Bangalore's stunning opening act

Jacques Kallis has been instrumental in completely changing the fortunes of Bangalore's opening combination in IPL 2010 © Getty Images

Beginning with this one, this blog will feature regular stats nuggets from a tournament that can be a number man's delight. This one is on the table leaders.

The biggest difference between the Bangalore teams of the first seasons and the 2010 version so far has been the quality of their opening stands. In the first two seasons they couldn’t buy a run; this year, with Jacques Kallis and Manish Pandey doing duties, the opening pair has been so formidable and scored so many runs that the middle order has had very little to do – Rahul Dravid has faced all of 16 deliveries in four matches so far. (That might come back to hurt Bangalore later in the tournament, but that’s another matter.) In fact, the opening pairs have already scored more runs in four games this year than they had in 16 matches in 2009 and in 14 the year before that.

Things were especially bad for Bangalore’s openers in 2008 – so bad, in fact, that they tried 11 different pairs in 14 matches and yet could muster a highest stand of only 37. Just four months after they’d put together 26 in 15.3 overs for the first wicket in the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne, Rahul Dravid and Wasim Jaffer walked out to chase down 223 in 20. It obviously turned out to be a bridge too far, and Bangalore were so unsure of themselves that Jaffer then opened with Bharat Chipli, Virat Kohli, Jacques Kallis and Praveen Kumar. Kallis himself went out with Chipli and Sreevats Goswami, who in turn tried his hand with Mark Boucher. After going through such pain, Bangalore managed an average opening stand of 13.50.

Their start in 2009 was even worse – in their first five matches, their opening stands were 0, 0, 0, 6, 0. Despite two fifty-plus stands later in the tournament, they still finished with an aggregate of 240 runs for the first wicket, at an average of 15 and a strike rate of less than a run a ball. And this after trying out nine different pairs. Kallis tried his hand with six partners - Uthappa, Goswami, Jaffer, Kohli, Ryder and Pandey - which surely must be a record for a single tournament.

All that has changed in 2010, and how. In four matches so far, the openers have already racked up 267 runs, with three half-century stands, which is more than what Bangalore had managed in the first two editions put together. After Kallis and Goswami failed in the first game, Kallis and Pandey have added 74 (in 49 balls), 93 (in 64) and 85 (in 59) in the next three, with Kallis, quite extraordinarily, remaining unbeaten in all four innings. After four games, Bangalore's average opening stand is almost six times what they had managed last year. Those starts have given Bangalore unbelievable launching pads, but I’m waiting to see how Bangalore will cope if one of the two – Kallis, especially – falls early.