When Chris Gayle failed..

Well in the last 24 hours or so, I had written about the fate of the Royal Challengers Bangalore in case Chris Gayle fails to dominate with the bat. And, to one's fortune the result has been evident right in front of our eyes within 24 hours when the Royal Challengers could not defend a mammoth total of 175 against the Chennai Superkings at Mumbai. A total of 175 should have seen the Royal Challengers Bangalore end up victorious but, scorecard suggests otherwise. The Chennai Superkings cruised to an easy win with 6 wickets still in hand but took till the last over.

Though Chris Gayle did not score much with the bat, the Royal Challengers felt the presence of Mayank Agarwal, Virat Kohli and Luke Pomersbach whose contribution promised something good on the cards for the Royal Challengers. Looking at the batting charts of both the teams, it can well be said that the pitch was a batsman friendly one. However, as a matter of fact the Chennai Superkings captain used only 6 bowlers, four of whom bowled their full quota of 4 overs and may be termed as successful looking at the nature of the pitch. Four out of the six returned with a wicket.

All that the match expected was some fireworks from Chris Gayle, failing which the Royal Challengers can hardly boast of anything. Though all gates are not completely closed for the Royal Challengers, fingers would definitely point towards them for relying on only one player. When someone like Mayank Agarwal and Pomersbach could contribute, there can be no reason for Chris Gayle not to do so. The match will no doubt go down as one of the biggest disappointment in the tournament with such a big total chased down effortlessly. For the Chennai Superkings, Suresh Raina was exceptional who was assisted by Dhoni and Morkel.

There were three Indian batsmen playing for one team giving it a deserved success. Of course, even Mayank Agarwal and Virat Kohli happen to be Indians whose contribution can never be thought less about. This confirms the name given to the tournament i.e the INDIAN PREMIER LEAGUE.Initial breakthroughs for RCB could not be cashed in when CSK had the scoreboard reading 7/2. By the way, Chris Gayle did contribute to the RCB when he was the bowler with the best economy rate of 4.75 runs an over but when it came to batting, his score was 8 from 9 balls with one six.

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.

Just Yuvraj Singh for Pune

Well the rules of the game of cricket suggests that every team is supposed to have 11 players and may be that is the reason why ten out of the eleven players from the Pune Warriors side are seen making it to the squad with only Yuvraj Singh doing the talking with the bat. One can just have a look at the scorecard of yesterday's match between Pune Warriors and Chennai Superkings which obviously was won by the defending champions. There are the likes of Monish Mishra, Manish Pandey, Robin Uttappa etc who could have done a lot with the bat but didn't.

If not for Yuvraj Singh's 62, the next best performance was Robin Uttappa's 31 which was exactly half of what Yuvraj Singh could manage. Then comes Jesse Ryder's 19 and beyond that, the scores can only take the space on the page and nothing else. If the 62 runs scored by Yuvraj Singh is stripped from the scorecard of Pune Warriors, then the total of the same turn out to be 69 which is the total put up by the remaining 7 batsmen who made it to the crease and not to forget the 5 extra runs. That makes the total 69-5=64.

Had the remaining batsmen mentioned contributed up to their mark, then the scorecard would have read something different than what is the case. One can see Raina returning with one of the best bowling figures with the ball when he gave away runs at a rate of just 5 runs an over. Unfortunately, Raina was given one over short, when he deserved to bowl an extra over thus completing his quota of four overs. One can see three overs bowled maiden in the game with two of them being from the Pune Warriors and making it worse, the bowler who gave away the winning runs bowled one of them.

It would not be wrong to say that the overs bowled maiden by the Pune Warriors team was awarded by the Chennai Superkings for, the batsmen from the Chennai team showed no signs of feat which usually results in overs going without a run being scored. Needless to be said, the Chennai Superkings reached the target with 8 wickets to spare and just three balls remaining. Does this speak of the pressure the Chennai Superkings were facing during their run chase becomes a different question altogether. Eventually, 7 bowlers from the Pune Warriors side could not contain two batsmen from the Chenai superkings side.

Has Chennai taken over Kolkata

Well in this edition of the tournament, the Chennai Super Kings are showing a down to earth performance with them losing the plot in the matches they played. They had a lucky run against the Kolkata Knight Riders where they secured a 2 run victory over the trouble torn team lacking in confidence but are seem to be coming up in this edition. That was followed by a win against the Royal Challengers Bangalore and a loss to Kings XI Punjab. The Chennai Super Kings could not defend a total of 188 against the Punjab team. This time it was Kochi who tamed Chennai.

Though the match was trimmed to just 17 overs, a total of 131 by the Chennai Super Kings was below par compared to what was expected off them. The run-rate of the Chennai Super Kings happened to be just over 7.0 runs an over when something less than 9 runs an over is just unacceptable. But, this should have been a winning total keeping in mind the winning record of the Chennai Super Kings in the three editions they have played so far. At the end of the day, the Chennai Super Kings had another loss to their kitty which was a mess.

