In her blog Free Hit for India Today, Sharda Ugra lists out five things to like about the IPL, ranging from Shane Warne's curious tactics to 'Buddy Talk'.
3. Template Training: As it goes through its interminable schedule, every day the IPL throws up situations that clarify many things to young cricketers’ and about them. One over to go and ten to get, a screaming crowd, a wobbly white ball under lights, have you got what it takes? How do you contain Dhoni on a bull-run and restrict damage in your final over?
I am delighted that the process of eliminating the time-out (maybe marginalising is a more appropriate word at the moment) has begun. It was clear that it wasn't working, either for the spectators or the viewers, and that it had to go at some point. And it is nice to see that people are not being dogmatic about it, writes Harsha Bhogle in the Indian Express.
A time-out also allowed many other theories to enter a captain's mind, many theories from many sources and I am not sure that is how it should be. For the hour and a half that an innings lasts, the captain must run the ship, take bold and yet calculated decisions, soar or sink with them. He must only have the six balls between an over and the one to follow to decide on the next course of action. It will require the captain to juggle many possibilities in a short period of time, to have his mind working furiously and yet project calm. T20 cricket tests a captain in many different ways than a Test match does — neither is necessarily the superior test for it requires a different skill. Is the 5000 metres a more skilful race than the 100 metres? Or does it demand different skills? Even in its infancy, T20 is showing that a good captain is an invaluable asset to possess.
John Buchanan is never short of ideas. Nor is he afraid of propounding them. Maybe, he should sometimes look inwards and ask whether one reason why his Kolkata Knight Riders are languishing at the bottom of the IPL pool is his propensity to throw bizarre ideas around at the cost of harmony, writes R Mohan on ESPNStar.
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