IPL 2009 - Glory to the oldies ...

As i posted earlier (closer to the midway mark), i made a quick framework to measure batting & bowling success in the IPL. 

• For batting, i considered: Runs, Average, Strike rate 
• For bowling, i considered: Wickets, Average, Run per over, Strike rate

I worked around the formulas and finally came across a measure that i felt gave equal weightage to batting & bowling and applied it across IPL 2008 & 2009. I didn't take fielding stats into consideration. Also, i didn't give weightages to 50s, 100s, 4Ws, 5Ws. I shall try and work something out later.

But as it stands today, IPL 2009's best batsmen & bowlers don't play any cricket outside IPL & probably backyard cricket - M Hayden & Anil Kumble. The contrast with which they reached the pinnacle is huge: Hayden, post match 4/5 dominated batting in IPL 2009. Kumble had a great first match and then lagged in the ratings (never dropping out of Top 10 though) and his final performance enabled him to pip RP Singh (who was Top 2 from the time i started tracking)

Some notes:

• To me, 40 is the score of a good performer. There were 24 in 2008 & 21 in 2009 with scores above 40. There are six players who scored 40+ in both IPLs: Rohit Sharma, Gilly, Irfan Pathan (that surprised me!), Symonds, Raina, Amit Mishra (another supriser). MS Dhoni just missed it for this year (38.8 compared to 59.4 last year) and Hayden played too few matches (4, i think) last year to get to 40 (he finished with 36 still!)
• Last year's top 10 included 5 batsmen, 2 all-rounders (Watson & Yusuf) and 3 bowlers. This year, the tide shifted to the bowlers - 7 bowlers, 1 all-rounder (Rohit Sharma) and 2 batsmen (Hayden & de Villiers)

2009 Top performers:

2008 Top performers:

Wish i could spin like him (?)

No. Thank you very much ...

I like Kumble, the way he is. While he can never rip the ball like Shane Warne, he is without doubt the best Indian spinner to have touched the red cherry. Before going up in arms, please note that i think Chandrashekar, Prasanna, Bedi and Venkatraghavan (lesser extent!) were great bowlers - they were not feared a lot outside the subcontinent for LONG STRECHES of time while teams have been wary of Kumble for atleast the last 5 years even outside the subcontinent. Coming to it, Anil Kumble is the BEST BOWLER that India has produced. He has had more matches won than anyone else, more than even Kapil Dev (and coming from someone whose 'day-afters' were based on pajji's performance!).

While a lot of people, especially who are more into entertainment than the pure joy & pleasures of the game would like spinners to turn the ball half way across the pitch, what they don't understand is that the ball needs to turn only a few inches to turn a sure boundary to a dismissal and understanding that was Jumbo's biggest strength.

While Kumble could pay tribute to Shane for spinning the ball, he would have a good haul if he played majority of his tests against the pommies as well (not a slight on Warne - but the lack of great record against the Indians will always be shown against him, the same way overseas record will be shown for Kumble).

Who is the best spinner in the World to date? Martin Crowe might disagree, but Muthiah Muralidharan is the best spinner ever.

Aren't we glad to be in an era that had the best spinners trade their wares (like the 80s & 90s were the seasons for best all-rounders with Kapil, Imran, Botham and 'Sir' Hadlee)!