By: Sandipan Bose
Rising Pune Supergiants were involved in at least five close-fought games in the IPL league stages. Those were the matches, which could have gone either ways.
Still they finished with ten points from 14 league games. If they would have won at least three games out of those five, they could have been playing the play-offs, which gets underway from Tuesday.
All put together, MS Dhoni and his men from Pune lost nine games while the second, third and fourth teams of this year’s IPL points table lost six matches and won eight of them.
Therefore, hinting at the diminishing performance gap between the IPL teams. Of course, there were several seasons in the past when the lineup for the playoffs was decided around the last game of the league phase.
However, the battle for the top four slots had to wait till the last three league games of the competition this year. Which is a rare phenomenon.
As luck would have it, the final standing of the points table was finalised after the last league game of the season between the Royal Challengers Bangalore and Delhi Daredevils was played on Sunday night.
This also proves to show that none of the teams are particularly strong or weak. All of them have their set of strengths and weaknesses. On their days, they are capable of destroying any opposition.
If Gujarat Lions, the table toppers, have the strength of being one of the best allround team, the RCB has the most power-packed batting.
If Sunrisers Hyderabad are the most balances in terms of bowling and batting, the two time IPL champs Kolkata Knight Riders have the best bowling and a plenty of experienced batsmen who can win big matches.
Similarly, the defending champions Mumbai Indians, who have a plenty of depth played good cricket in patches to finish fifth.
Meanwhile, the Delhi Daredevils are supposed to have the best turn-around story of the league when the tournament was halfway through. By the time, the league phase ended, Delhi couldn’t live up to the expectations.
The seventh spot went to batting heavy Pune, who lost their top-order batsmen to sudden injuries – that too one after the other. Lack of allrounders in the middle hurt and toothless bowling adding to the misery.
As far as the Kings XI Punjab are concerned, they also had a decent team and could beat the best side in the competition. Those who took them to the final two years ago were not in their elements for the second time in two years.
But they can always come back strong next year like the any other team in the competition. This is the magic of the IPL and this is how it can get bigger with every season!
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