Thursday, April 30, 2009How the teams will perform this year?Part 1 We are a third of the way through this edition of the Indian Premier League. Most teams have played five matches, and that gives us a fair indicator of how they will perform going forward. Unlike just one match, such as Bangalore’s emphatic 75 run victory over Rajasthan on the opening day of the competition, or Kolkata’s 140 run triumph to open last season; five matches give us a sense of a team’s consistency and depth. A look at last year’s ratings after five matches shows that the top four had already started to pull away from the rest of the pack. For the IPL 2008
There was some shuffling in the standings as the tournament progressed- Chennai lost Matthew Hayden and Michael Hussey, and started to slip down. Mumbai got Sachin Tendulkar back and moved up, while Rajasthan built on their momentum with Shane Watson and Sohail Tanvir coming into their own. Overall, the trimester rankings gave us a reasonable idea of which teams would make the knockout stage. So we decided to evaluate each team’s performance through the first trimester of the IPL 2009 (with a grade from A-F). You can check out the full list of team rankings by clicking here. Rajasthan Royals Current Castrol Index Rank: 5 Batting Grade: D Bowling Grade: B Final Grade: C What’s Hot: Super(over)man Yusuf Pathan. What’s Not: The rest of the batting- Rajasthan are the 7th best batting side overall and dead last in terms of Quick Start Bat i.e. batting performance in the first 6 overs. Quick Fix: The batting needs to fire if Rajasthan want to make it to the semis. Bring back Tyron Henderson and hope that he shows the big hitting from his stint with Middlesex. Graeme Smith and Swapnil Asnodkar also need to step up. Likely Final Position: Will fight for a semi-final spot but just miss out. Mumbai Indians Current Castrol Index Rank: 1 Batting Grade: A+ Bowling Grade: A Final Grade: A What’s Hot: The openers and the bowlers. Mumbai have the most complete bowling line-up with Lasith Malinga in great form. They may not be there now, but this side might well finish atop the league standings. What’s Not: Zaheer Khan has not been up to scratch, which means Mumbai don’t have a great Quick Start Bowl. The other concern is the lack of a keeper-batsmen. Quick Fix: Mumbai should comfortably make the semis based on current performance and Zaheer is bound to improve. But they will lose Dwayne Bravo for the latter stages of the competition. Kyle Mills should be Bravo’s replacement- Mumbai need to get him going in the league stages. Likely Final Position: Top three finish. Kolkata Knight Riders Current Castrol Index Rank: 8 Batting Grade: D Bowling Grade: F Final Grade: F What’s Hot: Sourav Ganguly making a point with his batting. What’s Not: KKR rank dead last in overall batting momentum, second last in overall bowling efficiency and seemingly last in team chemistry! And now they are without Gayle. Quick Fix: Seems like too much has gone wrong to fix this time, and KKR will battle with Bangalore for 7th spot. Brendon McCullum needs to start scoring, coming down the order with Ganguly and Hodge opening could help. Likely Final Position: 7th at best. Part 2 of this article will evaluate the performances of the remaining franchises.
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