IPL 6: Money isn't everything

Your coffers are full and you can chase and buy any player of your choice. You can pick a pool so big that on paper, your benchwarmers look like a world-beaters. You should win every match by default then, right? Wrong. It hasn’t gone that way, be it league basketball, baseball, football and now cricket. Yesterday was a good day for IPL. The day proved it wasn’t as much about money as it was about efficiency, planning and, finally, performance on the field. On paper, the Pune Warriors squad is full of stars. The Sunrisers Hyderabad, barring Dale Steyn, looks like a team that has been put up at the last minute with the leftovers from other franchises. Their foreign players, Sangakkara and Cameron White, are nowhere as good as the foreign players some of the other teams boast about. At best, for the sake of being appreciative, you can call them good, not scintillating or consistently match-winning. But the Sunrisers are at No.3. One wonders what Tom Moody brings to the party, which has transformed the wooden spoon contenders into top-half contenders.

The Sunrisers have impressed one and all this season

Focus the camera now on Rajasthan Royals. Rahul Dravid did exactly what Ricky Ponting and Sachin Tendulkar have failed to do. Be flexible. Rahul Dravid realised the need to keep the tempo up after Ajinkya Rahane and Shane Watson gave them a solid start. He is one of the few gentlemen left in the game; a selfless player who has always put the team ahead of him, whether it meant opening the innings in fiery conditions or donning the keeper’s gloves. Yesterday, as he kept dropping himself further down the order, he knew he would be accused of shying away. But this is not the time to panic about public opinion. At best, public opinion is flirtatious; at worst, it is needlessly spiteful. The results will always speak for themselves and Dravid finds his team right at the top of the pile. It is just a third of the actual action and many have slipped from the same point of vantage in the past. Nevertheless, making it above Royal Challengers Bangalore, Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings, who incredibly are languishing in the bottom-half, is miraculous. Staying ahead of these behemoths even if it is just 2 weeks into the IPL is no mean achievement.

The Mumbai Indians team lost by more than 80 runs yesterday. If you are willing to put that into perspective, one could equate it to an innings defeat in Test matches. The Sunrisers’ win was a closer one. In both legs of their tussle with Pune Warriors India, they have defended small totals thanks largely to Pune’s strong batting line-up not turning up. It will leave Allan Donald with a very bad taste in the mouth. Fast bowlers can never get used to humiliation as they are usually on the end that dishes out humiliation. He has a good squad, but it doesn’t fire. It is like owning a Mercedes that refuses to start. You can ask for a refund or exchange with commodities, not so much with men, especially if they are stars, including Sri Lanka’s captain, New Zealand’s ex-captain and two U-19 World Cup winning captains, one of whom went on to win Man of the Tournament in the 50 over World Cup’s latest edition.

Mumbai Indians aren’t as brittle as Pune Warriors. Yet, they resemble the Indian team of 90s a lot – consistent failures at the top, a couple of workhorses and an unpredictable bowling line-up. Twice in this competition, they have let the opposition inflict heavy damage in the last few overs. Johnson, who looked godly against Pune Warriors a few days back with fast in-swingers uprooting stumps, looked pedestrian against two batsman, one of whom had retired ages ago. The obvious weak link that one can point out is Mumbai’s opening combination. They have crossed the 50 mark just once, courtesy the munificence of Ashok Dinda. Even Pune Warriors fare better with Aaron Finch already firing in two matches at the top. For a team to win, it is imperative to have at least one bowler who fires more often than not; a bowler who is economical, if not tearaway, and two batsmen who score consistently. Mumbai Indians can only look at Karthik at the moment to score runs. Rohit Sharma, at best, has a 50-50 rate of success and one can rarely guess which one turns up on the occasion of the match. Ambati Rayudu, who looks flamboyantly solid, hardly has had a hit in the middle until he found himself walking in yesterday with the match far out of reach. Ponting needs to do a Dravid and deep inside, he should know it too. Promoting Karthik or even Rayudu to open will give Mumbai some tempo at the top; and based on how the start turns out, Ponting and Sharma can be juggled.

The ‘Pondulkar’ conondrum: Will these two legends fire at any time in the tournament?

Unlike Mumbai’s glaring strategic blunders, Pune’s problem is more to do with the temperament than with batting order or with strategy. If they could give Chennai a bashing, they are good enough to beat Sunrisers; except, their batsmen simply don’t look motivated enough. Amit Mishra is a very good leg-spinner and, on his day, is difficult to contend with. Dale Steyn is in a class of his own. That still leaves 12 overs to chase a paltry total. They have failed twice in doing so. An outsider can look at the team and spot the absence of a batting leader, someone who can take responsibility and have others rallying around him. Not one batsman, barring Finch and probably Smith at No.4, seems aware of his role in the team. Uthappa, Yuvraj and Pandey, three good Indian players, are finding it hard to get going. Angelo Matthews, whose game is precisely built to deal with a crisis, isn’t finding his mojo. The national team probably brings out zeal in him that league cricket still isn’t able to tap.

At the end of this season, there will be a mega auction with most players back in the pool. Some would bet on big names, some would risk it all for players who have potential. However, after 6 years, the least we could expect from mega-personality-managed franchises is some sanity when it comes to buying players who could fit into the required roles in a particular team. KKR did it well in the second auction by singling out Gambhir as the captain and opener and going after him all the way. He had a role cut out for him. There is no point picking players individually. The best teams are those which are picked with players that fall into slots and don’t walk in as individual superstars. The last thing you need is 4 unpredictable leather-bashers without a single solid crisis man of the ilk of Dhoni. At the end of the season, the IPL would be 6 years old. 6 seasons ought to be enough to teach the franchises that money isn’t everything!