low scores?

[umpire]

After few high scoring games, the average is going down every game. What could be the reason 1) The pitches getting difficult as you keep playing on same pitch and its peak of summer (too dry). 2) Some of big hitters like Hayden, McCullum and Hussey have left. These guys were responsible for big scores 3) The bowlers finally learning how to bowl in IPL. The captain who batted first used to say score 180-200 is par score and now it seems 160 is par score.

[umpire]

forgot the most important one 4) Is it amit$ curse? He did not want big scores

[amits]

@umpire, stop the keyboard abusing. i am liking a few of the recent matches due to the <165 scores, although i dont like the fact that mumbai have won 3 matches. i hate the >160 scores as i want to c a more even contest between bat & ball

[Sachinism]

I reckon the pitches have become a bit more bowler friendly in terms of they're crap, too much inconsistent bounce and maybe bowlers have worked out better lengths to bowl

[fineleg]

D#ef^ntely @miTs c(U)rS#e!

[amits]

D#ef^ntely @miTs c(U)rS#e!

STOP THE KEYBOARD ABUSING

[graphic23]

STOP THE KEYBOARD ABUSING

:P

[amits]

STOP THE KEYBOARD ABUSING @mods, its time to ban this keyboard abusing out here

[graphic23]

STOP THE KEYOBOARD ABUSING @mods, its time to ban this keyboard abusing out here

Its spelled 'Keyboard'

[Predator_05]

Guys, can you please stop abusing your keyboards. It's not healthy.

[Guest whineleg]

0k@y

[mhr123]

IPL seems to going on the same lines of WWE... all scripted story. Earlier there was a speculation that 2-3 teams would always be way ahead of the competition and rest of the teams would fight for the 3rd or 4th place. Now its evened up ... even big teams are loosing out and now people are getting involved to see what will happen next. Seems a typical WWE script.

[flamy]

the most exciting 20/20 matches were those which had <160 scores. thats what made the 20/20 wc exciting. the most thrilling match had the score of only 141 & was tied. even the icl was exciting and became a big hit as scores of 130-140 even proved winnable. scores of 150 were match-winning scores & proved like 300 in odis. and in the 20/20 wc & icl, we saw a better contest between bat & ball in ipl, the bowlers have been murdered. too many 200+ scores. even huge scores of 160+ r being chased down easily & fielding standards have deteriorated. even indias top fielders like yuvraj, kaif & irfan pathan have dropped some very easy catches & the outfielding has been very poor. what should have been just 1-2 runs is getting to be 4. cricket has to be a contest between bat & ball, not just bat & bat end this slam-boom-bangness now & its time to ban 20/20 cricket. lets bring back the odis. if 50 overs seem to be too long, then lets make them 40 overs & 6-6.5 hours long. with matches being of 6-6.5 hours, we can squeeze 2 odis in a day without any time overlap. and if 20/20 has to be there, then 160+ scores need to be banned and pitches made to suit bowlers with fielding standards improved

Delhi vs KKR. @|\/||7$ is excited now! :two_thumbs_up::two_thumbs_up:

[IndianRenegade]

Slow and steady wins matches You may well laugh at the 67 all out that Kolkata Knight Riders scored against Mumbai Indians. You may well snort at it too. But don’t take the sub-100 score it too seriously. It was a fluke! What you need to take seriously was the bowling sent down by Shaun Pollock, and the back-up provided by Dwayne Bravo and the others. That was pretty symptomatic of how things are panning out in the Indian Premier League Twenty20 tournament as it heads closer to the business end. When Twenty-20 cricket arrived, there seemed to be some sort of uncertainty about how the bowlers would approach this. Should they go all out, and get rid of the batting? Well, they tried, and largely failed, in their efforts.

