Come on chennai!

[psychotropic]

Did anyone else feel for the bowlers, when the winners 'medal' for the IPL was a bat.....irrespective of whether you were a batsman or a bowler (or a keeper)!

the other longer versions of the game where there is a balance between the bat & the ball and the game is not that batsman friendly.
Rgds

 

[thevortex]

Did anyone else feel for the bowlers, when the winners 'medal' for the IPL was a bat.....irrespective of whether you were a batsman or a bowler (or a keeper)!

Psychotropic - please take a second look at that DLF IPL Trophy. Tell me what you see.

The amount of respect this tournament has/had for cricket is very apparent in that trophy. If it is not apparent, I will PM an article I wrote on this subject to you - of course only if interested .

 

[Kevian]

Congratulations Chennai


Btw...IPL was never about breaking stumps or jonty diving ....it was all about Sixers and Boundaries...that will grab more attention rite...its zimble man

 

[nirrej]

Why do we think t20 is all about batsmen and bowlers have no say in the oucome of a match?
1.Chennai's fortunes changed only after Bollinger came in halfway through the tournament and Ashwin started to open the bowling.
2. Mumbai was considered a superior team than the rest because it had a formidable bowling quartet.

Just like how the number of sixes and fours increased by a huge percentage
the number of wickets that bowlers claimed in a short span of 4 overs was also mindblowing.
If it had been a test match the very same bowlers would have taken 40 overs to get the same number of wickets.

Now tell me is it really a batsman's game alone?

 

[psychotropic]

hey vortex, hehe apart from the fact that is terribly ugly, it only has a batsman on it, but do send me your article, i would love to read it.

 

[thevortex]

Why do we think t20 is all about batsmen and bowlers have no say in the oucome of a match?
1.Chennai's fortunes changed only after Bollinger came in halfway through the tournament and Ashwin started to open the bowling.
2. Mumbai was considered a superior team than the rest because it had a formidable bowling quartet.

Just like how the number of sixes and fours increased by a huge percentage
the number of wickets that bowlers claimed in a short span of 4 overs was also mindblowing.
If it had been a test match the very same bowlers would have taken 40 overs to get the same number of wickets.

Now tell me is it really a batsman's game alone?

Nirrej - tell me something. Why do you feel duty-bound to defend this form of the game (T20)? It is what it is. Despite my complaints I watch all forms of the game. However disgusting it may be to watch advertisements in the middle of an over and watching girls who have no clue about the game dance on demand, I still somehow manage to watch it .

I have an all-consuming passion for this game (if my posts have not shown you that much already) and always enjoy talking shop. You talk about wickets taken by bowlers. See, on the surface level when do you have the loudest crowd cheer? When the bowlers take wickets or when the batsmen hit sixes? When do you see the camera panning to the cheerleaders more often? The funny thing is even an opposition batsman's sixer is cheered perhaps more than a home bowler's wicket!!

Now going slightly deeper, in cricket, there are two ways in which a wicket falls. It is either earned by the bowler or is given away by the batsman. My contention is that in T20 the latter is what happens about 90% (or more) of the time. Take a look at Irfan Pathan's wicket tally in this tournament. It is ridiculously high given the way he bowled.

It follows logically that credit must go to the batsman in this form of the game. The bowlers play a holding game. Either they stop the batsman from rampaging or they are muscled out. That is the way the powers-that-be want them to feature as well.

Now to go back to your original post - I would not claim that T20 is all about batsmen and not about bowlers at all. It is just skewed towards the batsmen. Next - yes, I do believe Mumbai was the overall better team. They lost their nerve where Chennai held theirs. That was the difference. One of my complaints with this format is that not necessarily do we see the best team win always.

 

[thevortex]

hey vortex, hehe apart from the fact that is terribly ugly, it only has a batsman on it, but do send me your article, i would love to read it.

PM'ed you the link, psychotropic.

 

[dinyaar]

Why do we think t20 is all about batsmen and bowlers have no say in the oucome of a match?
1.Chennai's fortunes changed only after Bollinger came in halfway through the tournament and Ashwin started to open the bowling.
2. Mumbai was considered a superior team than the rest because it had a formidable bowling quartet.

Just like how the number of sixes and fours increased by a huge percentage
the number of wickets that bowlers claimed in a short span of 4 overs was also mindblowing.
If it had been a test match the very same bowlers would have taken 40 overs to get the same number of wickets.

Now tell me is it really a batsman's game alone?

