IPL 8 proves Partnerships don’t always win matches

There is probably no legend in the history cricket who has not spoken about the importance of partnerships in an innings. Partnership between two players is crucial to score runs at a steady rate and more over it sets the platform for other to bat freely.

Logically speaking, Partnerships do help in setting or chasing a total, they have a huge role to play in Test Cricket and One Day Internationals but for T20 cricket? Well, we should think about it once and the reason why we should is the ongoing season of Pepsi IPL 8. There have been quite a few instances when it has been proved that partnerships don’t always win matches.

Let’s look at the statistics given below and discuss as to why IPL 8 and particularly T20 cricket proves partnerships don’t always win matches

 

 

Partners	Team	Runs	Wkt	Result	Opp
Rohit Sharma, Corey Anderson	MI	131*	4th	LOST	KKR
Mayank Agarwal, Yuvraj Singh	DD	106	3rd	WON	KXIP
Corey Anderson, Keiron Pollard	MI	104	4th	LOST	RR
J Suchith, Harbhajan Singh	MI	100	7th	LOST	KXIP
Gautam Gambhir, Manish Pandey	KKR	85	2nd	WON	MI
David Warner, Shikhar Dhawan	SRH	82	1st	WON	RCB
Robin Uthappa, Gautam Gambhir	KKR	81	1st	LOST	RCB
Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul	SRH	78*	3rd	WON	RCB
Dwayne Smith, Brendon McCullum	CSK	75	1st	WON	SRH
Virender Sehwag, W Saha	KXIP	71	2nd	LOST	DD

Stat updated till 17 April, 2015

In the Top-10 list of highest partnerships by runs in IPL 2015 we can see that 5 teams have lost after having a good partnership on the other hand 5 have won the match too. A partnership of 100 or more runs in ODI cricket is considered to be a blessing in disguise for the batting team. But in the case of T20 Cricket or rather we say in the case of IPL 8, it is slightly different.

So far in IPL 2015 there have 4 partnerships of 100 or more runs of which 3 thrice the team that has got a good partnership has lost the match and all the three have come from the Mumbai Indians team, who are currently last on the table. Whereas the team that tops the table doesn’t even have a single partnership listed in the Top 10 list and that team is Rajasthan Royals.

Talking about the reality, we know in what situations these partnerships happened and what the team score when they came into bat and what was the required run-rate too. But this is something which the stats don’t know. All they know is to show numbers and when we look at these numbers we can easily say that in IPL 8 partnerships alone will not win you matches. It is a contribution of whole team that is required to win and no two players alone can take you to the path of victory.

What are your views on this new trend in Indian Premier League that has proved all legends and experts wrong? Will this change as we are still in the initial stage of league and there are many more matches that await us with more twists, shocks and what not. For each of them keep following SPORTZWIKI as we bring to you the best coverage of IPL.