The IPL Watcher

Warne got it right. Gilchrist got it wrong. Gilchrist loves pace on the new ball but Warne didn’t give it to him, choosing to bowl Sumit Narwal in the first over, ahead of the quicker Siddharth Trivedi, and the much quicker Shaun Tait. It paid off, Gilchrist was out off the fourth ball of the innings when Yusuf Pathan held a skier.

When Yusuf strode to the middle, Pragyan Ojha was in the middle of an over and Yusuf loves starting out against spin, his long reach and powerful bat-swing forming a lethal combination. Symonds had words to share - Yusuf said later - Gilchrist attacked with a slip and a silly point. Yusuf sent his first legitimate ball sailing over long-off. Ojha finished the over without further punishment and the time was ripe for Gilchrist to bring on a quicker man and test Yusuf against the short ball. (Precious few teams are doing that this IPL). However, his only options were Chaminda Vaas and RP Singh and so he persisted with the slower bowlers. Ojha disappeared for two fours and a six in his next over and Yusuf had begun to run away with the game.

Lessons for future Rajasthan opponents: It may not be the wisest move to sledge Yusuf, and it’s definitely not the wisest to give him slow bowling at the start of his innings.

Adam Gilchrist: nine sixes in IPL 3, and 57 in all IPL matches © AP

They’ve been the most prolific six-hitters in the first two seasons of the IPL, and they’re at it in season three as well. Deccan Chargers have played only four matches so far – the lowest of all teams – but they’ve already racked up 28 sixes, an average of seven per match. Given that they’re also pretty high up on the points table, Deccan are well on course to smash the 100-sixes barrier that no team has managed to so far (though Deccan managed 99 last year). An entry into the semi-finals would guarantee them 16 matches, and at the current average they’ll go up to 112 by then.

KSCA Stadium, Bangalore, Thursday afternoon. Rudi Koertzen is standing at the bowler’s end as Anil Kumble sets his field and Virender Sehwag and David Warner get into batting mode. Suddenly Koertzen’s voice booms out across the stadium and out into a million living rooms. Batsmen are you ready? Captain (turning towards Kumble) are you ready? Brian Jerling, are you ready? (This directed at the square-leg umpire). Scorers are you ready? Ladies and gentlemen of Bengaluru, are you ready? Then let’s play.

Apart from a nod to the rarely mentioned tribe of scorers, the guys who man cricket’s engine-room, this was largely gratuitous - the business part of it could have been delivered without the mic - and, well, unbecoming of Koertzen, one day short of his 61st birthday. Umpires have to deal with enough blows to their credibility; do they really need to be made to feel more like chumps?

Spot of the day: Sachin Tendulkar has a strike-rate of 155.75 after four matches this season despite not having hit a single six. He’s hit plenty of fours though – 28 in his aggregate of 176 – piercing fields with surgical precision using wristy flicks, delicate cuts and steers, and orthodox drives. In the process, he’s showed everyone that you don’t have to thump it in Twenty20.

A report in the Independent says the English Premier League has sold its overseas rights for 2010-2013 for approximately $2.1 billion. That’s good news and bad news for the IPL. The bad news of course is that its own TV deal with Sony and the World Sports Group is dwarfed in comparison - approximately Rs 8200 crores (US$1.62 billion) for nine years vs $4.7 billion for three years (including the domestic rights). That sort of puts the IPL in context - but it’s also good news for Lalit Modi and his fledgling league because it gives them something to aim for as they go about smashing revenue records. The EPL, the established brand in roughly the same market, is clearly in Modi's sights.

The really good news for the IPL came from Brand Finance, the global brand valuation firm, which valued the league at $4.13 billion, more than double what it was in 2009. That is still some distance behind the EPL – $12 billion – but Modi will take heart from Brand Finance’s assessment that it has the potential to grow further. The EPL, of course, will have something to say on that.

The touchstone of a great Test batsman has generally been an average of 50; there are fewer than four dozen players in that elite group. When it comes to ODIs, the club gets even more exclusive – only a handful of players have a mean above 50, illustrating that averages reduce with the format.

