Bitter for Kumble, sweet for Gilchrist
Anil Kumble's forlorn walk back to the pavilion was in contrast to the scenes after bowling his counterpart Adam Gilchrist in the first over of the game
Indeed, the topsy-turvy nature of sport serves as a microcosm of life itself. The lesson in this -- for players, franchise owners, all of us -- is that success and failure are transitory, but hope must be eternal.
If the ability to market a sports tournament is usually a science, then the IPL and its South African partners raised it to art. The people saw IPL, they heard IPL and they read IPL - and they bought tickets and came to the IPL. Crowd figures exceeded all expectations and then exceeded all pre-tournament hopes, too.
This season we decided to bring in a couple of extra hitters, but more importantly, all of us from last year had evolved more in terms of the Twenty20 game. There was more experience, individuals were more aware of the possibilities of what could be done in a short time. Naturally, the results were better and we ensured that no one could have any complaints of us as a team.
According to a report by equity research firm IIFL, Team Jaipur will make the highest profit of Rs 35.1 crore in the group matches of the second edition of the tournament. Jaipur had also made the second-highest profit of Rs 14.50 crore in 2008, including the Rs 4.50 crore ($1 million) prize money. Knight Riders, which finished lowest in the league table during the qualifying round in South Africa, will nevertheless end up with the third-highest profit of Rs 25.8 crore in the second edition of IPL.
Kanishkaa Balachandran is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo