More than a week of the IPL VII has flown by and, before one knows, it will be time for the bandwagon to move out of the UAE. As one rewinds all the action, it’s mostly the images of a certain Glenn Maxwell that keep coming back.

It’s difficult to recall the last time that a batsman has so single-handedly dominated the first week of action in the IPL as the lanky Australian in the Kings XI Punjab line-up has. While the ‘Maxi-mum’ show continues to hold the fans in awe, the Mumbai Indians camp must be ruing their decision of not retaining him after buying the Victorian for a whopping $1 million (Dh3.67 million) for IPL VI.

When Chennai Super Kings belted a total of 205 in Abu Dhabi last Friday, it certainly looked like it would be curtains for the Punjab side. Maxwell, of course, had other ideas. In an exemplary show of clean hitting under pressure, he took the fight to the Chennai camp — often using his switch hits with telling effect to keep the bowlers guessing about their line.

A testimony to his batting style also lies in the statistics — in leading the list of run-getters with 279 runs from three innings, Maxwell has hit 28 fours and 17 sixes. While he is adept at hoisting those huge sixes (the smaller ground in Sharjah was witness to two of his knocks), he finds the gaps for his boundaries with elan and runs his singles hard to deflect the pressure on the fielding side — a quality that sets him apart from the senior impact players such as Chris Gayle or Yuvraj Singh.

Talking of batsmen, one achiever who needs to be mentioned here is Suresh Raina of Chennai Super Kings. While he has got going only once in three matches with a fluent half-century, he surpassed a little landmark in IPL for himself when he became the first player to cross 100 matches in the tournament.

This effectively means the cherubic vice-captain of Super Kings has virtually not missed a single match in these seven years. The IPL is in its early days and Raina, who looked to have got his confidence back during the World T-20 in Bangladesh, will again be pivotal to Super Kings’ plans once the action moves to India.

Spinners have had a growing influence in the IPL with each passing year, and a young leg-spinner worth watching out for this time is Yuzvendra Chahal of Royal Challengers Bangalore. Another discard of the Mumbai Indians camp, the Haryana lad created a stir when, with the first delivery this season against Delhi Daredevils, he fooled the experienced Murali Vijay of Delhi Dardevils in Sharjah.

In the next game against his erstwhile team, Chahal took 2/15 in a spell that was crucial in restricting the reigning champions to a meagre 115. With other quality leg-spinners like Amit Mishra and Sammuel Badree in the fray for different teams, it could be interesting times over the next five weeks.