Half way mark at IPL 2

This year's IPL has reached the half-way mark and I have not seen most of the matches. Usually, I get to see the last few overs of the second match only on few days. Of course, during the weekends, yes, I watched couple of matches.

I think IPL 2 has become more competitive than before due to the helpful conditions in South Africa for the bowlers. In the first edition in India last year, bowlers were always at the receiving end. But in SA, bowlers are making a good show and you can the scores have not gone past 160 in most of the instances.

Other interesting thing is the sterling show by spinners. Spinners, always considered a weak spot in T20, has proved the critics wrong by making life miserable for batsmen. Couple of them, Pragyan Ojha, Shedab Jakati (did I get his first name right?) have made significant contribution to their teams. I watched Jakati's bowling in the last 2 matches and I am very impressed with his bowling. Lot of flight, spin and excellent variation in length. Truly, thats exactly the reason why I like to watch spinners in action. I think, this guy, Jakati would soon go places in Indian cricket.

At the end of the first leg, the team standings are quite different than expected. Deccan Chargers which finished at the bottom of the table last year has done pretty well in the first stage and the same with Bangalore Royal Challengers. It is still not the end of the road for many teams and I think this year it is going to a close finish for the top four.

Already requests have started flooding the BCCI to allow the number of foreign players in a team to be increased to 5 from 4. Lalit Modi has denied permission for that, but I think in the next year's edition it would be made 5. Teams have spent lot of money on foreign players and you cant keep them bowling or batting only at the nets!! But allowing one more foreign player in the playing eleven will deny a chance to a Indian player. Lets see what happens?

During IPL2, there is lot of talk going around the internal ramblings in the Kolkata Knight Riders side due to captaincy issues and their poor performance. A blog by name www.fakeiplplayer.blogspot.com was making waves for sometime by providing juicy stories of internal discussions and happenings in KKR. This blog is quite a hit with hundreds of comments for each post. I am also waiting to see if one of my post gets 10 comments!! I managed to read all the posts over the long weekend. Need to catch up for the new posts, though. Another blog which has come up after seeing the popularity of fakeiplplayer blog is www.iplhappenings.blogspot.com. Provides you with light reading material and you would be happy reading if you love reading gossip!!