IPL-II was fun, exciting and definitely better than IPL-I. The points table noticed a complete turn around, barring a few teams who still remained competitive there were major turnarounds. Most notable of the turn arounds are Royal Challengers and Deccan Chargers.
Decaan chargers started the tourney with a mood of vengeance and determined to make amends to their IPL-I performance. The mood in which their top players played was commendable. Take the batting of Gilchrist and Symonds, who joined in the 2nd half of the tourney but contributed significantly towards the winning of IPL, it was really exciting and played in the spirit of IPL. I would like to clarify the meaning of the spirit of IPL meaning full of power hitting and good bowling. Gilchrist, Gibbs, Symonds, Rohit Sharma, Venu played their part. In bowling too the emergence of RP Singh from wilderness with a bang was worth noticing. RP claimed the purple cap and hence in the process earned a spot in Inidan T20 world cup team.
The other IPL-II finalist, Royal Challengers, also had a memorable journey this year. They had seen change of team and captainship from the reticent Rahul Dravid to the glamouros but controvorsial Peterson. Peterson was hired at a top price for Challengers purely for his big hitting prowess which was aimed at complementing the vetern players of Bangalore. But alas! he did more damage to RC than the previous captain unlike the DC where the change of captain gave a change in result of their campaign. RC looked out of sorts and lacking team spirit much like but a trifle better than Kolkatta. But after Peterson left and Kumble was appointed as the captain, their fortune changed remarkably, which resulted in a successive winning streak of 6 IPL matched beating all the semifinalists. Considering that most of bangaloreans like myself became fan of the team. But the campaign ended in disappointment. The loss of final would be memorable for Bangalore as they were one stage poised to win it convincingly but they made a mess of their run chase. Bangalore would though find their moving into the finals by beating the big teams is it self a big achievement.
Anyway the best team has won, we should admit it openly. All in all IPL has lived upto its hype and expectations this year and delivered an amazingingly lengthy show with less hassle. I would expect it would be even better when it comes to India next year though there are doubts on it.
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