IBL Season 1: How did the icon players fare?

Banga Beats: P Kashyap

Record : Played : 5, Won : 2 , Lost : 3

Kashyap was amongst the most disappointing of the group (Getty Images)

Outside of Jwala Gutta (who featured only in 2 matches), I would rank Kashyap as the icon player who had the most disappointing of the lot in the IBL. Coming off a quarterfinal appearance in the World Championship, a lot was expected from Kashyap in this league.

While most of the other icon players did stand out as leaders and won crunch matches, Kashyap failed to do so with losses against both the overseas players in his two encounters. It definitely didn’t seem like he was instilling a lot of confidence in the team with his performances. For instance, in the match against Hyderabad a win against Tanongsak in the first match might have given the team an immense confidence boost, who were in search of a 5-0 win. But, the loss effectively ruled out any chances of a semi-final and made the rest of the tie a dead rubber. The loss to Saurabh Verma too would definitely have been a dampener.

Overall, Kashyap’s ability to close off games comes into question, as we have seen him falter from winning positions at various big matches at the international stage. What we can hope for is that this was just fatigue from a tough tournament (World Championships) that preceded the IBL and not a persistent stamina issue as such. Hopefully he will come back with a bang next season and lead from the front for Banga Beats in 2014.