6, 4, 1, 4, 6, 4, 4. In seven balls Harbhajan Singh scored 29 runs against Deccan Chargers and changed the course of the match for the Mumbai Indians. In the next over, he plundered four 4s in consecutive balls and helped his team turn out a match winning total.



Fast forward to the match between Kings XI Punjab and the Royal Challengers Bangalore on April 2. Bangalore needed two runs a ball to win the match or 48 runs in 24 balls to be precise. 6, 4, 1, 1, 6, 5, 2 - 25 runs got taken off that Bret Lee over and the match was effectively over.



In 20-20 cricket the old cliche of “you can’t blink an eye” really does ring true. Six balls can bring about three wickets or 25 runs and just like that the game changes. One minute the asking rate looks like a mountain and three minutes later, it could be down to just a run a ball or less.

In the week just past, IPL fans enjoyed watching the YouTube highlights of the matches between Royal Challengers Bangalore versus the Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians versus the Kolkata Knight Riders the most. Hope you did too.

Posted by Sajith Sivanandan (When not attempting to get selected for IPL in the year 2020, Sajith works at Google Singapore)