The tournament which began with a one man show by Brendon McCullum, on April 18, has seen some typical, hard fought T20 matches. Raise of low profile teams, especially Team Jaipur (Rajasthan Royals) has surprised everybody. Not to forget those teams which were expected to do better, have faded off with most prominent example being that of Team Hyderabad(Deccan Chargers). Truely, T20 is one game format which evens out teams more than ODIs!

Team Standings : Taking account the matches played till Saturday, Chennai Super Kings lead the points table with 6 points having won all 3 matches played. Darkhorses, Rajsthan Royals closely following them with 6 points too, having lost their only match against Delhi. Delhi have 100% success ratio with 4 points from 2 matches. Kolkata Knight Riders who began with emphatic victory against Bangalore are fourth in the list with 4 points from 3 matches having lost their last match to Chennai yesterday. Kings XI Punjab with sole victory against Mumbai Indians are 5th in the points table. Bangalore Royal Challengers are in the similar state only that their Net Run Rate is less than that of Mohali. Mumbai Indians and Deccan Chargers have not opened their accounts, with Deccan Chargers being at the bottom of the table.

Team Strategies: Team of the week title should defintely go to Rajasthan Royals. Skipper Shane Warne has marshalled his resources well. Victories against Mohali and Bangalore were comfortable. But the real contest was that of defeating Hyderabad after Symonds scored fastest ever hundred in IPL history. I was wondering, whether the Aussie spirit of chasing bigger totals has been instilled in the team by the skipper. On the other side,  Bangalore is certainly missing the trick by not playing the T20 specialist, Misbah-ul-Haq. It is baffling to see why Rahul cannot accomodate him in the team, a team which  more often looks like a test squad!

Individual Performances: In some of the matches played last week individual performances stood out more than the team performances - Brendon McCullum ( 158* against Bangalore), Michael Hussey (116* against Mohali), Virender Sehwag(94* against Hyderabad), Mathew Hayden (81 against Mumbai), Andrew Symonds(117* against Rajasthan), Kumara Sangakkara(94 against Mumbai). But only Symond’s effort went in a loosing cause. Also, how can one undermine the importance of bowlers in T20? ‘Old is gold’ phrase indeed came true when Glen McGrath of Delhi and Shane Warne of Rajasthan Royals were either controlling the run flow or providing some crucial break throughs. Best bowling performances have been from Ajith Agarkar(3/25 against Bangalore), Murali Karthik(3/17 against Hyderabad), Shane Warne (3/19 against Mohali), Jacob Oram(3/32 against Kolkata), Shahid Afridi (3/28 against Jaipur), Harbhajan Singh (3/32 against Mohali). Last  2 performances did not earn victories to their teams.

Controversies: IPL has generated first ever on-field controversy with Mumbai Indian, Harbhajan Singh slapping Punjab King, S Sreesanth in the match against respective teams. Short tempered encounters of both in international arena is well known. But to have it in IPL is not a good development. When the tournament started there was talk of egos of international super stars in clash. It is amusing to see this clash of national team mates. Well, this incident could have added new meanings to the events in the past involving Bhajji. As per latest information, Bhajji is being suspended temporarily from IPL.

What Next ? 12 matches completed, still 44 matches to go before the best 4 teams emerge. Deccan Chargers and Mumbai Indians have their task cut out having lost all of their previous matches. Deccan Chargers batteries need to be charged for their matches against Mohali(May 1) and Bangalore(May 3) next week. Mumbai Indians are missing their skipper Sachin badly. Unnecessary spats by the stand-in skipper is not helping their cause either. They will be taking on Kolkata on May 29. Chennai, Jaipur, Delhi,Kolkata will be keen to maintain the momentum gained in the first week. Situation is pretty much same for Bangalore and Mohali. Bangalore have to get their composition correct, dumping test style team. Well, Mohali showed their class against Mumbai. This they would be requiring in further encounters too.

This will be a series of articles reviewing how the week went for all the teams, players, posted every Sunday.