Hello Cricket Lovers,
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Indian Premier League T20 Cricket is at full swing with even double header matches also played over the weekend to give more feast to Cricket lovers all around the World.
I would like to review the matches played so far by each of the 8 teams and how they fare as they near the halfway mark.
1. Royal Challengers Bangalore:
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Royal Challengers Bangalore are one of the unluckiest teams in the IPL over the years as they always hire cricketers who made BIG names, but somehow, they haven't capitalized to win a trophy in these 13 years BUT they have started this year's IPL with some positive outcomes and have won 3 of the 5 matches played so far with matches against Chennai Super Kings and Kolkata Knight Riders remaining to be played in the First leg of this 2 leg tournament.
They started off positively winning their First match against Sunrisers Hyderabad, but lost second one to Kings XI Punjab with some silly catches getting dropped.
But they bounced back winning their next 2 against Mumbai Indians and Rajasthan Royals before losing their next match played couple of days ago against spirited Delhi Capitals
The decision to field first after winning the toss against Delhi Capitals is still debatable considering the matches are being won by the teams batting first.
Players who performed well:
Young Devdutt Padikkal has scored 3 Fifties so far out of the 5 matches and RCB has won all those 3 matches.
Other players who did well so far are AB De Villiers and likes of Aaron Finch and Virat Kohli have played well in patches, but it's good to see captain Kohli among some runs after 3 back to back poor performances from him in the first 3 matches they played.
Among the bowlers, Yuzvendra Chahal, Navdeep Saini and Washington Sundar have fared well with Washington Sundar being the more economical of them all, but more is expected from guys like Isuru Udana, Adam Zampa and more expensive Umesh Yadav and Dale Steyn.
2. Chennai Super Kings:
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Chennai Super Kings started well by beating defending champions Mumbai Indians, but after that, lost 3 back to back matches to Rajasthan Royals, Delhi Capitals and Sunrisers Hyderabad.
But, they came back strongly in their last match against Kings XI Punjab by winning by 10 wickets chasing a target of 179 for the win.
CSK's poor start and middle order woes are still a bit of concern, but they are known to bounce back and done so in last match as well.
Players who performed well:
Ambati Rayudu started well in the first match, but got injured. Faf Du Plessis and allrounder Sam Curran have done well in batting and there glimpses of batting from captain MS Dhoni, Shane Watson, but others are yet to show some brilliance.
Among the bowlers, Depak Chahar and Sam Curran have been good and a lot is expected from the likes of Ravindra Jadeja, Dwayne Bravo and Piyush Chawla
3. Delhi Capitals:
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Delhi Capitals is the team which is calling all the shots with it's combined young and experienced players.
They have won 4 of their 5 matches played so far winning against Kings XI Punajb(a tied match won in Super Over), Chennai Super Kings, Kolkata Knight Riders and recently against Royal Challengers Bangalore.
Their only loss came against Sunrisers Hyderabad against some spirited bowling from Hyderabad spinners.
Players who performed well:
Lead by their captain Shreyas Iyer, other DC batsmen like Rishabh Pant, Marcus Stoinis and openers Prithvi Shaw and Shikhar Dhawan have played well and have risen to the occasion.
As for as their bowling is concerned, their spinners Amit Mishra and Akshar Patel and their fast bowlers Kagiso Rabada A Nortje and allrouder Marcus Stoinis have displayed disciplined performance and their bowling is one of the best in this edition of IPL.
Overall, Delhi Capitals seems to be one of the teams to move into play-offs with a allround show so far.
4. Sunrisers Hyderabad:
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Sunrisers Hyderabad started off slowly losing their opening match against RCB, a match which they should have won hadn't they lost their last 8 wickets for 30+ runs.
They lost their second match against Kolkata Knight Riders as well before they cam back to win the Third encounter of this season against the team we discussed above, i.e. Delhi Capitals, their only loss.
They had mixed results in their next 2 matches with winning against Chennai Super Kings but losing out their last encounter against Mumbai Indians.
Players who performed well:
Three players who stood out for SRH with their batting are their openers David Warner, Johnny Bairstow and their number three batsman Manish Pandey with others like Kane Williamson, Priyam Garg supporting them.
Although they lost the services of Bhuvneshwar Kumar recently and Mitchell Marsh in the first match itself, their bowling unit looks still strong with Rashid Khan, T Natarajan, Abdul Samad and others are chipping in when required.
