As IPL is approaching half way mark, two prominent features of current edition stand out. First is that it is not all about big names and legends; teamwork and team composition have been taken precedence over the star power. Second is that this probably has been the most closely fought IPL tournament ever. Means that all teams are well placed against each other and performance gap between the best performing and worst performing team is not that wide.
Coming to the first point now. Mumbai Indians (MI) put up a show par excellence against King’s Eleven Punjab (KXIP). It was unbelievable to see that how MI made mockery of huge total of KXIP. MI and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) have been the most impressive teams so far in the tournament. KKR is being led by Gautam Gambhir, who is an India ODI and T-20 discard and MI is led by Rohit Sharma, who also has nothing much under his belt to boast regarding his credentials as Indian ODI T-20 player lately.
MI and KKR are no doubt bunches of hugely talented players but there is hardly any big star name in rank. But as a composition, teams are doing well.
Then we have struggling Royal Challenger Bangalore (RCB) and Rising Pune Supergiants, but power packed with stars. RCB led by Virat Kohli which probably has most destructive batting line up in tournament, has a poor start.
Case of RPS has been rather more disappointing. Led by Steve Smith, it has MS Dhoni in side and bought Ben Stokes for a monumental price this year but RPS as a team is yet to make a statement.
There have been two centuries so far in the tournament. One has come from young Sanju Sampson and other one from Hashim Amla, who is great Test player but limited T-20 reputation so far. Thus star T-20 batsmen are missing in the list.
As far second point is concerned, the comparison and balance between various franchises is more rational this year. If we talk in statistical form, the standard deviation between performances of various team is narrower than previous years. With 40% of league matches are almost through, all eight teams are reckoning for the play-off. Those who are at the bottom of the table so far, has all the ingredient and potency to bounce back to knock the entry in to top four (RCB, RPS, GL). There is no clear laggard this time (like Bangalore and Hyderabad in 2008, KKR in 2009 or KXIP in 2010), which is great sign for the tournament.
With well poised competition and big performances from big stars is yet to come, we can very well expect an action filled month in regard with IPL 2017.
So fasten your belt and be ready for an exciting journey for the remaining IPL 2017.