IPL: End of First Innings

April 30th is being seen as an end of First Innings in IPL and what a first innings it has been! It had all the drama, thrill and the razmataz for a perfect and successful innings. The outcome of the first innings:
FAVOURITE TEAM:
When the IPL auction had finished, I had a list of favourite strong teams (on the basis of the players they had in the team): 1) Hyderabad 2) Chennai 3) Mohali. Also I had Kolkata (I always thought that they have a weak team) as one of my fav team purely on the basis of my place of stay at the moment (KOLKATA). After 12 frantic days and 16 mad games, I have only one favourite team : Rajasthan Royals. They have fought so well and earn my respect and love. They never gave up unlike the Kolkata Team (later on that one). Team Chennai is still strong but somehow I dont feel emotionally for them. In India cricket is emotionally played as well as watched. I guess Team Chennai has won matches but they have yet to win hearts. They may well win the tournament but if they dont win hearts they will run the risk of being only a Chennai T20 Team rather than Pan India T20 Fav Team. Rajasthan Royals, on the other hand, is doing just the right thing. They are noy only winning matches now but they are winning hearts as well by their Never-Die attitude. They are not giving up till the last bowl is bowled. They are using their strenghts to the maximum and trying to keep their errors low. They know they are doing well with their bowls, so when winning a toss, they are bowling. This way they know what runs to chase and can make good plan when it came to batting. Its working wonderfully for them. They maynot have a very strong line up of batsman (read international players) but their strategy have worked well and guess it will do well in the future games as well. Cause they have more Indian players and local players, who are becoming stronger with each game. They have very few international players and are the least likely to take the heat in the second innings starting May 1st when most of the big names will leave India for national duties. Shane Watson is not part of Test Team Australia and he stays, and so the hope in Rajasthan Royals. And ofcourse Shane Warne is the Captain, so even if they dont win the tournament, RR have definitely won fans all over India by their performance and surely create a few more major upsets as the second innings start.
BIG NAMES:
The first innings of IPL saw the big Players from Australia and New Zealand go great guns (leaving aside the poor-in-form Ponting). But most of these big names leave by 1st May or 15th May (West Indies) whereas, most Pakistani big names will be available and thats when it would be interesting to watch how the Teams will come up with new equation of players and how well that combination work. I think the Team with the strongest Indian players will win the tournament. After all one can play only 4 international stars and the rest 7 have to be Indians. The local boys have a bigger role to play to make their respective team win. If not for anyone else, IPL is for them. This is their one golden chance to showcase their talents and make the world know their names and earn some money as well on the way.
Anyways the team to be hit most in the second innings due to their heavy relying on international players are Kolkata Knight Riders and to an extent Chennai SuperKings.
Waiting to see how the KKR team cope with that one along with CSK. Salman Butt and Umar Gul can do their bit for KKR but still ....CSK's bowling deppt needs to be revamped now that big hitter Hayden leaves and also Jacob Oram whose bowling hit KKR the most.
LOCAL ICONS:
Just 12 days into the IPL and it has already thrown out quite a few local names who really were nobody before the tournament started. Some of the names being repeated by experts and watchers of the game are: Rohit Sharma, Abhishek Nayar, Rajesh jadeja, Laxmi Shukla ( Batting) Ashok Dinda, Goni (Bowling); Wriddhiman Saha (Batting and Wicket Keeping).
They are the ones who have to lift their teams to the highest forms in this second innings. IPL has really done its bit in bringing these "delights" and newer "hopes" for future Indian Cricket.


Now, I'm waiting for second innings to start. I want to see with all the big hitters leaving will T20 retain its entertainment value? will the local boys uplift the game to another level or will it become a small total, slow and boring games? By the end of second innings which I see as ard May 16 (or after about 16 more matches), clear favourites will come out. By that time each team would have played around 3 matches with their new combination (mostly locals) and each Teams actual strengths and weaknesses will become very very clear . Hopefully by the end of it we would get to know who all will be going to the semis. Cant wait..let the drama continue....