Slaps off the field, violent hitting on it

The blockbuster: Nothing got better than Shane Warne pulling the rug under Deccan's feet in Hyderabad, smashing Andrew Symonds for 17 in the final over while chasing a formidable 215. Symonds had upstaged Warne earlier, during the course of his blistering 117, but Graeme Smith and Yusuf Pathan hit back with gusto before Warne added the finishing touches. Symonds to bowl, Gilchrist to keep, Warne to face: who would have thought?

Mini-battle count: Symonds hammered Warne before roles were reversed, Oram foxed McCullum, and Katich put his New South Wales mate, McGrath, off rhythm in what was their first head-to-head. None of this could stand up to the real deal: Harbhajan v Sreesanth in the Mohali midnight.

Sizzling sequence: Rohit Sharma's three successive fours off Gagandeep Singh, Andrew Symonds' red-hot over against Siddharth Trivedi - 4,1,1 (free-hit), 1,2 (dropped), 4, 6 - and Fleming smashing Yomahesh before falling to him were entertaining. But the highlights of the week came from Adam Gilchrist and Shane Watson. Gilchrist strung together several sequences during the ferocity he unleashed at the DY Patil Stadium in Mumbai, but it was the three sixes to bring up his hundred that will endure for long. Watson was equally brutal against Praveen Kumar, dismissing him for a sequence that read 4,6,4,4,4,4.

Spirit watch: Harbhajan's spirit meter took one hell of a beating - resulting in the costliest slap in sport - and Sreesanth's felt a dip. Ganguly and Warne weren't allowed to get away and the umpires have been feeling the heat as well. Amid all this, Warne and Graeme Smith have gelled in Jaipur and Hayden said Harbhajan v Sree was a stray incident. How things change.

From obscurity to stardom: Swapnil Asnodkar sprang a surprise in his first game - starring for Rajasthan against Kolkata - while Shaun Marsh, unknown to Indian audiences, smashed a match-winning score. Vidyut Sivaramakrishnan is a known force in domestic cricket but this was possibly the first time he was performing in front of a packed audience at home. Trivedi and P Amarnath have been revelations while young Debabrata Das showed his crisp striking powers for Kolkata.

Ground watch: So impressed was Lalit Modi with the new DY Patil Stadium in Mumbai that he hoped the IPL final would take place there. With a lush green outfield and comfortable seating areas, the ground won rave reviews from everyone involved. It also provided a great setting for one of the most explosive innings of the tournament - Gilchrist teeing off with a hundred.

Aussie meter: Andrew Symonds and Simon Katich had memorable farewells, Gilchrist burst onto the IPL as only he can, Marsh announced himself in style (with a batting method that resembles Yuvraj Singh from every angle) and McGrath has been the most outstanding fast bowler in the tournament. As for Warne, he can do absolutely nothing wrong, guiding the underdogs to one fairytale after another.

Bloopers: Symonds termed his last over to Warne as "the worst over in Twenty20 history"; Bangalore imploded against Chennai when the target was well within reach; and Laxmi Ratan Shukla ran himself out when Ishant should have gone back. Of course, the biggest blooper was reserved for midnight at Mohali.

"The points table for the IPL looks somewhat like this. Sorry, it looks exactly like this."
Greg Chappell shows why he is head and shoulders above most of the other commentators

"He was over-the-top throughout the match and was acting like a petulant schoolboy." Umpire Ameish Saheba on Sreesanth, which he later denied, which the newspaper later rebutted