Which makes it all the more remarkable that five more runs for Matthew Hayden before his dismissal against the Royal Challengers Bangalore on Tuesday would have taken his career Twenty20 average beyond the magic mark of 50. This, from an opener (with fewer chances for an average inflated by not outs) and in a format that demands more risk-taking in batting and little scope to see out bowlers as in the longer forms.

In the absence of the injured MS Dhoni, the Chennai Super Kings have been derided for their over-reliance on Hayden, but if a team must place its faith in one batsman in Twenty20s, it could do far worse than Hayden, who has only two single-digit scores in his past 23 innings.

The makers of the much-hyped Mongoose bat are probably thinking they have zeroed in on the perfect front-man for their product, the contrast between the hulking Hayden and the tiny bat adding to the exoticism. But this is not a man who needs the Mongoose: facing a 151.8kmh thunderbolt from Dale Steyn on a bouncy pitch at the Chinnaswamy, Hayden (using a regular bat) nonchalantly took a couple of paces down the track and cracked the ball through cover for four. Now if his opening partner, the comparatively tiny Parthiv Patel, is given the new bat, and he starts blasting the ball out of the park…well, that’s the time to buy a Mongoose.

Is Shane Warne the IPL’s luckiest captain this season? Not in terms of matches won – Rajasthan Royals have one win heading into their fifth game on Wednesday – but by occupying once of the four precious overseas slots despite underperforming. He’s taken only one wicket in four games, and his average of 90 is the second worst in the tournament, after his team-mate Shaun Tait’s 101 per wicket. Warne’s economy-rate of 6.92 per over isn’t bad at all, but in two games Rajasthan were defending low totals so teams didn’t need to attack him. He bowled economically in the victory against Kolkata Knight Riders but a team would expect more than 0 for 27 from one of their overseas players.

Figures apart, Warne’s bowling is perhaps at the flattest it’s been. The legbreaks aren’t fizzing out of the hand and ripping off the pitch; the flight, dip and guile that tormented Daryl Cullinan and Englishmen has rarely been on show; and his pace has been slower. Saurabh Tiwary toyed with Warne in the first game and, though his performance against Kolkata was an improvement, Rajasthan need more from their captain than just economy and inspirational Tweets.

Injuries and curious selection have resulted in thin overseas options for Rajasthan though. Graeme Smith and Dimitri Mascarenhas have left, Shane Watson hasn’t arrived, Damien Martyn and Michael Lumb have left the fans cold. And so Warne is among Rajasthan’s best four foreigners. It’s unlikely he’d have made the XI for Bangalore though. Or even for Mumbai, Delhi or Kolkata.

The markers have been laid down for the next player auction. Subroto Roy, whose Sahara group has just won the rights to the Pune franchise, has said he would like Sachin Tendulkar to captain his team - “if he is available.” You wouldn’t expect the qualification from someone who’s used to getting what he wants but in this case, of course, Roy is up against Mukesh Ambani, only the world’s fourth-richest man. There will be other battles – Kochi vs Punjab for Sreesanth (or maybe not!) – but the battle to sign up SRT will spice up what already looks like an intriguing auction. Just as well, then, that the salary cap has been raised to $7 million.

Notes from the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore.

1. The pitch is a beauty. It gives the lie to excuses that India can’t produce tracks with pace and bounce. Dale Steyn’s opening overs were electrifying. Albie Morkel got the ball to zip and even Sudeep Tyagi made a few fly. Chennai batted poorly so the game became a mismatch, but ten times out of ten, I would take a pitch that tests the batsmen, even in Twenty20. If India want to stay at the top to the Test table, their young batsmen need to bat on pitches like this.

2. Matthew Hayden and the Mongoose are the most incongruous sight in cricket. It makes him look like he's batting with his son’s bat. In fact, when he is walking with it, the bat looks like a little child holding his fingers. He did play one pull with it against Jacques Kallis, but I was keen to see if he’d keep it on if Steyn came back into the attack. But he ran himself out.