This is definitely the night before the storm and one can stay rest assured that Chennai Super Kings and MS Dhoni will do everything possible to get their fifth title home and with that it could very well be Dhoni finishing his professional career on a high. Undoubtedly, he has been the best that India has got in terms of leadership
and his contributions are always going to be a point of discussion in many-many years to come.
We have already spoken about the reasons for the success of Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings this season. Let’s take a dig into another two teams that have done extremely well and they were also the other two teams to qualify for the play-offs. Lucknow Super Giants and Mumbai Indians were the other two teams to
qualify for the play-offs. LSG might have been knocked out by MI in the eliminator, but they have been an incredible team.
Starting with Mumbai Indians, one thing that has been impressive about this team is that, they have consistently found ways to jump out of difficult situations, when they are being considered as underdogs. With them doing it year-after-year, we surely have to give a lot of credit to the support staff and management, for keeping calm and patient, in difficult situations. While writing this article, I am not sure of the results of Qualifier 2, but I am expecting Mumbai Indians to be the second finalists.
Lucknow Super Kings have also had a brilliant start to their IPL career, by making it to the play-offs twice in just 2 years. They are an extremely well-balanced team, but it wouldn’t be wrong in suggesting that they are a team of controversy as well. There have been rumours of conflicts between the management and KL Rahul. This could
possibly have been the case, since we have already experienced this with the management and MSD, when this management owned the previous IPL team in Pune Rising Giants. Yet, we have to agree that to qualify on both the instances to play-offs, they should have gone a few things right.
We have already spoken about Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rashid Khan, Mohammed Shami, Faf du Plessis, Cameron Green, Shubman Gill, Axar Patel, Devon Conway, Virat Kohli and Ruturaj Gaikwad as our top 10 performers. Let’s have a look at our next 10 players.
11) Suryakumar Yadav – The world hasn’t been able to stop talking about this sensational right-handed batter and his ability to play shots all-around the ground.
Shortly, he was the number 1 ranked T20 batter in the world. This season, when he couldn’t start the IPL 2023 well, Mumbai were in a lot of trouble and ever since that he has found his groove back, Mumbai have looked like an incredible team.
12) Ravindra Jadeja – One player who has impressed me year-after-year and has only got better with time has to be Ravindra Jadeja. To start off, he is one of the best fielders in the world and any team in the world would be delighted to have his just as a fielder. To add on, his tight bowling is just ideal for the Chennai wicket. He might not be the best T20 batter in the world, but he surely adds value as a finisher in the already long batting line-up of Chennai.
13) Mohammed Siraj – Few years ago, he was heavily criticised for consistently leaking a lot of runs. With time and experience, he has out grown and now he consistently picks wickets upfront for RCB and his economy has also been brilliant.
This has not only given RCB some good options upfront, but also a ray of hope for the Indian team attack.
14) Ishan Kishan – I have not been a big fan of Ishan Kishan over the years, but it cannot be denied that he has got the numbers to show. We all can agree that he is extremely talented and often he just doesn’t do justice to his talent. His aggressive intent at the top has been the key for Mumbai Indians, although he will need to find consistency, if he wishes to make a consistent slot for himself in the Indian T20 team for long.
15) Sam Curran – The most expensive player of this year’s auction has somewhat done a little bit of justice to his talent. He has done well for Punjab with both the bat and ball. One complaint that the Punjab management would have towards Sam Curran is that, his contribution with the bat and ball doesn’t come together on most occasion. If he can consistently do that, then he would do a big deal for his team.
16) David Warner – He has left SRH to come to DC and it definitely hasn’t produced the results that he would have wanted. Initially, he was struggling to get the flow and he was playing extremely slow. Later, when he started getting the flow, the other batters wouldn’t provide him with the much-needed knocks.
17) Glenn Maxwell – Surely one of the most destructive batters on his day and he has done pretty well with the limited opportunity that he has got. Kohli and Faf have done majority of the scoring, but it wouldn’t be wrong in saying that he has made it look easier to score runs with his free-flowing stroke play. His bowling hasn’t been
the best, but he has consistently bowled in this year’s IPL.
18) Marcus Stoinis – I would definitely like to believe in that he should have batted higher up in the order of Lucknow Super Giants. He wasn’t bowled much as well. His capability to build an innings and also attack is what makes him special. He does also play the spinners well.
19) Tushar Deshpande – This season, this player has seriously excelled and the credit can surely be given to MS Dhoni and his management. Tushar surely has the pace and swing, but to be able to implement the variations has been incredible.
20) Krunal Pandya – The stand in captain has impressed with his captaincy skill in the absence of KL Rahul. His bowling and batting skills were worked on Mumbai Indians and he gets the job done with both, that’s something that we already know.
But this season he has executed the plans well, even when the going got tough. With just a day left to the finale, we are all getting restless to know who is going to lift the trophy. But with that, we are towards the end of the IPL as well.
May 29 will be our last article on IPL. Please do send us your messages on how the entire coverage was and what should we work on. Thank You!
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