That was something seen even in the Twenty-20 World Cup in South Africa, which was pretty similar, in the early stages, to the IPL. There, Chris Gayle got off to a searing start, while here, it was the turn of Brendon McCullum. But as things have progressed, there has been marked reduction in the scores, and that has at times enabled teams chasing to get within shouting distance of scores 150 or 160, as opposed to the 200-plus, which cannot be chased in 20-20, yet. The bowlers have realised that the best thing to do is to bowl at maybe 70 per cent of their pace, which ensures two things. One, the bowling is largely more accurate, making it more difficult for the batsmen to get away big hits. Secondly, the lack of pace also comes to the aid of the bowlers, since almost all the strength of the big shots has to be generated by the batsmen. That does not mean that the big shots have evaporated. Jayasuriya is a classic example, as is Rohit Sharma, and even Gautam Gambhir. But what needs to be noted is what sort of bowling they have been provided with. In all fairness, Chennai Super Kings didn’t bowl half as well as they could have to Jayasuriya. Take stock of the bowlers who have managed to keep things quiet. There is Glenn McGrath, who, along with Pollock, seem to be impossible to score off. Classically, the line and length medium-pacers, who have relinquished pace through age and experience, and have made themselves that much more unplayable. McGrath and Pollock are fourth and fifth on the best economy rate list, but the bowlers above them haven’t bowled half as many overs. Among the others on that list are Irfan Pathan, Ashoke Dinda and Manpreet Gony, essentially similar type of bowlers, as are Bravo, Dhawal Kulkarni and Laxmi Ratan Shukla. Even Sourav Ganguly. Chennai Super Kings have their own battery of effective bowlers, as opposed to out and out speedsters. Gony has been a revelation, while Laksmipathy Balaji, Palani Amarnath and Joginder Sharma have had their moments. The lessons are simple. Speed thrills, but doesn’t necessary win. So slow it up, keep it accurate, and reap the rewards of victory. Pallav Joshi

[fineleg]

Wicket-to-wicket bowlers can do well in T20 if they are accurate and can bowl to the field They can do well in ODIs as well. Not a new finding.

[amits]

Delhi vs KKR. @|/||7$ is excited now! :two_thumbs_up::two_thumbs_up:

STOP THE KEYBOARD ABUSE :mad:

[zubinpepsi]

amits,, :giggle:

[Dirty_South]

:haha:

[Chandan]

