Once again, no Pakistani players in IPL and reason is clear that its more political than commercial. No franchise wants to take risk and they probably have inside instructions to stay away or they have just decided this among themselves to boycott neighbors. Overall, it would have been great to have likes of Gul, Afridi and Misbah in IPL as well.
Most Indian players were available, they have to be, after all its BCCI tournament. Not many Aussies, atleast from the 1st XI, they are playing WI, but since Gayle is not , he is playing IPL.
English and Sri Lankan were playing couple of tests but they finished ASAP and joined IPL already, mainly Pieterson and Jayawardane & Sanga, though Stuart Broad missed out and no one wanted Graeme Swan and James Anderson anyway.
Now coming to the matches so far, almost half way to the IPL matches till date, where some teams have played almost 1/3rd of their matches except Deccan Chargers, who have played only 2 so far. looks like they will have busy second half of the IPL, looks like this IPL have reversed the trend.
So far, last year's whipping boys are doing so well, Delhi Daredevils and Rajasthan Royals are in top of the table, also Kings XI Punjab doing well where last year finalists, Chennai super kings and RCB are in bottom half. As usual KKR is in middle, neither here or there, more like nearly there but so far.. Surprise package is Pune Warrior, almost didn't play the IPL 5 as Sahara pulled out just before IPL kick off but like most Indian sporting events, truce was called and Dada was captain again on field. No one
remembers that there is team missing called Kochi, except for people from Kochi.
Among Indian stars, Yuvi is recovering and PWI team seem to playing well under Dada. Good to see stalwarts like Dravid (RR) and Ganguly (PWI) doing well as captain, where Sachin resigned from MI captaincy and left to Harbhajan, this showed the same picture as in international cricket, where Dravid and Ganguly had better success as captain then Tendulkar. It shows that Tendulkar is so focussed on his game that he is ready to play under Bhajji and that's what works for him. It all worked out for MI as Tendulkar is out injured anyway, should return soon. Dravid playing his last tournament before walking into sunset..one way good to sign off with IPL, no pressure of international cricket and can play freely with nothing to prove..
Find of the tournament has been Ajiynka Rahane, with only 100 of IPL 5 so far, some amazing batting and holding Orange cap, where last years blasters like Gayle and Valthaty are subdued, so is Yusuf Pathan. Munaf Patel is back and getting some wickets with his nothing bowling.. glad to see Vinay Kumar being thrashed.. hopefully now he will be out of Indian team. Nothing for Ashwin, Virat , Irfan, Zaheer etc. Rohit played one good innings , with some help from Daniel christian but mostly disappointing.
Lot of time left in tournament but no clear leader so far, for the health of IPL and future of the brand, it will be good to have some new names in top 4. this will keep the competition even. its best when any of 9 teams can win any game.
Personally , I would wish to see following in IPL5
- RR, KKR, PWI and Delhi Daredevils making top 4, they will get tough competition from MI, RCB and CSK.
-DC winning some matches and making it more interesting.
- Rahul Dravid hitting 20 ball 50 to chase off stiff target.
- Dada outthinking other captains, which he already did against MI and showed Bhajji who is the boss.
- More matches with scores less than 150, give something for bowlers and some tricky chases.
- At least 2 matches where more than 200 chased down, likely teams are CSK & RCB, and CSK already done against RCB
-KKR reaching final for the first time and SRK dancing in Stadium, as he promised in IPL 4.
-More last ball finishes, only 3 in first 38 matches so far..
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