IPL-5 Little separates top two

MATCH_0.jpg.crop_display.jpg

So here we are. After a whopping 72 matches squeezed in space of seven weeks, it all boils downs to the next few days where endurance and patience will count as much as skill, if not more, for the four sides who’ve made it to the play-offs.

The is the stage where teams starts to creak and groan under the weight of the cricket they’re playing, and one slip as a result of it, can cost them nearly two months of hard work.

Delhi Daredevils and Kolkata Knight Riders will therefore take some solace from the fact that they’ll still have another chance to make it to the final, even if they fluff up in the first qualifier here on Tuesday.

Delhi and Kolkata finished the league phase placed number one and two respectively in the points table, and if either of the side lose here, they’ll have to make an early trip to Chennai to play the winner of the Chennai Super Kings—Mumbai Indians face-off in the second qualifier.

Neither of them will prefer to take the long route, especially Virender Sehwag’s men. They’ve lost only five matches this season —one of which to the Knight Riders —and have been invincible during certain phases of the tournament.

The reason behind their consistent run this season has been their reduced dependence on Sehwag, who had earlier been the only performing bat.

While he expectedly leads the batting chart for his side with 484 runs from 14 matches, there have been supplementary efforts from Kevin Pietersen (305 runs, 8 matches), David Warner (246, 6 matches) and Mahela Jaywardene (240, 14 matches).

The fact that Warner is still relatively fresh and that Sehwag will make a come back after a week-long break could be their biggest advantage.

In contrast, the Kolkata Knight Riders’ batting has been a one-man show, with Gautam Gambhir making six fifties thus far while the rest of his teammates have put together just three.

But other batsmen’s poor show has been made up by the 23-year-old Trinidadian offie Sunil Narine, who has rarely been picked by any batsmen.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/153850" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: &lt;a&gt; &lt;em&gt; &lt;strong&gt; &lt;cite&gt; &lt;code&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;ol&gt; &lt;li&gt; &lt;dl&gt; &lt;dt&gt; &lt;dd&gt;</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-aef0d0e3b8f2e64fb75c1348a9716aea" value="form-aef0d0e3b8f2e64fb75c1348a9716aea" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="80052361" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

I want to begin with a little story that was told to me by a leading executive at Aptech. He was exercising in a gym with a lot of younger people.

Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen didn’t make the cut. Neither did Shaji Karun’s Piravi, which bagged 31 international awards.