India Culture, Business, Sports and Food. Get all the buzz in India now

Now that we are just almost 5 matches short of having a new IPL Champion we have all the statistics available to show us that the second edition of the tournament is a success. There is no doubt about it. Looking at the games played in the past, though some of the games were abandoned by the rains, we can say that a world class cricket was played at the stadiums of South Africa. The IPL management can pat its back for conducting the tournament in time though outside India, and making it such a big success, however if we look at the present and the future it does not look so promising for the game of Cricket in India.  The tournament which is Indian was a success but the players, the Indian players were not.

Looking at the statistics that have come up in this tournament, we will find a few Indians in the table talleys which is not very heartening news. On the batting front, we have no Indian player on the top. Even if we take into consideration the team performance we will find a few Indian with some outstanding positions. In Bangalore Royal Challengers, the batsman with maximum runs is Jacques Kallis, form Chennai Super Kings, it is Mathew Hayden, Adam Gil Christ is from the Deccan Chargers, AB de Villers from Delhi Daredevils, Jean Paul Duminy form Mumbai Indians,  Brad Hodge from Kolkata Knight Riders. The only two exceptions that we have from the Indian squad are Yuvraj Singh of Kings XI Punjab and Ravinder Jadeja from Rajasthan Royals. However, if you compare their scores with all the above mentioned players, you would not find them in first five places. The only player that we have in the first five places is Suresh Raina.

Taking about the best average, we have only MS Dhoni who stands at #4 in the top 5 best averaged batsmen in the tournament. When it comes to hitting maximum sixes the Indian players find their place after #3. Though out of 5 we have 3 players.  We do not have any of our Indian players for in the top five players who have scored fifties. Manpreet Goni from Chennai tops the list of striking rate. It is not necessary for me to tell you what exactly it means for Team India. Other than him there is no other Indian player in top 5 slots.  Only Suresh Raina is there in the top 5 slots for maximum runs in a match who is at 2^nd place out of top 5.

Let’s talk about bowling now. RP Singh is the leading wicket taker in the tournament followed by Ashish Nehra. In fact this is the field where we have only one foreign player at #3 out of top five who happens to be Lasith Malinga of Sri Lanka. For the most economical bowler category we have Anjikya Rahane at #3 in the top 5. In the field of ground Fielding, we have at #2 Dinesh Kartik for taking maximum catches following AB de Villers and in stumping he follows Adam Gilchrist.

There are other statistics as well which require deep plunge before we could come up with some result. I would prefer we should ignore that area. The question that we have in front of us is that is this the performance that we are going to show in the T20 World cup which would start in less than two weeks once IPL finishes?  Are we equipped enough to defend out title of World leaders in T20 format of the game.  The questions are many and the answer that we get looking at the current performance is not every encouraging. Except Suresh Raina, there is no other player in the list of Indian players discussed about who was consistent. Thus the net result that we have after this IPL is that the league is successful  but the Players of India have a lot to do to ensure they return home with the world championship in their hands………..