The beauty of IPL is that it allows talents from different places to flower in unlikeliest of places. And there can be some unintended and delightful irony to it, too.
Take the case Gujarat Titans. The 2022 IPL champion is among the top teams this season (it had underwhelming 2024, finishing a lowly eighth) with three wins in four matches. One of the reasons for its early show of strength is the performances of its frontline players, three of them, as it happens, from Tamil Nadu. Given the political situation as it exists today in the country, where Tamil Nadu is antagonistic to North India (to Gujarat in particular), this is a delectable turn of events.
Sai Sudharsan, Sai Kishore and Washington Sundar. These three players have had major hands in GT's wins this season.
Sai Sudharsan had a rare batting failure last night. But in the previous 3 innings, he had two 50s and a near one --- 49. His calculated batting of mixing caution with aggression had kind of offset Shubman Gill's failures previously (he came good last night though).
The other Sai in the team, Kishore, has been no less in sparkling form with his left-arm spin variations --- including, surprise-surprise , wrist spinning ones. He has had 8 wickets in 4 matches, and his miserly ways in the middle-overs have been a big factor in GT keeping a check on the marauding opposition batters. Last night too, it was no different, he kept the SRH batsmen on a tight leash, and the way he snaffled the big-hitting Heinrich Klaasen is a study of holding one's nerves under pressure. Sai Kishore had the South African, who had just hit him for a huge six, bowled with a fastish arm ball. This was typical T20 spin bowling --- pace variation combined with precision. Out of his 8 wickets this season so far, 7 belongs to that of international batsmen.
Washington Sundar, who had been denied opportunities, got a rare one last night. And he made the most of it with a spectacular innings (49 off 299) that piloted the team to an eventual easy romp against SRH. Sundar was also a tiger in the field with his adroit fielding.
Besides the three, there is also the swashbuckler M Shahrukh Khan, who is also from Tamil Nadu, in GT's ranks. The middle-order tonker, though in the team, has not had the chance to really get going so far. If he too does, the core of TN's white ball cricket would have done well for the Gujarat franchise.
This is happening at a time when the Tamil Nadu team (Chennai, to be precise) with just one TN player in its team (Ravichandran Ashwin) is struggling in the IPL this season. Contrasts couldn't be more striking than this.
IPL is one interesting melting pot, as they say.