New Delhi: The Twenty-20 cricket is known as a batsmen game and the opening week of IPL 8 have justified this fact. Amid the thrills and spills in first seven days of the eighth season of cash-rich Indian Premier Leauge (IPL) we witnessed a Gayle-storm, a 200+ score, a controversy and some of the spell-bound individual performances.
In a total of 9 games played so far, each team has played 2 games except Rajasthan Royals and Mumbai Indians who have played three games each. On one side, Rajasthan have won all the three games while on the other hand, Mumbai Indians led by Rohit Sharma have lost all 3 matches they played.
Defending Champions Kolkata Knight Riders started on a winning note but Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) ended their winning streak of 10 consecutive wins. Last season's bottom placed Delhi Daredevils revamped their squad in 2015 auction but it seems luck is not on their side and they continue to lose.
With 11 consecutive defeats, Delhi Daredevils have equaled Pune Warriors record in 2013.
Apart from this, some of the high quality individual performances by Deepak Hooda of Rajasthan Royals, Chris Gayle's match winning knock against KKR and McCullum's quickfire 100 against Sunrisers Hyderabad were the best highlights of the IPL 8 in its first week.
Interestingly, players like Hooda are scoring plenty of runs while some big names in bowling have performed below par.
So far it has been only the batsmen's show in the first seven days of this season as there has not been a single bowling performance which could have turned around the game.
What is remarkable is the fact that a team was completely bowled out only once in this season so far.
World Cup's leading wicket taker Trent Boult could only get 4 wickets in 2 games at a costly rate of 8.75 while the likes of McCullum, Warner, Gayle, Steven Smith and other batsmen continue their World Cup form in IPL as well.
Mysterious spinner Sunil Narine who had been leading the charge for KKR from past 4 years went wicketless in two games but was a bit reasonable with the economy rate of 6.75. Kiwi stars Tim Southee and Trent Boult could pick up just 3 and 4 wickets with a costly economy rate of 9.83 and 8.75 for their respective sides.
India's leading wicket taker in World Cup 2015 Umesh Yadav however played have just one game having an economy rate of 12 with no wicket.
India TV looks back at the moments that have dominated the last seven days.
The tournament itself started with a bang. Indian opener Rohit Sharma smashed unbeaten 98 while Corey Anderson finished scoring a quickfire 55 against for Mumbai against KKR in the opener and set the target of 169.
Kolkata chased the target easily with 9 balls remaining, thanks to the half century by skipper Gautam Gambhir and a blistering knock of 46 off just 20 by Suryakumar Yadav. No bowler on the either side seems to have troubled the batsmen at any point of time when two bowlers from KKR and three from Mumbai have the economy above 9.
