There has never been more pressure on the Royal Challengers from Bangalore to win an IPL season. Fortunately for them, there won’t be any fans in the stadium to remind them of this expectation. There’s no doubt that RCB are going to field a top quality squad, but it is their bench strength which will come into the focus as the tournament progresses.
A team perfectly built for the Sawai Mansingh Stadium of English conditions suddenly finds itself in a spot of bother – their premier all-rounder is in NewZealand and will miss at least the first part of the tournament. There is little certainty over whether their captain is available for the first game.
MI’s squad is one of the most peculiar squads ever. If you look at the indispensable assets of the squad – Rohit Sharma, Pandya Brothers and Jasprit Bumrah – every player has a similar, if not exactly the same replacement sitting on the bench. This has a couple of very interesting implications.
Kolkata Knight Riders is one of the two teams, the other one being Rajasthan Royals, who would be giving quite a lot of opportunities to youngsters within their squad. If you look at the KKR roster, it is not as intimidating as a roster like, say, Mumbai Indians’. Yet, it works.
KL Rahul is appointed the full-time captain of this franchisee and they have got Glenn Maxwell in their team again. Kings XI Punjab have definitely set yes on the long run based on the roster that they have compiled. Baring some negligible gaps, their team looks strong on paper.
The squad of Delhi Capitals looks one of the most complete squads on paper, this IPL. Filled with batsmen, who can play the explosive role, the anchor role and the pinch-hitting role. Then there are the all-rounders who are right up there in terms of performance. They have quality spinners and fast bowlers.
There’s nothing characteristically different in this CSK squad. They have once again put their weight behind experience – in terms of age and in terms of number of IPL matches played. This should be CSK’s toughest season yet with Harbhajan Singh and Suresh Raina, two of the most vital cogs in their wheel set to miss out on the IPL.
It’s that time of the year but it is not really ‘that’ time of the year. Preparations for the T20 World Cup would have been in full swing right now. Instead we have players converging in UAE almost a month before the start of another IPL season. These are crazy times.
When a 23-year old Jason Holder was handed the reigns of West Indies Test Cricket team in 2015, the team had won just 12 out of 50 tests in the since 2010, of which 5 came against Bangladesh, 2 against Zimbabwe, 1 against England (which was ranked 5th at the time), 1 against Pakistan (which was ranked 6th at the time) and 3 against NewZealand (which was ranked 7th and 8th at the time).
IPL, I like you but only as a friend.
World Cup, I like to flirt with you time and again.
It is Test Cricket I am truly in love with.
2019 has been nothing short of a cricket lover’s utopia. A nail-biting IPL final between 2 of IPL’s most successful franchisees, a grouping (or absence of it) format rendering the World Cup more competitive and more relevant. If that wasn’t enough, the World Cup Finals turned out to be one of the greatest ODIs of all time.