IPL 2016 Weekly Roundup: Week 4

The third week of IPL 2016 gave us some thrilling and some one-sided games as the teams battled it out to seal their place in the playoffs. Yusuf Pathan played a couple of good knocks and that would give Kolkata Knight Riders lot of confidence heading towards the next half of the league. Virat Kohli continued to mesmerise everyone with his batting. And the Sunrisers Hyderabad bowlers have formed a formidable quadruple. Here, we look at some of the high points of the week gone by in the tourney.

When Yusuf and Russell went berserk:

At 69/4 in the 11^th over, with another 117 runs from about nine overs still needed and with the Bangalore bowlers going great guns, the match at Eden Gardens seemed to be slipping out of Kolkata’s grip. Yusuf Pathan and Andre Russell, though, had other ideas. After scratching around for a few overs, both the power-hitters went completely berserk making a mockery of all the opposition bowlers. Russell began first taking out Tabraiz Shamsi for two sixes and a four and then Yusuf joined in as he carted Shane Watson for 24 runs in the 17th over. Even after Russell perished on 39, Yusuf continued and hit a few more lusty blows to take his side home comfortably and scored a match-winning 60 not out of 29 balls.

Raina’s woes:

Being a captain, it seems, is not serving Suresh Raina’s batting well. The Gujarat Lions skipper, who comes in at the crucial No. 3 position, has been having a rather tepid IPL – scoring just 286 runs in 11 matches with a solitary fifty – and is fortunate that his team is playing well. Raina is the most successful IPL player of all time and really relishes this format. Hence, his continued failure and scratchy play – his strike rate is only 126 – does not serve him well. If he continues the same way, then it may well be the first IPL where he does not surpass 400 runs in a season.

Kohli the champion:

It’s rather unbelievable the amount of times he has been written about in this IPL, but he doesn’t give one a choice either. Kohli’s form this year has been Bradmanesque and his spectacular match-winning 102 not out against Pune this Saturday bore further testimony to that. With 541 runs in just 8 matches, Kohli has been virtually unstoppable this IPL and is looking really, really hungry for more. And as we near the business end of the tournament, he is one player that other teams truly need to be wary of.

Hyderabad surge ahead:

With 12 points from 9 games, Hyderabad is sitting pretty at the second position in the points table. They have really come into their own and are surging ahead with a resoluteness that should be scary for the other teams – their 85 run rout of Mumbai on Sunday should be a testament to that. Captain David Warner is in scintillating form and Shikhar Dhawan too has now found his footing in the last few matches. And with Kane Williamson, Yuvraj Singh and Moses Henriques following them, Hyderabad’s batting unit is robust. What sets Hyderabad apart, though, is their bowling with Bhuvaneshwar Kumar, Mustafizur Rahman and Ashish Nehra being almost unplayable and wrecking havoc on every team. Hyderabad’s surge has been terrific this season and they look determined to go all the way.

Yuvi returns:

Yuvraj Singh missing the first half of the IPL 2016 due to injury was not just a blow to his team Hyderabad but also to the IPL and its fans. Yuvraj – despite his indifferent form of late – is a maverick and the tournament needed him. The 34-year-old finally returned in last week’s match against Gujarat where he managed just 5 runs from 14 deliveries. The southpaw finally found his flow in the next match against Mumbai where he scored a fluent 39 off 23 balls and struck a few stunning blows. This augurs well for Yuvraj, his team, and the IPL as well. An on fire Yuvraj Singh can set the tournament on fire like little else would.

Settled bowling units are the order of the day:

If there is one thing that the IPL 2016 has shown unmistakably it is that a team needs to have a well-rounded and settled bowling unit to succeed in the tournament. Gujarat, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Delhi have all got very good bowling units and that is what is actually helping them applying the pressure on the opposition and winning games consistently. Having batting firepower alone will not be of much use, the Bangalore, and, to an extent Pune, teams are good examples of that. This is something that other teams should really take note of.

An unpredictable IPL:

We are in the fourth week of the IPL and yet we do not know for sure which team is the best one or standing tall above all yet.  This season has surely been one of the most unpredictable ones as with each passing day the top four keeps changing and there is no single team which can be said to be having an upper hand. Kolkata, Hyderabad, Gujarat, Delhi, Mumbai and even Bangalore have all got a chance to make it to the playoffs and even the likes of Pune and Punjab cannot be discounted yet. No single team is winning matches at a stretch and fortunes are fluctuating every day. This has made IPL 2016 a very unpredictable one and the business end of the tourney will surely be nerve-wracking and extremely thrilling to watch.