I have gone through the schedule of the different teams in this year's competition. Mumbai Indians (henceforth referred to as MI) have, by far, the strangest schedule. They play a whole bunch of matches at home and are "on the road" (a football term indicating travelling to play an away match) for a considerably long period of time.
- From March 20th to April 3rd, MI are involved in 6 league matches, ALL IN MUMBAI.
- One of those matches is actually a home match for Deccan but is being played in Mumbai (might be tricky considering that Deccan play well away from home :) )
- From April 6th, MI embark on (what seems to be) a ridiculous road trip.
- The venues for the last 6 league matches for MI is
* Chennai
* Chandigarh
* Jaipur
* Mumbai (I admit that this is a home match but it is one match at home sandwiched between a couple of away fixtures at places not exactly closeby)
* Bangalore
* Kolkata
If they get through that last league encounter on April 19th with a top 4 finish, guess what awaits them.. - Ofcourse another road game in 2 days' time (the semi-finals are played on 21st and 22nd in Bangalore)
In the first edition of the IPL, Mumbai won 3 out of the 7 away games. This should be viewed as 2 wins out of 6 (since every travelling team won @ Hyderabad :) ). Although the squad has changed a little, i doubt that the home support (or the lack of it during away games) has changed. So, Mumbai's best strategy might be to get maximum points during the first stretch of home games and hope to nick a game or 2 during that cruel schedule down the stretch.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment