IPL 2022 has been a great season for the cricket fans all over!! The highlight of the season can be attributed to the new teams doing well, spirited batting and bowling displays and above all, some really hard-fought tight games. Also, this season has been the most toughest one, we should say, as it was impossible to determine and name the four teams that would go to the Playoff stage!! Well, the nail-biting drama rose to a big level in the penultimate match of the league phase where finally the final lines got drawn.
So today we at IWMBuzz.com look at the teams in IPL 2022 which have had a flurry of wins, and have gone on to lose the momentum thereafter!! Yes, it has been a mixed bag of good wins and miserable losses for a few teams in this year’s IPL. Looking back at those games, they might be kicking themselves hard for the missed opportunities, and might probably blame the Lady Luck too to have eluded them at the most crucial phases in certain games.
So here we go!!
Kolkata Knight Riders: The team led by Shreyas Iyer had a stupendous start to the IPL campaign this year. The team had a new captain in Shreyas, and they were eager to kickstart their season in IPL with a bang. After winning 3 of their first four matches, and from a point of being the table-toppers at one phase of the game, the KKR team went on to lose 5 matches in a row!! These losses left them off gear, from the position which they could not retract and bag a position in the Playoffs!! It seemed like the steam in the team went off, all of a sudden!!
Sunrisers Hyderabad: The Sunrisers Hyderabad team finally seemed like a well-balanced team after all the struggle they had in last year’s IPL with the captaincy issues that they faced owing to the poor form of the then captain David Warner. IPL 2022 saw the team with renewed spirits!! The team had a great streak when they won as many as 5 matches in a row. Their unexpected turnaround literally became a talk of the town, and they were considered favourites to go long this season. However, the team faltered and played bad, and went on to lose their next five games in a row. Their captain Kane Willaimson turned out to be no-contributor, having struggled throughout! This again was a terrible inconsistency and an un-called for pattern!!
Rajasthan Royals: If there has been a team which has seen success soon followed by loss, and this becoming a pattern that has left them quite unsettled as a team, it has to be Rajasthan Royals. The men in pink have lost momentum with big losses, soon after registering a win. Jos Buttler the opening batsman is the right example of the blow hot blow cold nature that the team has experienced. Jos scored 491 runs at a whopping strike rate of 161.51 and an average of 81.83 in the first seven games of IPL 2022. However, he blew cold and got a meagre 200 odd runs in his next seven outings. We can very well say that this inconsistency in maintaining winning streaks hit the team hard even in the 1st Playoff game played yesterday (24 May) wherein Rajasthan Royals failed to defend the big score of 188 against Gujarat Titans.
Punjab Kings: W L W L W L L W L W L W L W This is the pattern that Punjab Kings finished with at the end of IPL 2022. A miserable pattern to have, considering that they had some big guns like Shikhar Dhawan, Liam Livingstone, Kagiso Rabada, Jonny Bairstow, Rahul Chahar. To think of the fact that the team never ever managed to have even a two-match winning streak speaks volumes of their inconsistency.
Delhi Capitals: Again, another team this year which despite being very close to claiming a Playoff spot, did not win two matches in a row consistently. Check their pattern of play – W L L W L W L W L W L W W L. Remember the must-win game that Delhi Capitals had against Mumbai Indians in their last league match? If they had won that, they would have made it to the Playoffs, courtesy of a bigger run rate when compared to Royal Challengers Bangalore. But no, it is probably their lack of winning games in a row that pulled them down from the strong position they were in!!
Certainly, these teams will be brooding over spilt milk and the nature of giving it away when it mattered the most!! Do you agree with us that these teams were fast enough to blow hot and then drop cold? If only these teams had grabbed the momentum they had and had gone on to achieve more heights, the table at the end of the league games in IPL 2022 would have told a different story.