It has been a rainy day all round at the cricket. Most of the day’s play at Lords was lost, and even in Delhi rain caused chaos. The Daredevils batted first, and Sehwag and Gambhir seemed to have set up a good foundation. Then Gambhir got out, and the rain came down. Much confusion later, the Kings XI were chasing 123 off 11 overs. Some big hitting by Yuvraj, Jayawardene and young Luke Pomersbach got them ahead of the rate, which is just as well as the rain came down again after 8 overs. Punjab were declared the winners on D/L, and they stay only one game back of the Royals in the table.
It is still a little bit early to make predictions about the semi-finals. In theory everyone but Bangalore and Hyderabad is still in with a shot. But the Royals and Kings XI look to be the class of the field. Chennai are still third, but are fading fast. My money (if I had any) would be on two out of Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata. As to the final, I’m rather looking forward to a clash between my team and Preity Zinta’s team. Obviously she has more money and much better looks than me, but I have Shane Warne.
Of course in Twenty20 anything can happen. Cricket bosses haven’t yet got their heads around why baseball plays a World Series, not a World Cup Final. Hopefully they will get there in the end.
I know this may make me sound like a dreaded TMS fuddy-duddy, but I’m not sure Duckworth-Lewis is really appropriate for Twenty-twenty. Why not just replay the next day instead? I know the IPL schedules are fairly tight, but they aren’t *that* tight are they?
They have at least one game every day. And most of their money comes from TV (the crowds are huge but they are not paying much to attend). TV companies hate replays.
OTOH, the IPL seems to have taken an American attitude to draws. Why they need to have a bowl out in the case of a tie in the league games is beyond me. It doesn’t rain often in India, and I think declaring the match a draw might have been fairer. (Of course it would also have been to the advantage of the Royals).