Saturday, April 16, 2011

IPL 4: Unearthing Unknown Indian Heroes

One week into the IPL edition IV and it has been nothing less than exciting. Some of the matches & performances have been amazing to say the least. The IPL IV got to a fairy tale start, an amazing 1st match between CSK and KKR; the match which went down to the wire and provided the perfect start to the season.
Many thought that IPL won’t get viewership after the long WC, but on the contrary the WC win has increased the interest in the game and the viewership has been high, in fact it is believed that the opening ceremony and the opening match had better TRP’s compared to the previous 3 editions. All urges well for IPL, almost all high profile cricketers playing barring a few Australians and West Indians, some exciting matches and to match with it some amazing individual performances.
Honestly speaking, in the previous 3 editions of IPL, barring Yusuf Pathan, we didn’t witness any match winning performanaces from the Indian domestic players. But this time the story seems to be changing, in 1st week itself we have seen some amazing performances by less known players.
Paul Valthaty has been the 1st to catch eye of every one this IPL by scoring the 1st century of this IPL edition. Not much was known about him before the 126 not out against CSK has made him almost an house hold name. The most important thing about that innings for me was that he didn’t give it away after making a 100 he made sure that his team won the match and he stayed there till he guided his team to the 1st win of IPL IV. And now building upon his previous innings has just now given an all round performance against the Deccan Chargers to show that he is more than a one match wonder. The 2nd performance which took every by surprise was the innings by Bharat Chipli of DC against RCB, it was a very confident innings, he played superbly throughout the innings, again he didn’t give it away in middle he was there till the end of the innings which lead the DC to a good score and which helped them register their first win. Then there has been other match winning performances by players like Mohnish Mishra of PWI against KTK, his 31 not out was a knockout punch for KTK.
The performance of a player which most heartening to see is that of Ambati Rayudu. He has been nothing less than brilliant so far in this tournament. He has always been a very talented batsmen but just lost his way by getting associated with the rebel league ICL, but he is back since IPL 3 and has been back with a bang. The best thing for Rayudu has been that he has been given the guiding light by none other than the legend Sachin Tendulkar. Rayudu’s performance so far is creating a gap between himself and the other talented Mumbai batsmen Rohit Sharma.
Other than this, amazing performances so far there has been – briliant knocks by the old war horse Jacques Kallis with 3consectuive 50s, Sachin Tendulkar who is yet not dismissed in this tournament so far with 1 Century and 1 half century, Gautam Gambhir has been a valuable addition for KKR this year. We all hope this IPL gives us a brilliant match winning player who can serve the country for long time to come.
Ricky Singh for DieHard Cricket Fans

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