Yes admittedly the crowds lacked the frenzy, the heat, the noise and the clamour that cricket in India typifies, but as South African cricket came to the aid of the IPL so have the crowds there risen to the occasion. They have embraced Sachin Tendulkar with fervor, judging by the number of Mumbai Indian supporters in the crowd, have enjoyed lending their support to the Rajasthan Royals if the blue turbans and false moustaches are anything to go by and have generally been great sports’ supporting teams named for Indian cities they had probably not heard of before!

And it wasn’t all hype and hoopla either: we saw some very fine cricket indeed. This time around, it wasn’t just a question of coming to the crease and throwing your bat around. One was required to play good cricket if runs were to be extracted by stingy bowlers and inimical wickets. Very amazingly this year, the bowlers frequently took it away from the batsmen.

Also it has not been about flukes and chances and strokes of luck. It has been some fine cricket skills of display, some from old veterans and some from little known entities in international cricket as well as newbies form India that no one had heard about before.

IPL Season 2 saw the return of many prodigals. Matthew Hayden proved in no uncertain terms that he was in no way washed up, even his retirement from international cricket some months back was not in the best of circumstances. Adam Gilchrist proved that he can well be hurricane harry when he chooses to be and as for Shane Warne, what can you say except that Cricket Australia has to be regretting never having made use of his services as skipper for the national team.

Shane Warne added an extra dimension to his modest seeming team’s capabilities with his extraordinary cricket insight, is innovative and creative captaincy and his innate ability to coax excellent performances from his mates. If the campaign of the Rajasthan Royals ended in disappointment, then blame would be difficult to affix at Warne’s door. Another retiree who is showing everyone how it ought to be done is Anil Kumble so is still got it in him to take five wickets on the first day of the IPL 2009 and who, upon assuming captaincy was able to turn around the fortunes of his team, which at one point seemed to be going nowhere but is going into the semi final today.

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

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