New Delhi: When it comes to the Indian Premiere League, audiences expect a run-fiesta. The timing of the tournament should have acted as the perfect medicine to heal the scars of India’s heart-breaking loss to champions West Indies in the penultimate clash during the recently concluded T20 Word Cup. While big-hitting is definitely on full display, the cure that the billion plus fan army of the Indian side expected is sadly missing.
To everyone’s surprise, IPL 9 teams led by Indian cricketing superstars like Mahendra Singh Dhoni (Rising Pune Supergiants), Virat Kohli (Royal Challengers Bangalore) and Rohit Sharma (Mumbai Indians) have failed to impress in the season so far. This should be a cause of worry for fans of the team and well-wishers of Indian cricket equally.
On the other hand, lesser giants like Gujarat Lions, Kolkata Knight Riders and Delhi Daredevils, led by Suresh Raina, Gautam Gambhir and Zaheer Khan respectively, have succeeded to grab the top three spots in the IPL 9 team rankings, as of now.
After an above-average performance in the World T20, this is something to worry for Men in Blue as they will be playing both test and ODI series against strong teams like West Indies, England and New Zealand later this year.
Let’s take a look into what the statistics tell us so far.
Rising Pune Supergiants (Captain: Mahendra Singh Dhoni)
Rising Pune Supergiants, the debutant IPL team led by India’s T20 and ODI captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, have played three matches so far in which they have won just one game and lost the remaining two.
After winning their first match against the defending champions Mumbai Indians, Pune lost the next two matches against Gujarat Lions and Kings XI Punjab by seven wickets and six wickets respectively.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni has failed to perform with the bat. He has scored just 23 runs in the three matches, with the highest score of 22 runs. His score in the other two matches was 0 and 1.
It is important to mention here that Gujarat Lions is the other debutant team in this season and Kings XI Punjab stands at the last spot in the team rankings of the ongoing tournament at the moment.
Suresh Raina-led Gujarat Lions have won all the three matches they have played so far, defeating Kings XI Punjab, Rising Pune Supergiants and defending champions Mumbai Indians.
Royal Challengers Bangalore (Captain: Virat Kohli)
Virat Kohli-led Royal Challengers Bangalore have won one match out of the two they have played.
The team made a giant total of 227/4 against Sunrisers Hyderabad and won the match by 45 runs. However, they failed to defend a total of 192 runs against the struggling Delhi Daredevils.
Delhi’s opener Quinton de Kock smashed 108 runs from just 51 balls and made a 134-run partnership with Karun Nair guiding the team to an easy 7-wicket win over RCB.
Although Virat Kohli is in tremendous batting form and has scored 154 runs in the two matches with an average of 77, he has somewhat failed to perform as a captain so far.
Mumbai Indians (Captain: Rohit Sharma)
Champions of IPL 2013 and IPL 2015, Rohit Sharma-led Mumbai Indians have been found struggling at the beginning of the tournament. The defending champons, who were considered to be the favourites before the start of the league, have faced defeat three of the four matches they have played so far.
The team has failed to perform on all grounds, may it be batting, bowling or fielding.
In their opening match against Rising Pune Supergiants, Mumbai batted first and managed just 121 runs on the board. The match was easily won by Pune by nine wickets.
They won their second match against Kolkata Knight Riders by six wickets, but then lost the next two matches against Gujarat Lions and Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Capatin Rohit Sharma has scored 103 runs in four innings with an average of 34.33 but has failed to lead the team to victory.
