Friday 13 May 2011

Dhoni does a Sehwag

Well we have seen in the past in this edition of the IPL that whenever the Delhi Daredevils perform, it is mainly because of their captain Virender Sehwag. However, yesterday in the match between the Delhi Daredevils and Chennai Superkings, it was the Chennai captain - Mahendra Singh Dhoni who stood for his team when he ended the innings at 176 with his personal contribution being an unbeaten 63 runs off just 31 deliveries. Had it not been for Dhoni's feat, may be the Chennai Superkings might have just ended on the losing side whatsoever. Dhoni has just done a Sehwag.

This time for a change, the home team returned victorious which most of the time doesn't happen to be the case. The scorecard suggests that Dhoni was previousy aided by Suresh Raina, Badrinath and Murali Vijay, both of them being Indians by laying a solid foundation to their mammoth total that was four runs behind the ideal total of 180. Unfortunately, Bravo and Morkel lost out entertaining the facs with their tail end hitting. Though the target of 176 was far more than enough to register a win, the game could have been a little more entertaining. Had there been Sehwag, things would have been different.

It was yet another example of team work by the Chennai Superkings where as mentioned Raina, Dhoni, Murali Vijay and Badrinath contributed for their team's batting success. Similarly, the bowling of the Delhi Daredevils also aided the Chennai batting who didn't experiment with their bowlers. One can sense the late run giving technique of Pathan who went at 10.0 runs an over. It is mysterious that Pathan and Agarkar were allowed to bowl their complete quota of 4 overs despite going in for so many runs while James Hopes was stopped after bowling just two overs. Coming to the Delhi's run chase, they left no stone unturned.

The Delhi Daredevils did everything right to chase down the total of 176 with Naman Ojha, Venugopal Rao, David Warner and Irfan Pathan showing good confidence with the bat but lacked the temperament that Virender Sehwag would have had. The Delhi Daredevils didn't have a Sehwag for a Dhoni. A score of 158 though was not enough to win the game, was more than enough to show that the Delhi Daredevils are still in the race at least for the play offs. At the end there could have been only one winner and that happened to be the Chennai Superkings.

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