Castrol Harsha Blog

So how old is old? This was supposed to be a young man's game but look at who is turning it on at the ipl? Warne, murali and kumble, hayden, gilchrist, dravid, ganguly and gibbs. And of course sachin and jayasuriya. What an exhibition....just to show that while you can have sehwag and gambhir, gilchrist and gibbs, you can never keep the legends down. Tendulkar's "reverse paddle" (look how we struggle to give names to some of his shots!) was the one that most people were enamoured by but my favourite was the pull shot over mid-wicket. That is the tendulkar that so many of us were in awe of and to me it was just a statement. Will the ipl allow us to see that side of tendulkar again? Like rediscovering an old melody without it being touched by the remix agents!!

Both the deccan chargers and the Mumbai Indians have learnt that they need to stay ahead of the mid-innings slump that appears around overs 10-16. Mumbai Indians lost out there against the deccan chargers and clearly that was the plan against the knight riders. It’s an interesting phenomenon, this slump, because i am not sure we saw it during ipl1. One explanation, and a good one, is that it is the less experienced players who might be coming in at that time and who have been unable to adjust to the conditions; or that with teams believing that 160 is enough, they suddenly press the safety button and see the asking rate go up.

The key to avoiding that is to get off to a great start and i suspect we will see more of that as we go along. That, and the new ploy that the Mumbai Indians unveiled, off popping in a pinch hitter in the middle overs. i won’t be surprised if we see more of that and the batsmen then realise that the limitations were within them, not the pitch or the bowlers.

The ipl now starts to move north to Pretoria and Johannesburg and i suspect we might start seeing slightly bigger scores there.

you will often hear commentators and players talking about momentum; not the usual mass times velocity (incidentally similar to the indicators in the castrol index) but the more literary interpretation. the mumbai indians experienced loss of momentum in their game against the deccan chargers when a winning position was squandered right after the break.

the good thing about t20 is that teams and captains have to think on their feet in situations that are constantly changing. that is not easy especially if two batsmen are very well set and backing themselves. with quick over rates mandatory, captains don’t have much time to present the unusual. the 'strategy time out' gives them that option and forces the batsman to regroup. it kills their momentum and it is extraordinary how often you get a breakthrough immediately after resumption.

you might argue that 84 from 10 overs is still 84 from 10 after the interval. but when you have momentum, you believe you can get it and the fielding side thinks it is tough. the break gives them time to look at it from a different perspective and often that is enough-just to change the approach, from thinking you can't to thinking maybe you can.

but don't let that take away from what the deccan chargers achieved. pragyan ojha's was an excellent spell and he was the game-breaker. in terms of points, dwayne bravo probably achieved more (3 wickets, though his economy rate wasn't as good, a brilliant run out and 21 runs), and that is why he was number two on the man of the match list (a debate on whether he should have been there or dwayne smith) but the game breaker was ojha.

i have written in these pages about the difference between the 'how' and the 'how much' and came face to face with it last evening. the commentators pick the player of the match and it was my turn to co-ordinate the award. so off i went to jeremy coney and pommie mbangwa and the others with my list but with a question i couldn't immediately answer.

we have to give points for the top three performances (3, 2 and 1) and at the end of the tournament the points are added up for the player of the tournament (certainly that is how i understand it!). in the delhi daredevils vs. chennai super kings game, irrespective of the result, it was clear that ab de villiers would be player of the match for his 105 from 54 balls. but what about number two? i thought in batting friendly conditions lakshmipathy balaji will 3-19 from 4 overs was outstanding. but then, what about pradeep sangwan who had 3-28 while the super kings were chasing? which was the more valuable performance?

going by numbers, and the fact that balaji bowled a fine last over, you would have no hesitation in arriving at the verdict. but sangwan's three wickets contributed very substantially to the daredevils' win. the ‘how’ favoured sangwan, the 'how much' favoured balaji. the majority went with sangwan but it was one of those that would arouse debate either way. maybe you should tell us what you think-dispassionately and without team loyalties since this is a forum where cricket comes first!

oh, and by the way, hayden was a unanimous third!

it was too much of a good thing, this ipl! and so the weather has struck playing havoc with the cricket and in doing so, is testing our index as well. as you probably know we incorporate two essential qualities of the t20 game in our index - the value of the flourish at the start and the ability to end with a bang. now if a team only bats for 5 overs, the power play merges seamlessly, and yet a touch irritatingly, into the end overs! but that is being addressed as are the various rain delays. and it didn’t help that the day after mumbai indians had their game washed out and indeed, kings xi had been done in again (though you might argue that they should have taken their catches), durban awoke to a bright, warm day!!

these short games are posing problems for teams and yet are rewarding those that have many bowling options. to give you an example, when kolkata were up against king’s xi, the wet outfield (and a ridiculously small boundary one may add!) meant that the spinners were getting neutralised. even murali kartik only got one over and chris gayle couldn’t get a grip on the ball (though he returned with a tight grip on the game!). enter sourav ganguly to bowl four excellent overs (incidentally my choice for man of the match was a toss up between ganguly and gayle with a preference for ganguly).

and so going ahead in this tournament, it is the best balanced teams, those that give themselves many options that will remain standing. six bowlers and another option from among the batsman is ideal and this is one hypothesis of ours that is coming good. the other, more obvious but ignored in the rush to highlight the foreign players, is that the teams with the indian players are doing well so far.

but these are early days. for the ipl and for the new age ratings!

there is a world of difference between ‘how’ and ‘how much’. when i was at college i was told that the chemistry i so loved was ‘how’ and the engineering i didn’t very much was ‘how much’. one explains, the other measures. the two must always live together but often exist like estranged couples. lovers of the ‘how’, literature, history, think ‘how much’, mathematics, physics, is not lyrical enough; they look down on it. those that swear by ‘how much’ believe that the others don’t matter. it is the difference between the poet and the nerd.

must admit i was a bit intrigued by the choice of sachin tendulkar as man of the match. in his favour he got two things right - an assessment of what a good score is and the decision to go with sanath jayasuriya for an extra over that produced the wicket of the dangerous jacob oram. but the score he thought was right could not have been achieved without abhishek nayar who is as fine a striker of a ball as you will see in india. that was one of the game breakers in the mumbai indians v chennai super kings game. the other was the spell harbhajan bowled in the middle overs. he was outstanding and the wicket of flintoff was the killer blow for the super kings. that spell also meant that the job in the end overs was that much easier though you cannot take anything away from the three excellent end-overs from bravo, zaheer and malinga, whose return to international cricket marks one of the most staggering comebacks in recent times.