Rain-shortened games are helping teams with more bowling options

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!