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| Image Credit: pixahive.com |
Hello Friends,
The biggest cricketing extravaganza Indian Premier League(IPL) kick started its 14th edition this year. Rejoice for fans as this time they had to wait for about 6 months since the completion of last edition as the last edition was postponed due to Covid-19. Great to see the event happening in India this year despite increasing concerns over second wave of Covid-19 pandemic. Once again BCCI & IPL Governing council deserves a lot of applause for conducting the event with all the safety protocols in place. As far as excitement is concerned the tournament has already promised to provide yet another exciting season after a sequence of extremely competitive matches at the end of first week .Unlike the previous years there is no home advantage for teams this year as all the teams are going to play in neutral venues behind the closed doors. That makes the tournament even more challenging just like last year. What to look for this year then?? Punjab & Delhi franchises under the leadership of new young captains, a more settled CSK batting line up with a point to prove, Mumbai Indians' quest for a hat trick of IPL wins, RCB's desperate attempt on the ever elusive IPL trophy. Let's now have a quick look on the major highlights from the first week of the competition
- Big Show Glenn Maxwell arriving in grand style for his new franchisee RCB with match winning performances in first 3 matches
- CSK looks like a lot more settled batting line up with the inclusion of Raina & Moeen Ali
- Not an impressive start by SRH by loosing their first 3 matches with the middle order messing up in all the 3 occasions
- Chris Morris, the most expensive recruit of this year shrugging off all the talks of price tag pressure by playing a match winning knock against Delhi Capitals
- Comeback of Prithvi Shaw & usual heroics of Mr.360 AB de Villiers
- Bit of a up & down start for KKR under the leadership of Morgan
With so much of action in the first week, coming weeks are definitely going to be even more exciting. Let's now have a quick look at the leadership lessons from the first few matches of the biggest T20 league.
Flexible Mr. 360
Experience teaches one how to be calm under tricky situations & get the job done for your team. When it comes to team game, it is very important for every member of the team to be ready to fulfil whatever responsibility comes their way. One needs to be extremely smart to be able to adapt to a new situation presented by the team. De Villiers showed how to do that with perfection. Batting at one position lower than where he bats usually he had to take the responsibility of finishing games for his team. This move not only paved the way for RCB 's new recruit Maxwell to bat up the order & play match winning knocks, but also ABD's presence at No. 5 solved the problem of lack of depth in RCB's middle order in the previous editions. The South African great responded to this new responsibility in grand manner by playing two crucial knocks against Mumbai Indians & Kolkata Knight Riders. His match winning knock against Mumbai Indians in a tricky Chennai pitch garnered lot of applause as all the other batters struggled to score at that venue this year. Truly a team man. Isn't it?
Long wait for sunrise
One of the major lessons we all have been taught since childhood is to learn from our mistakes. This lesson becomes even more crucial in our professional life as we can't afford to keep repeating our mistakes. In a competitive sport like cricket it is so very important to quickly learn from mistakes & move forward. Kind of performance came from Sunrisers Hyderabad batting line up in their first 3 matches was extremely disappointing & wouldn't have pleased their team management & fans too. Playing on slow & turning tracks is always a challenge. It becomes even more challenging if the batters fail to apply themselves & don't follow the basics. Again the importance of strong basics comes to the picture. Surprising to see Indian players like Manish Pandey & Vijay Shankar also struggling to adapt to such pitches even after playing for years in Indian conditions. SRH middle order seemed to be repeating their mistakes & lost all the 3 matches from a winning position. Disappointment was evident in their captain's words as well who tried to inspire the team by playing couple of crucial knocks. But it was in vain. Hope the team learns quickly & gets back to winning ways soon.
Stay tuned for more at this space in the coming weeks.
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