Why the totals have come down in the IPL The lull after the storm Sriram Veera May 15, 2008 The furious start: Brendon McCullum sizzled on the opening night, hitting ten fours and 13 sixes (file photo) © Getty Images The opening night of the IPL seemed ominous: Brendon McCullum hit 10 fours and 13 sixes, one of them an outrageous paddle, on his way to 158, a record Twenty20 score. The innings raised visions of the IPL being an unprecedented run feast but the 35 games since have only seen four hundreds - and Sanath Jayasuriya's against Chennai Super Kings on Wednesday night was the first in May. More batting stats: There were seven 200-plus totals in April but only one in May. The slowdown seems to be a combination of factors - the changing nature of the pitches, bowlers becoming smarter, the departure of some big-hitting batsmen and the increasing pressure on the batsmen as the tournament moves closer to the semi-final stage and the high stakes involved become clearer. The last point appears to be the clincher for Daljit Singh, the IPL's ground and pitches committee head. "I don't see any team touching 240 again," he says. "As we get closer to the semi-finals, the competition has got fiercer and that has affected the teams' consciousness. The carefree approach at the start is not there. Everybody is looking at points and I do not see 240 again in this tournament unless the team has already qualified for the semi-finals and just have a bang out there. As long as the qualification pressure is still there, they won't be playing that freely." Chennai's 240 in Mohali, the highest total of the tournament so far, was largely thanks to Michael Hussey's 54-ball 116. Matthew Hayden and Andrew Symonds exploded too but the departure of the Australians and New Zealanders (especially McCullum) has drained the tournament of some beefy hitters. Those big-hitters were also fortunate to make the most of belters, rather than the current ones that have wilted in the May heat and got slower and lower. TA Sekhar, cricket operations chief of Delhi Daredevils and a former fast bowler, cites the changing nature of the pitches as one of the prime reasons. "It's not as if they have deteriorated or broken up but due to the heat, the pitches have become drier and as a result the wickets have become a touch slower. The ball is also not coming on to the bat as well. The bowlers are exploiting the slow tracks." Delhi's batsmen, led by Virender Sehwag, were restricted to 156 by the Rajasthan Royals on May 11. Shane Warne rested fast bowler Sohail Tanvir and opened the bowling with the more gentle pace of Dimitri Mascarenhas. "We had plans for Sehwag," Warne said. "We bowled slow to him. The bowlers intentionally kept the ball slow." Sekhar feels the pitch also suited their style of the bowling. "They had a spinning wicket in the earlier game but for this one, they had a slow track." Are the pitches being specially prepared to be conducive to the home teams? Daljit doesn't agree. "By and large, it has not been the case. The curators have been told to keep the Twenty20 format in mind. I know the franchises are important but the ground control is with the local associations. And there are awards for the best curators. There are seven points for pitch, two for the outfield and one for the main square - how they are looking after the other pitches. The match referee and umpires are marking the forms after every game. Apart from one game in Kolkata, the quality of the pitches has been great. "If you get a score of 160 it's eight runs per over, 180 is nine per over and so, anything over 160-170 is still bloody good. Importantly, the bowlers have learnt to adapt. Let's give credit to them." A fair point; the bowlers certainly have adapted well, though, contrary to the popular perception, they haven't been firing in too many yorkers. In 36 games the yorkers have constituted approximately a little over 2% out of the total balls bowled while a majority - around 61% - have been on a good length and nearly 18% of the deliveries have hit the short of length. So it's the slight changes in pace which have been crucial. Several cutters have been bowled, fingers have been rolled over the seam, the ball has been held across the seam and quite a few regular bouncers have been bowled. "Due to the heat, the pitches have become drier and as a result the wickets have become a touch slower. The ball is also not coming on to the bat as well" TA Sekhar Also, as the pitches have got slower, there have been a few slow bouncers as well that have gripped the surface, turned, and bounced awkwardly. The batsmen have tried to find room by moving about in the crease but the bowlers have tried to cramp them by shifting length and line or tried to mess up their timing by changing pace. L Balaji, who bagged a hat-trick in Chennai's game against Kings XI Punjab, believes it's about constantly changing things. "I have played just couple of games and so I am not qualified enough to make a comment but what I am trying to do is not be predictable and make the batsmen think." Balaji has bowled quite a few slower ones and punctuated them with sharp bouncers. Parthiv Patel, the Chennai opener, thinks the bowlers have sorted out the length to bowl. "Also, the pitches have become slower and slower, so shot making is not that easy." Venkatesh Prasad, the former India opening bowler who works with the national team as a bowling coach, believes the bowlers have become smarter. "No doubt the wickets are now on the slower side but more importantly the scores have come down as the bowlers know now which is the variation that can give them the dot ball. So most matches you see bowlers delivering at least two slower balls along with the shorter ones, which has not allowed the batsman complete leeway. "At the beginning of the tournament no team knew what would be the par score and, perhaps, that prompted batsmen to go after the bowling. Now they realise 180 is the par score rather than the 220s we saw earlier. Also the bowlers have realised 170 can be defended so it is getting more competitive. So the bowlers are getting cleverer and teams have better game plans." When Twenty20 started, it was considered that the bowlers were under more pressure but it's the batsmen who are feeling the pinch now as they are expected to hit sixes and fours. Leaking eight to ten runs per over is no longer considered a crime and the bowlers have started to breathe easier now. The delicious irony is that while the modern game is tilted towards batsmen, cricket's latest version seems to be witnessing a far closer contest.

[zubinpepsi]

@@vv y ma p0$t$ @r€ €d!t€d ??:hmmmm2: