IPL 2.0 - Dust is settling

As the days are progressing, things are getting clearer.

Well I thought I will continue providing my commentaries on the proceedings. See, when Arun Lal can do it, why can't I.

Who is Arun Lal?
A friend of mine asked what makes Arun Lal qualified to speak about the games. To which another friend of mine replied, he is the guy who comes out of the local train in "mile sur mera tumhara" song. Now that was some shocking piece of information even though I know who he is. All these days I have been thinking that the local train scene was meant to have just the crowds and commoners and not great Arun Lal. To know that it was him, was as shocking as the revelation of Santa Clause not being real is for the foreign kids (and may be a few Indian kids). Well, for those interested to know, Arun Lal played 16 tests and 13 ODIs averaging 26 and 9 respectively (for India, of course).

Takeaways
Kings can win only in a high scoring match and Royal Challengers in a slow scoring one. RCB is riding (~barely floating) on the batting of an unlikely hero, who has been doing exceptionally well something that he is not supposed to be good at. Although today they scored a very healthy 160 and soon I might get proved wrong in which case I will gracefully eat my own words. There is nothing wrong in it, thats what Arun Lal did when he commented before Mumbai/Chennai match that Tendulkar hasn't read the conditions well.

Also, as a side note, I think Laxman should start calling himself Re-laxman and may be Gilchrist should really let him rest for a while.

Weather/Duckworth-Lewis method
Statistics is not just what you create while playing, it decides your results now. KXIP being the favorite victim so far.Thanks to SA weather, you can see a poster of the following graph in all the dug-outs. Of course, Sehwag could never understand it.

The definition of a match is redefined as well. If you can have 5 overs per team, it will be considered a match. Appalling!

I have internalized IPL so much that I am even using a strategy break between writing my blog. If you don't believe the Arun Lal memorabilia was the result of one such break.

Today's match between Deccan chargers and RCB brought out a few things:

  • Dravid moves to the top of the table of leading run getters after scoring a smashing 48 off 27 balls
  • He also scored 2 sixes in his knock which is two more than the total number of sixes in his career (ok, this is not correct, just a hyperbole)
  • Today's match saw Praveen Kumar laughing for the first time in his life. It took a throw from Uthappa directly hitting him on his head, temporarily making him forget that he is Praveen Kumar and not supposed to laugh (or even smile)
  • Robin Uthappa who I thought used to be in Indian squad primarily because of his communication skills is showing a lot of sincerity. Playing the wicket keeper and really trying to give his best with bat. I really hope he does well now.
That's it for now, stay tuned

Comments (1)

On Arun Lal and the tain he's coming out of: Listen to the song again and you'll get more context. It is in the bengali part of the song, and it is no usual local train, but the Kolkata metro. At that time Kolkata was the only Indian city with a underground metro, which bengalis have been very proud of. I guess the thought process would have been to showcase Kolkata and its prominent people (Now you know one more thing about Arun Lal!) in the alloted time.