded for his leadership abilities for pulling the two away.

As for GG, I am not blaming him for jack. What happened at Chinnaswamy with him and Avesh basically detonated the VK bomb and I knew it would be fireworks. When something like this happens, one person cannot be scapegoated.
The game needs characters and as a RCB fan, he rightfully dished back the Chinnaswamy garbage hurled at them. There is no need to take pot shots at the crowd at the Chinnaswamy like the LSG players did. Those fans make the sport.

So, you are okay with players giving it back? 'Tit for Tat'? Many instances have happened in the past where players have gone off the radar, but this might just be the first one where someone has decided to purposely act it out.

Really? I have a differing perspective on your 2nd para. I have found this IPL to be very entertaining. This is probably one of the rare IPL's where I have had the interest to follow non-CSK games. Many games have been tight and the return to home-away format added to the interest. Also the dependency on toss for results have been reduced dramatically. I know some fans are 50:50 on the Impact Player but I have found it interesting when teams other than CSK have used it differently (annoyed that CSK does their usual sameness strategy even in the use of Impact Player rule).

Could be on account of the fact that you no longer follow international cricket. Personally, I have found it very boring and it has been somewhat of an overkill.

The experience of watching a game is also becoming stale with every space being shoved in with ads or product placement (can't help but cringe everytime Styris says "..and that's a Visit Saudi beyond the boundary" after a six), commentators becoming monotonous and repetitive barring very few. The Dugout was originally supposed to be a place for insightful analysis with recently retired pros and coaches, no ad breaks and some light banter.

It was always there since the very beginning- DLF maximums! I can almost hear Laxmana Siva Rama Krishan's voice ringing in my head as I type those words down.

The broadcast quality in India needs to improve- not only for the IPL, but overall- i.e international cricket as well