Monday, May 19, 2008

IPL Leaders - End of Q3 Results

The 3rd Quarter of the Indian Premier League is over. In 30 days, 42 matches have been played.

Initially, when I started doing these quarterly reports (Q1, Q2), I did not know that the matches were evenly distributed with 14 games over every 10 days. But thats how it has perfectly panned out and it only seems logical to compare how each of these 10 days were.

RR, RCB, and DC have had consistent quarters in the IPL, while the fortunes of the other teams have fluctuated throughout. KXI and CSK strenghtened their positions during Q3, while MI continued its strong resurgence by becoming the only team to win 6 consecutive games in the IPL.

KKR and DDD who began their campaigns strongly are dangerously lingering in the 5th and 6th positions, yet the RACE to the Final Four remains open. S. Rajesh of Cricinfo pointed out a possibility that even at this stage, RR can miss out.

Thats how open and unpredictable this tournament has been and thats why the viewers have been hooked.

Some people questioned that the length of the tournament, 45 days to be exact, would be taxing on the viewers who would lose interest. Nothing like that has happened and Q3 was witnessed with the same packed crowds and large number of TV viewers as Q1 and Q2.

With Q4 expected to be the most exciting quarter of the IPL, and the RACE to the Final Four in its concluding stages, expect the interest of the viewers to remain high, if not higher than the preceding quarters.

Here's a look at the top performers of the IPL at the end of Q3.

Leading Batsmen
1. Gautam Gambhir (DDD) - 465 runs in 11 innings at 46.50
2. Virender Sehwag (DDD) - 338 runs in 11 innings at 37.55
3. Rohit Sharma (DC) - 337 runs in 10 innings at 37.44
4. Sanath Jayasuriya (MI) - 336 runs in 10 innings at 42.00
5. Adam Gilchrist (DC) - 335 in 11 innings at 33.50

The top 3 batsmen remain the same as Q2, however Gambhir and Sharma exchange places. Gambhir has looked impressive throughout the tournament and now has over a 100 run lead over Sehwag, the 2nd highest run scorer in the IPL.

Jayasuriya breaks into the top 5 for the first time, while Gilchrist drops from 4 at the end of Q2 to 5. I reckon Jayasuriya in the last 3 games has batted the way he did in 1996, which by far was his best cricketing year with the bat.

Its interesting to note that only a single run separate each of the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th ranked batsmen. And only 2 runs separate the 5th from the 6th (Shane Watson, 333), which is separated by only a run with the 7th (MS Dhoni, 332).

Graeme Smith, Shaun Marsh, and David Hussey make up the top 10. Marsh has batted only 6 times for his 297 runs, which is quite remarkable.

While Gambhir is leading by quite a big margin, there isn't much difference between the other batsmen in the top 10.

Leading Bowlers
1. RP Singh (DC) - 15 wickets in 11 matches at 23.86
2. Shane Warne (RR) - 14 wickets in 10 matches at 18.78
3. Irfan Pathan (KXIP) - 13 wickets in 10 matches at 18.69
4. Sreesanth (KXIP) - 13 wickets in 10 matches at 22.61
5. Zaheer Khan (RCB) - 13 wickets in 10 matches at 24.61

Irfan Pathan, who topped the charts at the end of Q1 and Q2 drops from the top spot down to number 3, which he shares with team mate Sreesanth and Zaheer Khan.

The Indians continue to dominate the bowling list as they did in Q1 and Q2, with RP Singh over taking his Indian team mates to the number 1 spot at the end of Q3.

From the list at the end of Q2, Ashish Nehra drops out, while Sreesanth breaks into the top 5 for the first time. The slap has definitely done him a lot of good.

Shane Warne, who had dropped from 3rd to 5th between Q1 and Q2, is now in the 2nd spot. My bets are on him topping the charts at the end of Q4.

The 6th in the list, Watson has 12 wickets, while the bowlers from 7th to 11th (Tanvir, Kulkarni, Bravo, Chawla) each have 11 wickets apiece.

Other Stats
Highest Team Score: 240-5, CSK vs KXIP.
Highest Individual Score: 158*, Brendon McCullum (KKR) vs RCB.
Best Strike Rate (min 100 runs): 204.34, Brendon McCullum (KKR).
Most Sixes: 20, Sanath Jayasuriya (MI)
Best Bowling Performance: 6-14, Sohail Tanvir (RR) vs CSK.
Best Economy Rate (min 10 overs): 5.77, Saurav Ganguly (KKR).

The highest team and individual scores, and the highest strike rate have remain unchanged since Q1. Plus it took 2 quarters for someone to surpass McCullum's number of sixes, all of which were hit during Q1.

Sohail Tanvir's figures remain untouched, even though Balaji, Mishra, Ntini, and Shoaib Akhtar have come close. Overall there was better bowling on display during Q3 than the preceding quarters.

Ganguly is a surprise with the best economy rate - he has bowled 17 overs for only 104 runs, and he's picked up 5 wickets as well.

Another 10 days to go for the group stage. Another 14 matches, which will not only decide the RACE, but also the top performers.

Stay tuned for Q4 results.

Make your pitch on this post...



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3 Pitched:

  1. Anonymous said...
     

    its still wide opne like you said... if RR loses the next 4, there is the possibility of their knockout... as far as sanath goes, Chenghis Khan is back!

  2. Homer said...
     

    Q,

    In the 2006/07 season ( when Mumbai staged the greatest turn around in Ranji history), there were no Mumbaikars on the leaders board - no leading run getter or wicket taker or highest run getter or best bowling figures.

    Speaks volumes for team work eh?

    Cheers

  3. Q said...
     

    He sure is Scorpi.

    It sure does Homer, but Jayasuriya is in the top 5 here :-)

    Interesting to note that 2 of the top 5 batsmen and 2 of the top 5 bowlers are from teams that haven't won anything...

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