This IPL has seen some great action on the field and also, there were a few things off the field that caught our eye during the course of the season.
This edition saw more than its fair share of confusion, acrimony and bad luck.
Here, we look at four talking points from this year’s tournament.
Indian Test stars Ravichandran Ashwin, Murali Vijay, and KL Rahul were ruled out of the tournament due to injuries even before a ball was bowled. Others such as Virat Kohli, Ravindra Jadeja, Umesh Yadav, and Mohammed Shami missed the start of the season due to niggles.
There were other absentees from the tournament such as Quinton de Kock and Mitchell Marsh which wasn’t ideal for a tournament of this magnitude.
Injuries are not ideal but part of our sport. Compressed tournament & long travel can be gruelling. Sorry for not being there all the way.
— Brendon McCullum (@Bazmccullum) May 5, 2017
And as the tournament wore on, players like Brendon McCullum and AJ Tye picked up injuries. By the final stages of the tournament, a decent amount of the players had either been injured or left the tournament to be with their national teams.
Before the season began, Rising Pune Supergiant made a surprising decision to replace MS Dhoni with Steve Smith as the captain of the team. With Dhoni not in great form at the start of the tournament, Harsh Goenka – brother of RPS owner Sanjiv Goenka – took pot shots at the former Indian captain on Twitter which did not go down well with many people.
#RPS batting statistics until now - Manoj Tiwari, Rahane , Christian have the best strike rates. pic.twitter.com/JKya3lxHKC
— Harsh Goenka (@hvgoenka) April 8, 2017
Dhoni’s wife Sakshi Singh Rawat took to Instagram at the time to post a picture of her sporting Chennai Super Kings (Dhoni’s former IPL franchise) colours and a passage about karma, which is assumed to be a reply to Goenka’s tweets.
Interestingly, after Dhoni played a superb knock to help Pune reach the IPL final on Tuesday, Goenka posted a tweet praising the wicketkeeper-batsman.
Guess, good sense finally prevailed.
Explosive batting by Dhoni, deceitful bowling by Sundar and great captaincy by Smith takes #RPS to the #IPL finals. pic.twitter.com/TFCZfC0YrH
— Harsh Goenka (@hvgoenka) May 16, 2017
Mumbai Indians’ Kieron Pollard was irked by some criticism from former Indian batsman Sanjay Manjrekar during a match against Kolkata Knight Riders and the West Indian cricketer let his thoughts known in a series of tweets.
It all started when Pollard assumed Manjrekar had questioned his ‘brain’ and then unleashed a Twitter tirade, saying: “@sanjaymanjrekar u feel any positive can come out of your mouth bcuz u get pay to talk u can continue with your verbal diarrhea”.
@sanjaymanjrekar u feel any positive can come out of your mouth bcuz u get pay to talk u can continue with your verbal diarrhea ..
— Kieron Pollard (@KieronPollard55) April 9, 2017
Do you know how I get big so.. about BRAINLESS.. words are very powerful .. once it leaves u can't take it back.. sins of parents fall on...
— Kieron Pollard (@KieronPollard55) April 9, 2017
U finish that sentence .. !! All in all great TEAM effort .. well done team well done Hardik nitesh krunal youngsters doing the business 👏🏼
— Kieron Pollard (@KieronPollard55) April 9, 2017
Manjrekar later clarified on Twitter that he never used the word ‘brainless’ to describe Pollard’s batting and was instead talking about his range.
“Said “Does he have the range?” Using terms like ‘no brains’ or ‘brainless’ not my style. I can be critical but never insulting,” tweeted Manjrekar.
Said " Does he have the range? " Using terms like 'no brains' or 'brainless' not my style. I can be critical but never insulting.
— Sanjay Manjrekar (@sanjaymanjrekar) April 15, 2017
I would also encourage all those reacting to the Pollard issue to hear the footage & not just take my word for it.
— Sanjay Manjrekar (@sanjaymanjrekar) April 15, 2017
Manjrekar was proven right as the IPL’s official website uploaded a video of his commentary during the said incident. The Indian commentator and Pollard also met each other later in the tournament which was great to see.
Somewhere in central India - good sense prevailed - @KieronPollard55 @sanjaymanjrekar #IPL pic.twitter.com/wZP6Ve6GbQ
— Gaurav Saxena (@goransaxena) April 21, 2017
Chirag Suri became the first UAE cricketer to get picked by an IPL team as he was bought by Gujarat Lions for his base price of INR 1 million at this year’s auction.
The 22-year-old, though, did not get to play a single game throughout the season. Even when the Lions were reduced to just four overseas players in their squad due to injuries and international commitments, Suri was overlooked.
Speaking to Sport360 after Gujarat’s exit from the tournament, Suri was pleased with the experience despite sitting out of all 14 matches. “It was a bit difficult for me not to play but it was a great experience for me,” he said.