Nirrej are u seriously doubting the fact that the T20 format is made for batsman????
Its not a batsmans game alone as u need a poor bowler to run up and put it there so that it can be hit!!!! And yes u need the fielders to stop a few and mainly to retreive the ball from the boundary.
When the 50 over format was introduced purists frowned on it as it imposed a few restrictions on the bowler(plus the field restrictions) and many felt it was not a level playing field. T20 has taken it to another level plus the BASIC FACT that a batsman takes more liberties as a team has to only last 20 overs. All formats will co exist but if u seriously want to judge a batsman give the bowler a free hand then we will see how many just step out or plonk their front foot and take a massive swing.
I personally cant wait to see some ODI s and a few tests but will have to wait for that sadly
Rgds

 

[nirrej]

Now going slightly deeper, in cricket, there are two ways in which a wicket falls. It is either earned by the bowler or is given away by the batsman. My contention is that in T20 the latter is what happens about 90% (or more) of the time. Take a look at Irfan Pathan's wicket tally in this tournament. It is ridiculously high given the way he bowled.

It follows logically that credit must go to the batsman in this form of the game. The bowlers play a holding game. Either they stop the batsman from rampaging or they are muscled out. That is the way the powers-that-be want them to feature as well.

Now to go back to your original post - I would not claim that T20 is all about batsmen and not about bowlers at all. It is just skewed towards the batsmen. Next - yes, I do believe Mumbai was the overall better team. They lost their nerve where Chennai held theirs. That was the difference. One of my complaints with this format is that not necessarily do we see the best team win always.

Even in test cricket we have batsman commiting silly unforced errors and it is not always a great delivery that gets a wicket.

Hope you saw Murali Vijay falling to a catch taken near the ropes of Fernando. To an untrained eye it will look like a six which was just short or maybe he throwed his wicket away. But if you carefully notice, that particular ball was bowled at exatly the same line vijay loves to pick up the ball for sending over long on, but the twist was it was just slower at 123kp instead of his usual 135kph.

That did the trick, Vijay's swing was a trifle earlier and he ended up hitting the ball with his upper bat. Now if it had been a real slow one (i.e at around 110kph) the batsman would have read it and refrained from trying for a six.
That trait of adapting oneself to the format has made bowlers like malinga, ojha, tanveer and gul sucessfull whereas bowlers like ishant have failed.

Remember that not all batsmen have adapted to t20. Even a great like Sehwag hasn't adapted to the pressure cooker situation of t20.

I agree that the "bosses" want cricket to be dominated by batsman, but everytime this is tried the bowlers too come up with new innovations and keep pace with the changing trends (eg:slow bouncer, yorker outside offstump, etc)

And yes true, in this format the better team doesn't always win. This unpredictable nature of the game till the 19th over is what makes t20 so exciting. If the best team or player always won it will be boring like a steffi dominating in the 90s or a schumacher in F1.

Yes ads inbetween balls is irritating but will soon be stopped as a lot of media planners have critizised it. And why do we have to go after the 4 poor souls dancing in one end of a huge stadium. Why don't we consider them as just another add-on like the funny duck that walks when a batsman got duck out in the channel7 days. defnitley they are less suggestive than our filmi bollywood dancers.

 

[thevortex]

You are right in pointing out that wickets are thrown away in Test matches too. Only thing that I would point out is that the frequency of the same happening in both the formats is hugely different. In Test matches, it is more of an exception - especially when it comes to evenly matched sides.

And I am tired of our rules and cricket bosses forcing the bowlers down into a corner. Remember even a shrew is a formidable opponent when forced into a corner. But there is always a limit to how much even a cornered opponent is able to fight. Anything that the batsmen do is right but nothing that the bowlers do is!! Take the switch hit for example. I am all for keeping the switch hit, but then you cannot 'wide' a bowler for having spotted it and sliding it down where the batsman is not anticipating it. That was just one example among many.

I also think you are using the wrong examples when it comes to better (or best) teams winning. These superlative terms in sport almost always refer to the here and now. It is going to very very difficult for another team to dominate the sport like West Indies of yore or even Australia until recently. Those were amazing eras - just like the ones you pointed out. In general, I think you would agree that a Zimbabwe would have lesser chance of beating Australia in a Test match than in a T20.

If this is what is required to make cricket exciting I am not sure what the future is. We must not equate a reduction in the contest itself to excitement. Yes it is exciting but it is contrived excitement. For that matter, if a tournament were to have been staked on a coin toss, dont you think that coin toss is going to be one memorable one?

Dont get me wrong. I dont think we disagree too much. I just disagree on the modes being used to prop up the youngest form of the game. I think that format can do without dancing girls and audacious, outspoken gentlemen just fine .