IPL is a battle of equals. Unfortunately, only the best four march to the knockout stage, leaving their counterparts behind.
To differentiate themselves from the rest, the best teams do certain things differently and decisively. As the tournament arrives at the knock-out stage, The Quint analyses the most attributable reasons why the four teams that have made play-offs – Mumbai Indians, Rising Pune Supergiant, Sunrisers Hyderabad, Kolkata Knight Riders – have done that so successfully.
Mumbai Indians
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Playing Team game: Despite the presence of multiple stars in the team such as Rohit Sharma, Jos Buttler, Kieron Pollard and Harbhajan Singh, MI have not depended heavily on any one particular name. Instead, it has been the newbies and the relatively non-stars who have consistently driven MI to greater heights this year.
The team delivered as a well-oiled machine with all all its parts smoothly synchronised. The examples are several – from Rohit Sharma’s sacrifice of batting down the order to strengthen the lower middle order to Nitish Rana’s tremendous show in the first half of the tournament.
Batting Depth: Besides Parthiv Patel’s consistent scores and Lendl Simmon’s bursts at the top, the team’s multi-pronged batting unit is decked with Rohit Sharma, Kieron Pollard, Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya in the middle and lower order providing the team sufficient fire power and depth to clinch close encounters and boost the death over batting.
Quality All-rounders: That the all-rounders play instrument roles in the shortest format of the game has been demonstrated just perfectly by MI in this year’s IPL. With as many as three (Kieron, Krunal, Hardik) world-class all-rounders in their playing XI, MI have always had those extra bowling and batting resources besides the specialist roles.
Mumbai’s Stand-Out Stats
- No batsman in the top 10 performers of the season, but 5 (Pollard, Rana, Parthiv, Rohit, Buttler) in top 30
- Eight different players have scored half centuries for Mumbai this season
- Maximum run accumulator in this year’s IPL till the play-off with 2407 runs in 14 matches
Rising Pune Supergiant
After last year’s dismal records and MS Dhoni’s removal as captain in the lead-up to this season, not many had foreseen Rising Pune Supergiant progressing to the last four of IPL 2017. So, what worked for RPS this year?
The Big Ben: There is no denying that cricket is a team game and individuals can only play their roles to a certain extent. The big Ben, however, has shown the cricketing world what he can do it single-handedly.
With as many as four ‘Man of the Match’ awards and multiple all-round cameo performances, Ben Stokes has paid back significant returns on investments made by his franchise. He’s the single largest contributing factor to Pune’s advancement to the play-offs this season.
The Uncapped Youngsters: With young Indians such as Rahul Tripathi, Jaydev Unadkat, Shardul Thakur and Washington Sundar providing impetus to the team both in batting and bowling, RPS have shown what talent and youth can achieve over star powers.
Tripathi has been a revelation in the tournament and is currently the tournament’s 8th highest run-scorer. After the initial struggle with Ashok Dinda, Unadkat, for RPS it was a case of finding the right person at the right time.
With Unadkat, Pune’s bowling unit looked more potent than ever and his 21 wickets in 10 matches was one of the reasons behind their incredible success.
Building on the Momentum: Even though RPS began their campaign in style this season by defeating Mumbai Indians in their opener, they subsequently lost their next three games and were in tatters for a reasonable time.
The revival of the team – which was almost in alignment with Stokes’ form – started after their win against RCB and subsequently moved from strength to strength before finishing the league stage just behind MI. The ability to jettison the early setbacks and to come back strong was one of the highlights of RPS’ great show this season.
Pune’s Stand-Out Stats
- Ben Stokes amassed 316 runs at a strike rate of 143 and scalped 12 wickets
- Jaydev Unadkat - Second highest wicket-taker (21 wickets at ER 7.18), R Tripathi - 8th highest run getter (388 runs at strike rate 151)
- Consistency and momentum: Won 8 out of their last 10 matches after getting the combination right
Sunrisers Hyderabad
The Table Top Opening Pair: Like their performances last year, SRH have got what they wanted the most from their opening pair. Captain David Warner, also being the best batsman of the team, not only has scored plenty of runs at the top but has also batted sensibly to take the team safe.
Shikhar Dhawan on the other hand has been steady and consistent. Contributing the most in SRH’s success this year, the duo of Warner and Dhawan take the top two spots respectively in the most run scorers’ list in IPL 2017.
The Mystery Spin and Deadly Pace Combo: Rashid Khan, who was considered an unconventional pick at the auction, turned out to be a differentiator for SRH with his mystery spin. He has not only scalped wickets at excellent economy rates, but has also got the better of quality opponent batsmen (A Rahane, S Raina, Rohit, B McCullum and more).
With bamboozling spin at one end, SRH also has a deadly pace battery in the combination of Bhuvi, Ashish Nehra, Siddarth Kaul and Mohammed Siraj to strike their opponents hard.
The Home Stronghold: By making the most, and by far the best of home conditions, SRH have been able to earn as many as 12 points just from their home games. Buoyed by the support of a loyal fanbase and enriched with years of experience of the venue, SRH did something very consistently that others failed to do. SRH’s remarkable home record, therefore, is one of the prime reasons for their overall accomplishments this season.
Big Sunrisers’ Stats
- Not only are David Warner and Shikhar Dhawan the top-two run-getters of IPL 2017, their joint contribution is 48% of the total runs scored by SRH this season
- Rashid Khan’s 17 wickets came at a thrift economy rate of 6.67; Bhuvneshwar Kumar is the leading wicket-taker with 25 wicket at ER 6.97
- Home Run: Won 6 out of the 7 home matches at the Uppal stadium in Hyderabad
Kolkata Knight Riders
Narine and Lynn Flamboyance: For the first time in IPL, Sunil Narine is more talked about for his batting than bowling. Kolkata Knight Riders’ experimentation with Narine as a pinch-hitting opener differentiated them from their opponents in multiple occasions. While Narine gave KKR jumpstarts in his cameo roles, Lynn has assumed various roles. Lynn has not only scored runs at a brisk pace, but scored plenty of them to give their batting a lot of stability.
Experienced trio of Gambhir-Uthappa-Pandey: Having retained the core of the side for a sufficiently long time, KKR is one of the most experienced sides of the tournament. Gautam Gambhir not only stands out as an excellent leader, but also is the third-highest run scorer of the tournament.
Senior batsmen Robin Uthappa and Manish Pandey have been able to apply themselves well according to match situations and helped their team seal some close contests.
Horses for Courses Selection: With the newly-laid fast Eden Gardens track this season, KKR have relied more on fast bowlers than spinners as a departure from their tradition to rely more on spinners. KKR have marshalled their resources judiciously according to the conditions by bringing in Ankit Rajpoot, Kuldeep Yadav, Piyush Chawla, Nathan Coulter-Nile as and when required with other regular picks.
As a team, KKR players complement each other well and their strong bench strength has somewhat been able to offset the absence of T20 heavyweight Andre Russell.
Kolkata’s Stand-Out Stats
- Both Sunil Narine and Chris Lynn feature in the list of fastest fifties in the history of IPL having scored them in 15 and 19 balls respectively
- G Gambhir, M Pandey and R Uthappa hold 3rd, 7th and 9th positions respectively as most run-getters in this IPL making KKR a solid and stable batting unit
- Horses for Courses: As many as 9 superb bowling resources in the team with U Yadav, S Narine, C Woakes, C Grandhomme, K Yadav. P Chawla, Coulter-Nile, S al-Hasan and A Rajpoot
It will be interesting to watch how these quality teams build on these differentiating factors in slightly different circumstances now under the knockout pressure. It must, however, be said that it is good for the quality of cricket in IPL that the four most deserving teams have reached the knockout stage this season.
Let the best team win the title.
(Debnath Roychowdhury is an alumnus of SP Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR), Mumbai and works as a Management Consultant. Debnath is a cricket analyst and writer and can be reached @ImDebnathand at LinkedIn.)
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