When the entire team stands up

Well if anyone still needs a clear definition of a team work in cricket, I wish they have to go through the game between the Chennai Superkings and Rajasthan Royals played yesterday at Jaipur. As it has happened in most of the occasions, yesterday was no different when the home team got humiliated by the visiting team. Recently it happened to the Kings XI Punjab when they fell short by 85 runs against RCB led by Chris Gayle (in terms of batting). Yesterday was a similar fate for Rajasthan when they had the same fate as that of Punjab against the RCB.

Starting from the Chennai Superkings' innings, the scorecard suggests that four out of the five batsmen who took to the crease made their presence felt when Mike Hussey, Murlai Vijay, Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Suresh Raina contributed towards their team by scoring in almost equal amounts. One can sense equal contribution from the blades of the aforementioned batsmen with Murali Vijay topping the chart with 53 to his credit. There should have been four men of the match whose contribution as a whole was instrumental in Chennai Superking's victory. But, as an injustice, only Murali Vijay was awarded the man of the match.

If Murali Vijay was the top scorer of the game, then in terms of strike rate he falls to the fourth position. Murali Vijay's strike rate of 132.5 is exceeded by Mike Hussey (strike rate of 153.33), Raina (SR of 159.25) and Dhoni (215.28). However, one thing that needs to be appreciated is the way the Chennai Superkings played as a team. One cannot understand the reason behind the Rajasthan captain Shane Warne opting for Shane Watson who gave away runs at 11.75 runs an over when Ashok Menaria got to bowl just 2 overs which was equal to the run rate conceded by Warne.

Coming back to the man of the match debate, Suresh Raina was instrumental first in playing a handy 43 runs from the bat and on the other hand got two wickets off the only two deliveries he bowled. Similarly, Doug Bollinger returned with figures of 3/22 from his allotted 4 overs who stood a chance better than Murali Vijay to receive the man of the match award. However, in the Rajasthan side the problem happened to be lack of even small partnerships with them losing wickets at regular intervals. If not for Ajinkya Rahane, no other batsmen stood to the Chennai's challenge whatsoever.

Chennai flawless..Rajasthan clueless

10 boundaries from a batsmen who has long been terminated from playing the shortest version of the game happened to be a savor to his team when his knock saved a lot of face for his team which would otherwise been making rounds for all the bad reasons. Rahul Dravid scored an individual score of 67 runs at a strike rate of 129.41 from 51 balls which saw the total boost to 147 which would have otherwise been just 80. The Rajasthan innings saw just three batsmen scoring double figure scores. All these were scored by international batsmen with experience.

The names include Shane Watson, Rahul Dravid and Ross Taylor who are all big names in international cricket. Johan Botha could have just added a bit to the score which actually didn't happen. Only Shane Warne can answer why he himself didn't take on to the crease to blow some bowlers with his decade long experience in international cricket which has seen him play some handy innings for Australia when the situation demanded it from him. It is fascinating to see none of the batsmen from the Rajasthan Royals' side being able to clear the ropes even once. No sixes!

However, Rahul Dravid from Rajasthan Royals' side can walk with his head held high with him being the highest boundary hitter in the contest with him being able to cross the ropes on 10 occasions. Rahul Dravid also falls into the category with the highest number of boundaries and sixes put together with Mike Hussey's tally of 8 fours and one six falling short of it by 1 hit. One has to appreciate the accuracy with which the bowlers of both teams bowled with there being just 5 extra deliveries. Four of them were bowled by Rajasthan Royals and one from Chennai Superkings.

On the other hand, the Chennai innings had absolutely no trouble at all in chasing down the total of 148 with batsmen like Mike Hussey, Suresh Raina and Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Of course, Morkel, Murali Vijay and Badrinath also form a handy set. But, if at all anyone can comment about the Chenai Superkings' innings, they might have to just dispute with the scorecard which showed them lose just two wickets en route to their successful run chase. The run chase would have been successful even had the Rajasthan Royals scored a total of over 180. Eventually, a fourth straight win would have excited Dhoni needless to be said.