175 is too big a target

Well he moment a score of 175 is put up on the board, 99% of the time, it should be understood that the team wins and the case was no different yesterday in the match between the Deccan Chargers and Royal Challengers Bangalore. Very rarely do we come across games where 175 gets chased down like it happened the other day between Chennai and Punjab, with the Kings XI Punjab team grabbing it all in style. However, unlike Delhi, Deccan Chargers should be appreciated for not making a blunder at home soil losing both games in the very first week of their play.

Starting with the Deccan Chargers' innings where the players who took to the crease made double digit figures and with some Barat Chipili scoring the only half century of the Deccan Chargers' innings when he scored an unbeaten 61 off just 35 balls, a respectable target for the Royal Challengers Bangalore was always on the cards. This is how a team has to go on with all or at least most of their batsmen making it big or at least not small. This can happen very rarely with the very next innings of the Royal Challengers Bangalore being a best example for a lack of the same.

The only notable scores regarding the Royal Challengers Bangalore was an unbeaten 71 runs from the blades of Virat Kohli followed by a quarter century (in case that can be called so) Cheteshwar Poojara and last but not the least we have the opener Mayank Agarwal who scored 16 runs no matter how much balls he took to do the same. However, Royal Challengers Bangalore supporters have a reason to smile as the highest individual scorer of the match happened to be Virat Kohli with his 71 being 10 runs greater than what Chilipi could manage. Had there been an award for the highest run scorer in a match then Kohli would have had a run.

The scorecard suggests a perfect 5 from the Deccan Chargers with all five bowlers from the side bowling their full quota of 4 overs each. One need not confuse this to be because of the huge total that they put up. Instead, the Deccan Chargers never had depth of any sort in their bowling department which forced them to go in for just 5 bowlers as mentioned. Howevrer, a bowlerless Deccan Chargers' team had a rare gem in their crown with Dale Steyn being the pick of the bowlers with both teams put together. But, the tenth wicket of the Bangalore team never fell highlighting that the Hyderabad team has to keep an eye on their bowling.

What does Sachin and India want to prove?

Hmm..this is for the second time in the tournament that India have lost with Sachin Tendulkar scoring a century. But, as most of the tongues wag, I don't blame it on the maestro keeping in mind various superstitions. When cricket is a team game, leaving something completely upon one player is just stupid and a shameful act as well as cowardly. One can go through the scorecard of yesterday's game between India and South Africa at Nagpur to see what actually happened. If not for the opening duo, no other batsmen really stood to the occasion. Of course, Gambhir did.

But, with the likes of Yousuf Pathan, Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh being there in the team and that too in full form, things should have been a lot better. India were at one stage charging in at 267/1 at the end of the 40^th over at over six an over and with ten more overs still to go. The total seemed to be somewhere close to 400 with all the aforementioned batsmen and tail-end batsmen like Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan who can do their bit with the bat at the fag end of the innings. Oh! I forgot to mention Kohli.

With such a strong batting line up and with such a great initial start, something much was expected and unfortunately, the total ended 4 runs less than 300. But still, all was not lost with the Indian bowlers being capable of doing things as expected with Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh and Ashish Nehra being among top wicket takers for the team. They did well initially when South Africa were at one stage 247/6 after at one stage being at 223/3. 13 runs were needed from the last over and my goodness! I wonder how that was possible under that much pressure!

Failures with both the bat as well as the ball should and must draw all sorts of criticism no matter who scored a hundred or who held their nerves to restrict the opposition when there were 6 other batsmen who got out scoring single digit runs or just above the ten run mark and someone like Ashish Nehra who gave away 65 runs from 8.5 overs at 7 and a half an average that included the last over. I don't discourage Dhoni for giving the last over to Nehra instead I criticize him for under-using his bowlers when Sehwag & Sachin Tendulkar could have bowled.

Anil Kumble rocks

Well this is something which even the table toppers ion this year's Indian Premier Leagure namely the Mumbai Indians couldn't manage to do - getting into the semi finals of the Champions League T20 tournament. Neither could this be done by the champions of this year's IPL namely the Chennai Superkings led by Mahendra Singh Dhoni who is seen as a captain with silver lining. However, the Chennai Superkings have yet another chance in today's encounter with the Warriors at Port Elizabeth. And, if their past record is considered, the Chennai team has not given a bad performance whatsoever.

Coming to the match, I personally think that the Royal Challengers captain Anil Kumble had a greater share in his team's win, one as a captain of the side and two for bowling the most economical over of the match let alone the Royal Challengers' bowling innings. Headlines suggest Virat Kohli's dual effort, first with the ball and then with the bat to be responsible for the Royal Challengers' victory. Scorecard suggests however that Virat Kohli bowled three overs without grabbing a wicket and giving away runs at 8 an over which was in par with the overall rate of 8.0 by the Warriors.

There were just two bowlers from the Royal Challengers' side who bowled their complete quota of 4 overs, one of them being Anl Kumble and the other one being the South African spearhead Dale Steyn. One fascinating aspect from the game would be the fact that if not for Zander de Bruyn who bowled just one over for the Warriors, the rest of them bowled either 3 or 4 overs which rarely happens in any cricket match. On the contrary, the Warriors saw three of their six bowlers bowling their complete quota over four overs. Well, that is of little importance regarding both the teams out there.

If the scorecard is given a closer look at, the pitch might rather be considered to be favoring the batsmen for, the Royal Challengers didn't have any trouble chasing down the target though a target with the expecting run rate being 8.0 an over is an easy task. The RCB didn't lose more than 4 wickets en route to their successful run chase. And, in case someone is to take the credit for bringing the game into the Royal Challengers' hands, it has to be the bowlers of the side rather than Virat Kohli who was awarded the man of the match first for his wicketless 3 overs and then for his unbeaten 49.

Well, another interesting feat being that Kohli neither got out nor did he get anyone out. Well, that happens more than often.