Monday, May 25, 2009

Success Formula to become the IPL Champion

Yesterday, Deccan Chargers (DC) Hyderabad had won the IPL 2009 Championship after beating Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in an absorbing final in Jo'burg, South Africa.  Well Done Adam Gilchrist & your DC team-mates for the achievement, particularly considering how your team was placed after last year's inagural IPL.

Our appreciation also goes to the REAL WARRIOR & FIGHTER to the core, Anil Kumble and his valiant team RCB, for the way they have put up a fight & kept the match with DC alive till the penultimate ball, something similar to last year's Championship match too.  Thanks Anil for proving to the world how grit & determination can override age in this format too.

As far as IPL 2, as a tournament, is concerned, it has turned out to be a stupendous success.  The tournament has revived SA's economy in these troubled and recessionary times.  This was disclosed to the world by none other than the President of South Africa himself in the closing ceremony held after the finals.  Lalit Modi, the IPL Commissioner, has surely converted a challenge (of shifting the tournament out of India) thrown at him into an opportunity and show-cased India as a happening country through the efficient & successful conduct of IPL 2 within such a short span of time (3 weeks) and for such a long duration (about 5 weeks or so).

Now that two seasons of IPL have been concluded and Rajasthan Royals (RR) (in 2008) and Deccan Chargers (DC) (in 2009) have been crowned as the IPL Champions, here is my take-away as to what could be, inter alia, a success formula to become the Champion Team in the Indian Premier League (Hope the IPL Team Owners are reading this).

1.  Recruit and appoint an Australian cricketer, who is also a Big Match Player, as the Captain of your team (Shane Warne - RR Captain in 2008 & Adam Gilchrist - DC Captain in 2009)
2.  If he is a retired Australian cricketer, the better, since he can be available for the full length of the tournament (Both Warne in 2008 & Gilli in 2009 are retired)
3.  Have an Australian as the coach (Warne himself for RR and Darren Lehmann for DC in 2009) (I can hear Sourav, Shah Rukh & FakeIPLPlayer gritting their teeth at my suggestion)
4.  Have a hard-hitting South African as an opening batsman (Graeme Smith for RR and Herschelle Gibbs for DC)
5.  Have at least one hard-hitting all-rounder down the order (Yusuf Pathan for RR and Rohit Sharma for DC)
6.  Let your premier bowler be a left-arm fast medium one (Sohail Tanvir & R.P.Singh)
7.  Have an all-rounder in the team who is capable of bagging the Player of the Tournament award (Shane Watson for RR in 2008 and Gilli himself for DC in 2009)
8.  Have 1 more member in the team who is capable of bagging one of the two Caps - Orange cap (Maximum runs) or Purple cap (maximum wickets) (Purple Cap holder - Sohail Tanvir for RR in 2008 and R.P. Singh for DC in 2009)

Now that the "secret" of the Success Formula has been spilled out in black & white, can we expect the Khans and Zintas and Ambanis and Mallyas of the world rushing to revamp their teams before the next IPL edition starts?

5 comments:

Abu said...

Good Analysis !

Regards
Abu

Vijay said...

Yup. This year's IPL is a much more Gala event than the previous one. Thanks to the neat stadia in SA and the lively pitches, we always didn't see batsman oriented contests and the fact that RP Singh bagged maximum wickets is a testimony to that.

Having said that I slightly differ from your opinion of having an Australian as a skipper. I despised Deccan and RR for the same reason for having an Aussie as the skipper. Chennai were doing very well, of course with help from Mathee Hayden. But their decision to play a stupid player like Goni backfired tremendously. Sudip Tyagi was bowling very well and I see no reason, why he should have been dropped.
Punjab just blew out their chances by not defeating Chennai in their last game. Remember they were chasing under 6 an over. Bangalore could have still won the match, had they got the nerves. But Bangalore had too much dependency on players from SA and NZ who are big time chokers at crunch situations.
I think RCB just got overwhelmed by the finals. But which ever team has got Aussie as a captain, I would stop supporting that team. And if all teams have an Aussie at the helm, I would rather stop watching IPL :-)

chitra said...

That is a neat observation I must say!The STAR owners must rethink. May be Buchanan too!!.Too much of interference ,lack of coordination ,had cost the teams dearly..But I believe that mumbai indians were a bit unlucky.Gilchrist's boisterous presence in the field was a great morale booster for the team .Even for that matter Kumble was also the same .Probably they(RCB)could not hold on to their nerves at the end. All in all an absorbing final.
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chitra sundar

chitra said...

thanks for comments on my blogs.

chitra sundar

Unknown said...

Good suggestions Arun, more importantly you don't need multiple captains,hope SRK understands this