Author: WebDesk

Overview At the risk of sounding cruel, these two teams are pretty much where they were last season. Lucknow, who finished fourth in the debut campaign, look like strong contenders for a play-off berth, with a powerful batting line-up and a bowling attack that has both searing pace and artful spin. Punjab, who couldn’t string two consistent performances together last season, have now lost two on the bounce after a promising 2-0 start. There was much hullaballoo over Liam Livingstone, the English all-rounder, joining the squad before Punjab’s previous game – a defeat to the Gujarat Titans –…

Overview These were the last two unbeaten sides in the competition, but they come into this match on the back of contrasting defeats. Punjab Kings suffered a batting meltdown against Sunrisers Hyderabad, and only Shikhar Dhawan’s memorable 99 not out allowed them to make a contest of it. There was no way, however, that Gujarat Titans could attribute their loss to a bad day. Having controlled their encounter against Kolkata Knight Riders, even without Hardik Pandya, their captain who was unwell, they suffered the mortification of seeing Rinku Singh smash five straight sixes off Yash Dayal to script the unlikeliest…

Overview At the start of the season, you would not have imagined that these two teams would be propping up the table nearly two weeks in to the season. Delhi Capitals can call on the vast experience of David Warner, the first overseas batter to cross 6,000 IPL runs, in the middle, and the considerable nous of Ricky Ponting and Sourav Ganguly in the dugout. Yet, they are winless in three games. Mumbai Indians, who have struggled since winning the last of their record five titles in 2020, have the leadership of Rohit Sharma, but two straight defeats have…

— Boria Majumdar Extracted from Mission Domination by Boria Majumdar and Kushan Sarkar. There is a saying that if you are talented, Mumbai doesn’t let you return empty-handed. Shardul’s story started in 2006. Dinesh Lad, the cricket coach of Swami Vivekananda International School, had been frantically calling one Narendra Thakur for at least six months, but each time his proposal was met with stiff resistance. Narendra Thakur was a vegetable farmer from Palghar, a district on the western lines around 90 kms from proper Mumbai. Lad had watched Thakur’s teenage son Shardul perform at an inter-school event and wanted the…

Atreyo Mukhopadhyay Revsportz looks at five takeaways from Rajasthan Royals’ crushing 57-run victory over the Delhi Capitals. Contrasting first overs How often does one see two such weirdly contrasting first overs in a T20 match? It was 20-0 when Delhi Capitals bowled, and 0-2 when Rajasthan Royals did. Mirror image, anyone? It’s probably not fair to say that this is where the game was decided, but the opening overs certainly set the trend for the day. Impetus is crucial when it comes to T20 games, and it was like chalk and cheese when it came to the…

After the bowlers had kept Delhi’s power-packed line-up to a score of 162, Gujarat Titans, the defending champions, aced the chase, with Sai Sudharsan’s splendid unbeaten 62 anchoring the innings. Vijay Shankar helped him rebuild the innings after Anrich Nortje’s pace had caused a scare early on, and David Miller applied the finishing touches with a punishing 31 not out. Here are our takeaways from a match that took Gujarat to the top of the table with two wins from two. Rashid the Rockstar Just how good is Rashid Khan? It’s probably no exaggeration to say that…

The last time MS Dhoni played a full season for Chennai Super Kings at Chepauk, he was still representing India. That little nugget might help explain why there’s near-hysteria around the streets leading to the MA Chidambaram Stadium, as Dhoni’s men ready for a first proper home game in years. The frenzied search for tickets has been intensified by the awareness that this could very well be Dhoni’s last season in canary yellow. There are even some who think he’s still playing, nearly four years after his last international cap, because he wanted to say goodbye to the fans…

After reaching the playoffs in five straight seasons between 2016 and 2020, Hyderabad have missed out on the final stages of the tournament in the last two campaigns. The eighth-place finish in 2022 prompted something of an overhaul, with Kane Williamson released and Aiden Markram appointed captain. But Markram won’t be around as Sunrisers start their season. He, along with Heinrich Klaasen and Marco Jansen, his South African teammates, will join up with the squad only next week after completing their international commitments. Bhuvneshwar Kumar, a stalwart of Hyderabad’s teams for a decade, will lead in Markram’s absence, but…

By Revsportz Editorial Given how both these teams have been firmly rooted in mid-table in recent seasons, it can be easy to forget that they contested the 2014 final, with Manish Pandey’s thrilling 94 clinching the title for Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) after Wriddhiman Saha’s stunning 55-ball 115 not out had set them an imposing target of 200. That was part of a golden period for KKR, who reached the playoffs six times between 2011 and 2018. Punjab haven’t even made the playoffs since, finishing higher than 6th just once. KKR reached the 2021 final on the…