No total is big for Hayden

It was just a matter of time before the orange cap holder in the previous edition of the IPL - Mathew Hayden returned back to his old ways of devastating the bowlers from the opposition especially with his newly acquired mongoose bat. One has to really feel sad for Mathew Hayden for not being able to get a hundred despite having gone until the 90s. At the same time, Hayden also deserves a lot of appreciation for not wasting deliveries in a selfish attempt to get into his hundred by forgetting the remaining ten who'd be at the receiving end of the opposition.

The return of Hayden would be an added advantage to not only the Chennai Superkings but also to the entire IPL that includes millions of spectators - some watching it live on television, some watching the highlights and the remaining coming to the stadium and making their day there. Moreover, it was not against some weak opposition that Hayden kick started his IPL campaign of this year's edition. It was against the Delhi Daredevils who were unlucky to miss the plot in the previous edition at South Africa. It was against a team that had posted a mammoth total of 185 runs on the board.

Had it not been for Hayden, may be the Chennai Superkings would have had yet another loss in this tournament. If one can take trouble to go through the scorecard of the match, if not for Hayden and Raina, no other batsmen really stood upto the Delhi Daredevils' challenge. Not much could be expected from the opener Parthiv Patel who had to return after scoring 6 runs. This was in a way an improved performance form Parthiv Patel considering his scores less than 6 in earlier games he played. Though Vijay's innings suggests that he would have done a fab job after scoring a 6 ball 14, nothing can be guaranteed in the long run.

If the bowling of the CSKs are considered, Suresh Raina's inexperience as a captain could well be felt with the fact that someone like Joginder Sharma and Ravichandran Ashwin were given the ball to bowl their entire quota of 4 overs despite going in for over 10 runs an over. On the other hand, experienced bowlers like Laxmipathy Balaji and Albie Morkel were made to bowl just 3 overs which saw them giving runs at the rate of 7 an over and 8 an over respectively. The Delhi Daredevils did a fab job with the entire team contributing to their total of 185. But, had it not been for Hayden, the CSK's fate would have been different.