Summer tales

The Hangover
Think of that morning after a long night of celebration to mark one of your biggest achievements. The Aussies turned up a bit like that in the IPL. Still high on their World Cup triumph, they seemed switched off. In fact, they looked anything but a bunch of world champions. The exceptions were David Warner, who managed to switch on both as captain and opener, and Mitchell Starc. Glenn Maxwell, who could do no wrong last season, looked like he'd rather go back and party some more.

Entertain like the Windies...
They're quite a bunch, aren't they? So what if they don't get picked for the World Cup? So what if they are not deemed good enough to play Test cricket? And so what if the world calls them mercenaries? They sure know how to light up the IPL and have a ball. Where else would Chris Gayle break into a Cristiano Ronaldo-type celebration after scoring a hundred, or Dwayne Bravo flaunt his suave dancing skills on the field? Only at India ka tyohaar, maaaan.

...But protest like Polly
Kieron Pollard entertained even while trying to make a point. Asked by the umpires to tone down his chatter against the Royal Challengers Bangalore batsmen, the big Trinidadian called for a sellotape from the dugout and 'shut' his mouth. End of debate. Not for the umpires, though, who asked him to get rid of it. Pollard argued — silently, mind you — took it off after a few overs. No wonder Mumbai Indians ended up at the bottom of the table. For the 'Fairplay Award', that is.

The awesome twosome
If there were a cap for the best fielder, Dwayne Bravo would don that too. The sheer number of mind-boggling catches he took this season would put a certain Jonty Rhodes to shame. But the best catch this season — it was a close call — goes to the Rajasthan Royals duo of Tim Southee and Karun Nair. Stationed at the boundary rope, Southee went backward to a skier, caught the ball, and threw it back inside as he fell over. Nair pulled off the perfect double by completing the catch. Just when we thought we'd seen everything.

The biggest blooper
'It's not over until it's actually over' goes the popular saying. David Warner probably forgot that in a crucial match against the Royal Challengers Bangalore. With RCB needing four runs off the last two balls, Virat Kohli mistimed one towards the long-off boundary. Warner, who was a picture of calmness, steadied himself and held onto it. But with the thought of celebrating towards the dugout, Warner took a step backward, and touched the boundary rope. Sunrisers lost the match, and as it turned out, crashed out of the tournament in the next game. Boy, wasn't that costly?

The art of peaking
The Australians call it 'tournament play'. In simple terms, it refers to peaking at the right time. And the Mumbai Indians seem to know very well when and how to hit fifth gear in a long tournament like the IPL. It didn't matter to them that they started off slowly, for like last season, they won the big matches. Even the Royal Challengers Bangalore painted a similar picture this season. On the other hand, the Rajasthan Royals and Kolkata Knight Riders, who could do no wrong in the initial phase, fizzled out towards the business end. Maybe a lesson in tournament play would do them good.

Missing the Midas Touch
There was a time when MS Dhoni could do no wrong. Even his most outrageous move would end up working. Sadly for him, and the Chennai Super Kings, that Midas Touch eluded him. There can be no possible explanation to why he chose to field first in a big final on a perfectly flat deck, or why he didn't bowl Dwayne Bravo till the 12th over. Even his bat seemed to have gone into deep slumber. He had the least strike rate (121.96) this season compared to all the previous ones. Those helicopter shots took off very rarely.

(A few) veterans aren't done yet
Every IPL brings a battery of youngsters to the forefront. This season, it also put the spotlight back on a few senior ones. The fiery Harbhajan Singh was the biggest beneficiary, his 18 wickets in 15 matches earning him a Test recall after two years. It's another thing whether he actually merited it. But there's no debating how well Ashish Nehra performed for the Super Kings, picking up wickets with the new ball and bringing all his experience at the death. Even Zaheer Khan looked his wily self.

Come back again, Hoggy
Admit it, we all loved seeing Brad Hogg walking into bowl, juggling the cherry, tongue-wagging, and bamboozling the batsmen with his left-arm stuff. That he is 44 — yes, he's the oldest player in the IPL — wasn't shocking, but the way he ran around like a child was. His energy levels would make even a 20-year-old think hard about himself, and the way he celebrated after each of his nine wickets showed how much playing the game still meant to him. Hope to see you next year, mate.

DRS on the umpires, please
Umpires do make mistakes, but in this IPL, there were way too many howlers. Batsmen were given out leg-before wicket to balls pitching yards outside the leg stump and to the thickest of inside edges. Worse, there were two atrocious decisions in the two qualifiers which could have proven decisive (CSK's Dwayne Smith against MI and RCB's AB de Villiers against CSK). Why, it even forced the otherwise-diplomatic Dhoni to publicly criticise the decisions, calling them "horrible". Maybe those cameras on the caps distracted the umpires. Or maybe it's time for the IPL to adopt the DRS.