Let me begin this post with two really cheeky tweets that I read this evening after the Pune Warriors India vs Sunrisers Hyderabad match. Stupid Common Man @D_Evil_Inside tweets: ‘Agar daag (Steyn) se kisi ka achha hota hai, to daag achhe hain. #IPL #SRHvsPWI’ and Abhishek Chauhan @imabhishek268, who tweeted: ‘Haar kar Jeetne waale ko Bazigar kehte hain! Aur jeet kar harne waale Ko Pune Warriors India kehte hain! 😛 #SRHvsPWI #PepsiIPL’
The tweets largely sum up the match for anyone. Pune Warriors were literally stunned… stoned… and steyned… the Dale Storm that hit them hard was Dale Steyn. But then, let us not forget that the Man of the Match was Amit Mishra for the destructive edge that his bowling gave the Sunrisers making them win the match by 22 runs.
However, this match must really become a part of the IPL history for being one of the lowest totals defended. Cricbuzz @cricbuzz tweets: ‘Stat: This was the lowest total defended by a Hyderabad team in the #IPL. Also the 4th lowest defended successfully by any team #SRHvsPWI’
The lowest totals defended in IPL are:
116/9 by Chennai Super Kings v Punjab… 92/8, Durban, 20 May 2009.
119/8 by Kings XI Punjab v Mumbai Indians… 116/7, Durban, 29 April 2009.
120/9 by Mumbai Indians v Pune Warriors… 119/6, Pune, 3rd May 2012.
The funniest thing is that no one probably expected the outcome of the match to be so dynamic. The Sunrisers were actually written off as they finished their innings. The commentators in the studio that included Samir Kochar, Harsha Bhogle, and Jadeja were all joking about the sun attempting to rise and the dark clouds or darkness keeping it under covers!
By the way, talking of low scores, I went through IPL stats and found that out of 18 lowest scores, 7 are made by RR or Rajasthan Royals which makes them the KING of low scores. Hope Sunriser or PWI aren’t in the race to snatch that crown! Another interesting trivia is that the least score ever in any IPL match has been made by RR again: 58 for 10 wkts in 15.1 overs vs RCB on 18 Apr 2009 in Newlands, Cape Town. Thus RR occupies a place of pride in the low-score section of IPL statistics.
This match surely tells us that:
- An IPL match isn’t over until it is actually over
- Low scores don’t necessarily mean that a match is lost
- Always expect the unexpected
There are people on twitter as well as the AV and even the print media who are predicting that PWI and Sunrisers are going to be the two teams at the bottom this year. I’d say: Don’t be so sure!
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Arvind Passey
06 April 2013
