Who would have thought8230;

Twenty20 is not the place for crystal gazers, but even then, the IPL has been a tournament of shockers.

8220;I am a pleased and satisfied man,8221; Vijay Mallya had said right after the Indian Premier League auctions. 8220;Rahul Dravid asked me if I wanted a performing team or a glamorous team, and I opted for the first.8221; As things turned out, the owner of the Bangalore Royal Challengers got neither.

Over the next couple of months, Mallya ended up sacking his CEO and washed his hands completely off the selection, but in a format that might just have been created to make the pundits look silly, Mallya can at least be excused for getting things as wrong as he did.

As the curtains come down on a show that has whirled around the country for the last 44 days, it8217;s easy to draw up a 8216;who-would-have-thought8217; list.

Right on top of the mountain of surprises: who would have thought the Rajasthan Royals would be alive, kicking and walking on to the field on the last day of the tournament? At the end of 44 days, 59 matches, more than 1700 boundaries and 600 sixes, the first edition of the IPL will always be remembered for Shane Warne8217;s army of amateurs.

But there were other moments as well, notable among them the slap that provided some relief from ungainly scoops and reverse-sweeps born out of impudence. 8220;Frankly speaking, if you want to spoil any young bowler8217;s dream of making a good career, make him bowl in this format,8221; Sohail Tanvir had said ahead of the final. The Pakistan left-arm freak didn8217;t do too badly himself, finishing the tuornament as the highest wicket-taker.

The biggest sign that T20 is not the place for crystal gazers and their ilk was the performance of a line-up that included Adam Gilchrist, Andrew Symonds, Shahid Afridi, Herschelle Gibbs and Scott Styris. The Deccan Chargers 8212; Tag line: The Unstoppables 8212; never really got off the blocks, winding up with a rather embarrassing grand total of four points from 14 games. Slightly more embarrassed should be Mumbai and Chennai, who lost a game each to them.

The other big talking point, as has been for the last two years, will be the performance of the seniors 8212; icons in this case. Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid did score a fair amount of runs, at a fair strike rate, but the fact that their teams didn8217;t make the semi-finals will go against them in most analyses. To put things in perspective in this tournament of shockers though, it8217;s been those with nothing to lose 8212; those with no reputations to protect 8212; who have been the stand-out performers.

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Most surprising of all, however, has been the reaction from the public. There was widespread curiosity over whether Indian fans, bred on nationalism, would be able tune into the city-vs-city format. Spectators filled the stands, night after night, in extra large numbers. Were they there for the cricket? While the answer doesn8217;t really matter any more, the 20,000 people dancing in the rain during the Delhi-Kolkata wash out at the Kotla did enough to indicate that a keen contest between bat and ball wasn8217;t the only thing they were looking for.

Not that anyone8217;s complaining, least of all the man who8217;s planning to fit another slam-bang blur into the increasingly inadequate 12 months available every year.