The Spectator

The big final tomorrow concludes what has been a long-long tournament. Most of the 76 matches have been intriguing, offering something new if you happen to be a curious follower. ‘Off-field’ news kept the cynics and detractors busy, yet it wouldn’t be great idea to ignore or remain unperturbed with all these avoidable developments. It could be incidental but each and every edition of the IPL has had these aspects associated with it - close games, exceptional individual performances and celeb controversies; IPL-5 wasn’t an exception. There could different ways to look back upon what we have witnessed this season; the performances with context to the T20 WC later this year has been chosen here. Those in awe of Chris Gayle’s onslaught or Sunil Narine’s foxy spells or Dwayne Bravo’s clinical finishes would for one moment or the other predicted a strong West Indian side for the WC. Addition of Dwayne Smith, Kemar Roach, Kerion Pollard and Marlon Samuels to the above names proposes a

Saturday evening game, ambient weather, pre-tournament hyped match-up (Dada vs KKR) is what KKR vs PWI had to offer in game number 70 of the IPL. But as IPL-5 has turned out, this match was no more than for academic interest; for the position on the table for either side wouldn’t be affected with the result. 8 consecutive losses isn’t the proposition you would want before you venture out to watch and support your team! Yet there were 45000 seats that were occupied at the Subrata Roy Sahara Stadium yesterday; an indicator that team form and results are invariant of crowd support at ‘smaller’ venues. Pune doesn’t have an identity on the cricket globe as of now; neither a big player who has represented India for a long time nor any national academy or a famous cricket centre. But what it surely has is a horde of ‘live-action-hungry’ people! The day Sahara bought the Pune franchisee, facebook statuses and tweets from ‘Punekars’ conveyed the sentiment of anticipation of being a part

We are about to enter the ‘business’ end of what has been a pretty long IPL season. The way things stand at the moment suggest a photo-finish to the league stages with 7 teams in the race to make it to the last 4. It is this feature of the IPL which makes it so likeable - the element of uncertainty till the end! While the fortunes have fluctuated for a couple of sides, others have been able to maintain consistency with respect to wins; almost an unreal feature in T20 cricket! There is one team though which has been quite thus far but could script another exceptional turn-around - Chennai Super Kings (CSK)! Despite an indifferent start, the men in yellow find themselves with a very good chance to make it to the last 4. Unlike previous editions CSK haven’t had a settled & an in-form batting line-up. Chennai’s average total this season has been 139.42 suggesting an under-par effort from the powerful unit. Murali Vijay could do no wrong last year but has been struggling to find