IPL 2018 Report Card: How the teams have fared so far
With the Indian Premier League 2018 season well and truly underway, I am finding it hard to set the teams apart at this stage. It's been an extraordinary tournament so far with so many teams amassing 200+ scores and with a lot of hard-fought encounters taking place.
However, with almost every team having played four matches each, I have noted down a few points about each team and made a few predictions as well.
One thing I can say for sure is that it's going to be an exciting and closely-fought season. I feel that the playoff spots are not going to be confirmed until the last day and six teams will be fighting it out for the top 4 slots.
Here are my predictions:
Clear-cut favourites for top 2:
Chennai Super Kings
The way I see it, I divide a T20 game into four quarters. The first 10 overs being divided into two-quarters of six and four overs each and the last 10 overs being divided into two-quarters of six and four overs each as well.
According to me, CSK are the masters of the last quarter. This can be seen in all their matches. They are able to close out the last quarter every time, with the previous match being an exception. They pace themselves well throughout the innings and perform particularly well in the last quarter. It's like they have a blueprint before the match starts.
The balance that CSK have, especially in their death bowling, is also great. MS Dhoni’s expertise is the distinctive intelligence he brings to an event like this.
He is able to juggle his bowlers the right way and has shown his intelligence time and again.
However, the faith shown in Jadeja over Bravo is questionable, but don't be surprised to see Jadeja’s familiar finishing skills back in full throttle soon.
Sunrisers Hyderabad
Sunrisers' strength has been their fielding and bowling. They are superb on the field and their fielders have been like live wires.
In the bowling department, their knuckleballs have made the difference. In T20 cricket, there is a huge demand for those types of deliveries nowadays. The way fast bowlers are able to mix their quick deliveries with a knuckleball or two reminds me of baseball, where they pitch a fast delivery followed by a curved one. Usually, a team relies on their bowlers for executing yorkers perfectly, but in SRH, we see the focus is on knuckleballs.
Their team management believe in having the best bowling unit in the tournament and they have had the same philosophy over the past few years.
All their bowlers have been able to execute them. Even when Sandeep Sharma was brought in for Bhuvi, he executed the knuckle balls perfectly.
Their batting has been commendable as well. I was wondering how Shikhar Dhawan would cope without David Warner but he has performed really well at the top of the order.
The only problem they have is in their middle order, which is not very exciting; they have a few batsmen like Deepak Hooda and Yusuf Pathan who can smash the ball but they need someone who can stick around as well.
Overall, they look like a very polished unit. Out of three departments, two are very good. The overall balance of the team is excellent and they look like one of the favourites as of now.