Indian Premier League (IPL)

[Atithee]

Prasen—sure, that’s one way to look at it.

[Sin Hombre]

Agree w prasen.

We should be looking to expand the IPL when the next tv rights come up, go to 12 teams, maybe give a team to Colombo. Expand to 16 in a decade and slowly have Nepal and Afghans (with Noida as the base) have a team as well.

[Sin Hombre]

So Rahul's innings from earlier? Selfish or not?

[prasen9]

Today? Selfish, imho. Or, if I do not want to assign motive, too cautious.

[prasen9]

So the leaderboard remains pretty similar.

Batting (qual: 155 runs)

Dhoni 107/127, Rahul 79.25/132, Sarfaraz 55/127, Uthappa 46/138, Iyer 35.83/123, Pant 35.2/173, Kohli 33.83/126, Rana 33.8/155.

This shows how hard it is to score big runs *AND* hit at a good rate. The only successes have been Pant and Rana. Uthappa did okay. The rest scored but slowly.

Among the high-SR people, we have apart from Rana and Pant, Samson, Mandeep, PP Shaw. The last three have not scored very many runs or have not averaged 30.

Among the bowlers:

Bhajji 11.71/5.12, Gopal 16.62/6.65, Chahar 17/6.29, Chahal 18.33/6.87, Jadeja 18.85/5.5, Sandeep 20.62/7.22, Shami 26.44/8.5, Ashwin 26.5/7.64.

Shami has taken wickets but got hit. He does bowl a lot at the end though. Don't know what Chahar is smoking these days. Need to dope test him. Maybe he is smoking small-sample-size-charm. Sandeep has been consistent.

The leggies keep taking wickets and Jaddu and Ashwin are doing fine.

[Atithee]

In my mind, the only certainty based on this data is that Jadeja should play in Indian team every time. Prasen, can you do an all-rounder composite ranking of some kind? We need bowlers who can bat or vice-versa. Who are the leading candidates?

[PKBasu]

Shubman Gill finally got to open, and he showed his worth with 65 off 39 balls against a quality bowling attack comprising Rabada, Ishant and Morris.

[Sin Hombre]

KKR lost because Uthappa and Rana batted very selfishly.

Jadeja also has an advantage over other spinners by bowling on the dreadful Chennai pitch.

In general, the umpiring in this year's IPL has been terrible. A lot of fixing theories floating around.

[prasen9]

Atithee, allrounders have not batted regularly because they bat down the order. After a few more matches, I will try to create an all-rounder stat index. Right now, there are not many who have done something with both bat and ball. The usual suspects Hardik and Jadeja are the ones near the top, I would guess.

Batting leads (132 runs qual):

Dhoni 107/127, Rahul 67/131, Sarfaraz 45/126, Samson 44.25/145, Uthappa 42.2/130, Dhawan 41.5/128, Kohli 38.57/126, Pandya 37.25/184, Pant 37/167.

Pandya, Pant have been the biggest hitters. Samson has done well too. The rest slow.

[prasen9]

So, on the bowling side:

Leaders (qual: 7 wickets)

Harbhajan 11.71/5.12, Chahal 17.3/7.03, Gopal 19.25/6.41, D. Chahar 20.6/6.64, Sandeep 24.37/7.26, Jadeja 25.85/6.46, Bumrah 26.12/6.81, R. Ashwin 27.11/7.62.

Two offies, two leggies, one left-arm spinner, two trundlers and one world-class pacer. Interestingly, only Shreyas Gopal has not played for India.

So Sarfaraz and Gopal are the new guys (qual: scored some runs and taken some wickets respectively).

[prasen9]

Given that a number of matches have gone by, there is not much movement.

Qual (180 runs):
Dhoni 77/127, Rahul 64.5/128, Pandya 47/192, Sarfaraz 45/126, Samson 41/143, Dhawan 37/127, Uthappa 35/129, Pant 35/161.

Pandya and Pant have batted fast. Samson medium-fast. The rest have regressed to around 127.

[prasen9]

Slight movement among the leaders.

Qual ( runs): Dhoni 77/127, Rahul 57/129, Sarfaraz 45/126, Kohli 42/135, Rana 41/155, Pandya 40/190, Dhawan 39/131, Iyer 36/118.

Hardik has been in a class of his own. Rana has batted well and should be the #3 instead of Gill or whoever. And, Russell should be #4 for KKR. Then the rest of the crap can come.

Interesting to see Kohli and Dhawan picking up the pace a bit. And, Iyer going the other way!

Bowing (qual: 7 wickets): Bhajji 12/5.1, R Chahar 19/6.7, Gopal 21/6.4, Chahal 21/7.7, D. Chahar 22/7, Bumrah 23/6.4, Ashwin 27/7.5, Shami 27/8.7.

Yet another leggie doing well. Now we have the young Rahul Chahar, who has played India A join his cousin ex-India player Deepak Chahar in the leaderboard. Rahul and Gopal have been the bowling finds who will compete with Chahal for limited overs chances.

[PKBasu]

Varun Aaron (2/20) was Man of the Match for the winning Rajasthan Royals, although KKR's Piyush Chawla had better bowling figures (3/20).

[prasen9]

KKR is weird. Their strength is their spinners. But, the Eden pitch is fast! They should play Gurney, and three spinners. Kuldeep, Chawla, and Narine. Fifth bowler Rana + Russell. Bring back Uthappa and bat fast and long. Instead, we are hamstrung with stupid and stupider coach and captain.

In this IPL, almost never has a losing team player been given a MoM even if they performed better. I have seen this happen many times.

[PKBasu]

It's interesting that Piyush Chawla is now being picked ahead of Kuldeep Yadav for KKR, but is nowhere near contention for Team India in any form of the game -- while Kuldeep is a near-certainty in all three formats. Ashwin also putting his hand up for the shorter versions of the game.