Gold For Kevin Pietersen

There were some cheers for the Kevin Pietersen led Royal Challengers Bangalore team when he led his team to victory in the first encounter against the defending champions Rajasthan Royals, the other Royals of the IPL. But, his team was found going back to where he left from in the first edition of the Indian Premier League last year in India. Else, how come one can experiment so badly with the openers slot by having someone like Praveen Kumar facing the new ball? Likewise, even the Chennai Super Kings were never less when it came to experimenting, for even there one could see Parthiv Patel opening the innings with Mathew Hayden.

However, the Royal Challengers Bangalore were never in the game since the beginning itself. One can hardly see Parthiv Patel coming down the track and hitting a six. But, this happened against the Royal Challengers when he pulled South Africa's Dale Steyn for a six over square leg boundary. Of course, Mathew Hayden is a genus when it comes to batting as long as he is in form. And most of the time he is found to be in form. The only player in the Chennai Super Kings side who could belt a six was Albie Morkel. The rest of them had atleast one six towards their credit.

Not more than 5 batsmen could be dissmissed from the Chennai Super Kings side by the Royal Challengers. And on the other hand, the Royal Challengers Bangalore royally lost all their ten wickets at a mere score of just 87. Thus spoiling all the good work done by Mahendra Singh Dhoni's men's effort to pile up a mammoth 179 runs on board. The top scorer being Jaques Kallis who scored 26. And the only six of the Royal Challengers' innings coming from the blades of Virat Kohliwhen he lofted Joginder Sharma over square leg boundary on his front foot. That was the only consolation I believe.

Time and again not only the Chennai Super Kings have proven to be challengers of the game but also the Royal Challengers have challenged the opposition to lose the game against them. The Royal Challengers captain Kevin Pietersen bought up as many as 8 bowlers to bowl the Chennai Super Kings batsmen but to no avail. The best bowling performance came from the captain himself who bowled 3 overs giving just 14 runs. But, when it came to batting, it was the same Kevin Pietersen who shared the honours with opener Praveen Kumar for scoring a duck. In fact, Pietersen's was a golden duck. Captain cooool!!!