More than a month into the IPL, its off-field drama has often threatened to overshadow the cricket. There has been the issue of over-interference from team owners; whispers of regionalism became noisy when Punjab’s Yuvraj Singh yesterday expressed disappointment at getting booed in his own country after defeating Sachin Tendulkar’s Mumbai, and there was the Harbhajan slap controversy.But, sitting in a chamber of the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, a dozen experts have blocked out all the off-field intrigue and are concentrating purely on the game. Their performance analysts — half of them working on the field, and the rest religiously crunching numbers on their desks — have been burning the midnight oil to prepare the blueprint for Team India’s title defence at the World Twenty20 in England next year.Since the IPL has brought some relatively unknown foreigners who might become big stars for their countries in future, the firm Sports Mechanics — which handles Team India’s video-analysis needs — have been studying each IPL player. “These records will be very useful for Team India for its next T20 World Cup. We now have records of almost all upcoming players from all countries except England — even players with no previous database,” S Ramakrishnan, the director of the company, told The Indian Express.“Basically it’s player-tracking. We see which are the favourite scoring areas of a batsman. Take Virender Sehwag for example: If the batsman has played two dot balls, he is likely to go for the shot off the third ball. With help from videos, we can find out which areas he is likely to target and pass on the information to the think-tank. Twenty20 is all about having all the answers ready because situations change very quickly in the game,” he said.“There are only a few Twenty20 matches played in the world. Preparing this database will give Team India a powerful tool. In South Africa, we had used footage from the Caribbean World Cup. But now that we have a sufficient T20 database, it’ll make things easier.”So, the next time Shaun Marsh or a Luke Pomersbach, score against an IPL side, every run they get will help Team India make plans to tackle them in the next T20 face-off against Australia.
