The big question: Who will win the IPL?

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Shane Warne has also brought the uncluttered, fearless form of game to the forefront. All the talks of coaching with laptops, psychologists etc are disappearing. So is this the new form of coaching. Even Warne has said that international players don't need coaching.

Srinath says, "I think you cannot discount of the fact that strategies should not be in place. All this things will have a place. But it is new concept, a new tournament that has invaded the world of cricket. So it will take sometime before the laptops start working. Maybe in a couple of seasons you will see a lot of strategies coming out of the laptops. I always feel that technology has a huge role to play. Lets not undermine technology."

"But they have not much of expectations and that has given them the freedom to just go and play the game naturally. That is the reason why they have flourished so well. Even I didn't expect Shane Warne to be so intense in this tournament. But if you really see that of all the captains, he has been the most proactive and innovative," he says.

Rajasthan’s brilliant run in the tournament has been attributed to a large extent to Warne’s captaincy and Srikkanth explains why the role of a captain is so important.

“What is the job of a captain? The job of the captain is to motivate his players and give his players support and back them. Shane Warne has done just that. Yes captaincy is important. But most important apart form captaincy is the guys putting up their hands and saying that they will deliver. Guys like Sohail Tanvir, Shane Watson and Swapnil Asnodkar have delivered. Asnodkar is a revelation here. They have a plan of action also,” Srikkanth explains.

But Kings XI Punjab player Kumar Sangakkara opines that Delhi Daredevils, who face Rajasthan Royals in the first semi-final of the IPL on Friday, are the favourites.

“Well at the end of the day it doesn't matter because of you are going to win the tournament, you need to win all the other teams. I am not really sure how Rajasthan will recover from yesterday (the loss to Kings XI Punjab in the last league encounter on Wednesday) even though they rested some of their key players. Sometime it might be hard to get back. But Delhi is on a roll and they have waiting for this opportunity. They had to wait for Mumbai to lose and they had to wait for Chennai to win over Deccan.

I think its Delhi's momentum is right. I thing they are very hungry and its a toss up between them and at the end of day for Delhi, if their top order fires they will do well. If it doesn't fire then they are in trouble,” says Sangakkara.

On his own team Sangakkara says, “It was very solid performance (in Wednesday’s match). A great batting performance again by Shaun Marsh. It was an amazing innings and James Hopes coming back into form at the perfect moment for us. But if you take the overall performance then there are a few areas where we can still tighten up especially in our bowling department. We can still execute our plans better, bowl to our field and put more pressure on the batters. Other than that the fielding and batting are absolutely outstanding. In the bowling department a special mention for Irfan Pathan. He led the bowling attack from the front.”