5. Kolkata Knight Riders:
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Kolkata Knight Riders started with a loss in their first match against Mumbai Indians but scored a win in low scoring match against Sunrisers Hyderabad.
They had mixed results in their next 2 matches with a win against Rajasthan Royals but losing out against Delhi Capitals in high scoring match with Delhi posting highest score in this tournament with 228 runs.
They are the only team to have played just 4 games and are playing their Fifth match against Chennai Super Kings today.
Players who performed well:
Opener Shubman Gill is their highest scorer with others like Eoin Morgan, Nitish Rana have supported him.
But, it was the makeshift second opener Sunil Narine, Andre Russell and captain Dinesh Karthik who are yet to find some form and if they do, then their batting will be as explosive as in previous editions.
Their bowling revolves around young pacers like Shivam Mavi, Kamlesh Nagarkoti along with Pat Cummins, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarti and they have done fairly so far in this long tournament.
6. Mumbai Indians:
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Mumbai Indians are known as slow starters since they have lost opening matches in most of the previous editions and they did the same in this edition as well when they lost the First match of this edition to Chennai Super Kings.
But, they came back stronger after that with a win against Kolkata Knight Riders and had almost won the next one against Royal Challengers Bangalore but faltered in the final over to take the match into Super over where they lost it comfortably after scoring just 7 runs.
There is no turning back after that as they have won the 2 matches they played against Kings XI Punjab and Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Players who performed well:
Lead by captain Rohit Sharma, Mumbai have many match winners who can win them the matches single handedly.
Besides captain, there are guys like Kieron Pollard, Surya Kumar Yadav, Quinton De Cock, Ishan Kishan, Hardik Pandy oh yeah, they all can turn the match in a few balls.
Defending Champions have also nice bowling unit in Jasprit Bumrah, Trent Boult, James Pattinson, Pandya brothers and even Rahul Chahar complement each other and is a formidable unit.
7. Rajasthan Royals:
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Rajasthan Royals started with a bang with useful 70+ score from 30+ balls from Sanju Samson in their first match against Chennai Super Kings and cintinued even more improved performance in their next match against Kings XI Punjab chasing down 224 and Sanju Samson along with Steve Smith and Rahul Tewatia played their part in that win.
But, after that, it's all been losses for them against Kolkata Knight Riders, Royal Challengers Bangalore and Mumbai Indians.
It's apparent that, they depend too much on Sanju Samson and Steve Smith as other batsmen are yet to hit form.
But, Jos Buttler played an aggressive knock against Mumbai and with return of Ben Stokes, they will be hoping for improved performance.
Players who performed well:
Apart from Sanju Samson and Steve Smith, Jos Buttler, Rahul Tewatia and Tom Curran have batted well, but not consistently.
Their bowling has been good with Jofra Archer, Shreyas Gopal, Tom Curran among the wickets. But, what hurts them more is their opening bowler Jaydev Unadkat is not among the wickets and have been leaking runs.
8. Kings XI Punjab:
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Kings XI Punjab's over dependency on their openers is very visible and whenever Kl Rahul and Mayank Agarwal played well, they have put up good total.
Even with both openers performing well, they weren't able to close the games because of their weak bowling.
They lost the first match against ** Delhi Capitals** from a winning position after taking the match to Super Over and then had their only win so far against Royal Challengers Bangalore courtesy of few dropped catches by RCB players.
Barring that win, all other matches against Rajasthan Royals, Mumbai Indians and Chennai Superkings have all been lost.
Players who performed well:
KL Rahul and Mayank Agarwal are among the top 3 run scorers, but remaining batsmen haven't done justice to their bidding with the likes of Nicolas Pooran, Glenn Maxwell, James Nisham, Sarfraz Khan not scoring that well in middle order has been a drawback for KXIP.
Mohammad Shami and Sheldon Cottrell are among the wickets and their main bowlers and likes of Ravi Bishnoi, Chris Jordan and M Ashwin have shown promise, but not consistent.
Teams are moving up and down in the points table with each match getting completed and the table looks as below after today's match between Kolkata Knight Riders and Chennai Super Kings.
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We have exciting battles coming up in the remaining matches in First leg and the competition for Top 4 has already begun and teams like Delhi Capitals, Mumbai Indians, Kolkata Knight Riders and Royal Challengers Bangalore are among Top 4, but others like CSK, RR and SRH and even KXIP can make it there with couple of wins.
Thanks for reading, I am writing off :)
Wishing you all Happy Thursday in advance :)
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