IPL match statistics or for that matter any statistics present a lot more than common viewing can perceive. As an audience what we perceived from Chennai Superkings defeat at the hands of Mumbai Indians in the IPL 2009 opening edition was the fact that Tandulkar perfomed extremely well and helped Mumbai Indians to reach to a good total. In reply, the Chennai Superkings fell short by 19 odd runs!!! Well this was the vanilla picture of the scheme of things that went behind the making of match, but then there was much more to it. This is where we make use of IPL opening match statistics to figure out less obvious details.
To start off the discussion, there goes a question... Why did Chennai SuperKings chose to ball first? Answer: They knew that batting through initial overs will be tough in damp conditions and they may end up having two top batsmen from Mumbai camp, i.e. Sachin and Jayasuriya.
Now the next question, Did this work? Before commenting on that lets have a look at the contribution of runs each batsmen from Mumbai Indians made to the total:
Well the Graph makes it evident that Sachin’s contribution to the total is max. However, Sanath Jayasuriya failed to make a mark. So that partially proves that Chennai SuperKing’s strategy was half right. But wait a moment, Looking at the strike rate statistics of Jayasuriya and Nayar as opposed to Sachin’s strike rate would give a different picture at all.
Taking into consideration the statistics both the graphs, the fact that is obvious is Sachin was playing calm and an anchor’s part while the other batsmen were having a go at the bowlers. Sachin’s strike rate went up only in the last few overs, what is most remarkable here is the fact that Sachin scored only in sixties even after playing through all 20 overs.
Now taking a look at the bowlers statistics, Flintoff proved to be costliest of all bowlers conceding 44 runs in 4 overs, contributing to nearly 25% of total runs made by Mumbai Indians. A better strategy could have been frustrating Tendulkar to go for big shots. This would have definitely disturbed the overall game plan of Mumbai team and could have had them dislodged at a cheaper total.
Now taking a look at the bowlers statistics, Flintoff proved to be costliest of all bowlers conceding 44 runs in 4 overs, contributing to nearly 25% of total runs made by Mumbai Indians. A better strategy could have been frustrating Tendulkar to go for big shots. This would have definitely disturbed the overall game plan of Mumbai team and could have had them dislodged at a cheaper total.
Finally, a look at Chennai Superkings’ batting statistics, they weren’t bad at all, but then there weren’t any big quick innings from anyone and once again the batting depended heavily on Hayden and Dhoni’s performance which is clearly not the best signs for the team!!!
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