On the other hand, the Kochi Tuskers Kerala maintained a run-rate of exactly 9.0 runs an over aided by a series of double figure scores starting from 47 by Brendon McCullum and ending with Ravindra Jadeja remaining unbeaten on 16 from six balls with two sixes. As a rarity, the team work of both Chennai and Kochi stands undisputed for, regarding both the teams out there, it was not a one man show like it happens in most games. There was only one lucky player in Suresh Raina who scored a half century. But, as a suggestion, it would have been wise for Chennai to go for big ones.

As it goes in a T20 game, if the match is viewed from the number of sixes scored perspective, then still the Chennai Super Kings lose it all with their batsmen being able to make it only on three occasions. Instead, the Kochi Tuskers had more than twice of what the Chennai team could manage when they had 7 hits out of the ground. But, needless to be said, it is the target which needs to be defended or chased that would a decide who the winner of the match is. Towards the end of the post, one thing that needs to be asked after Chennai's 2^nd loss is whether Chennai have taken over from Kolkata?

No2 for India

For the third consecutive time, India have got into the super eights stage of a world T20 tournament without losing a single game in its league stage. In 2007, India had beaten Scotland (taken for granted) and Pakistan while in 2009 India beat Bangladesh and Ireland to reach the super eights of the tournament. Now, as expected by all, India beat Afghanistan a couple of days back and yesterday they beat South Africa to keep the tempo moving. It was interesting too India battle Afghanistan today and face South Africa tomorrow. The games involving India were held back to back.

However, no one complains with India winning both the matches effectively and with it being a T20 game, even if two games involving one team is held on the same day doesn't matter. Indian batsmen never had problems of any sort when Suresh Raina did most of the scoring becoming the first Indian to score a century in a T20 international. Of course, there is no Sachin Tendulkar playing T20 cricket to score a century there. Anyways, with that apart, the match had only notable contributions from Yuvraj Singh and Raina who with the rest only filling the vacancies that were relevant.

It is not anybody's fault with Dhoni hardly getting anything to play and his score was an unbeaten 16 runs off 6 balls with one six and a boundary. Raina and Yuvraj together played 90 balls which was 75% of the match. It shouldn't matter who played with every batsman having his day. Whatever, it was foolish for Smith to stick to the six bowler formula when four bowlers bowled their quota. Whatever, chasing 187 is a tough job though Kallis on the top had the Indian bowlers running for cover when he struck 73 from 54 balls. May be that was too slow for T20 cricket especially when chasing.

Kallis stood for nine overs scoring at less than 9 runs an over which is quintessential in T20 cricket. Guys who came in later namely AB deVilliers, Morkel and Boucher scored quick runs but not enough ones to secure a victory. It was because of those batsmen that South Africa crossed the 170 run mark with the margin of victory limited to 14 runs. Towards, as there would be a man of the match who is responsible for his team's victory, there would also be a man who would be solely responsible for his team's defeat and it was Kallis in yesterday's match.

IPL 2010 - Perfectly Indian

Though the name of the multimillion dollar Indian Premier League suggests that it has more of an Indian flavor in it, this had not been the case so far in the earlier two editions that were played. Indians had to wait for three editions of the tournament to get some Indian flavor in the tournament. In both the earlier editions of the Indian Premier League, the winners happened to be the team which was captained by Australian legends namely Shane Warne who lifted the trophy in the inaugural edition in 2008 and Adam Gilchrist who held the title for Deccan Chargers in 2009.

However, as a consolation the runners up happened to be those teams which were captained by Indian players namely Mahendra Singh Dhoni in 2008 and Anil Kumble in 2009 when the Chennai Superkings and the Royal Challengers Bangalore made it there in 2008 and 2009 respectively. And this time in 2010, both the winners as well as the Runners up happened to be teams which were captained by Indian players with Sachin Tendulkar captaining the Mumbai Indians side which finished as runners up and Mahendra Singh Dhoni led Chennai Superkings finishing as winners of the trophy. Likewise, it was an Indian led Chennai Superkings who reached the finals of an IPL twice.

In the earlier editions of the IPL the man with the highest aggregate of runs happened not only to be a non Indian but also was an Australia in Shaun Marsh in 2008 who amassed 616 runs and Mathew Hayden in 2009 who surpassed 500 runs. But, this time it was an Indian in Sachin Tendulkar who returned as the highest run getter in the tournament after he amassed 618 runs to become the highest run getter in the tournament. And, when it comes to the player with maximum number of wickets, India has been lucky enough when this has been owned by an Indian on two occasions.

If not for Sohail Tanvir in 2008, the remaining two editions of the Indian Premier League has seen an Indian in R P Singh and Pragyan Ojha returning as the leading wicket takers in the 2009 and 2010 edition of the IPL respectively. And, when it comes to the players who have scored maximum number of sixes in the tournament, the number stands at a mind blowing 5 among the top ten leading six hitters in the tournament with Robin Uttappa topping the charts with 27 such hits. Others who have made it there are Vinay Kumar, Suresh Raina, Murali Vijay and Yousuf Pathan.

The batsman who has scored the fastest hundred in an IPL is yet another Indian in Yousuf Pathan who did it against Mumbai Indians when he scored the same in 37 deliveries.

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.

Selection only partly responsible for India's loss

Well the moment India lost their first test match to South Africa, the first person to whom all the fingers pointed towards happens to be the selection committee, followed by the captain and in some cases the coach. I don't think that anyone reading this post needs to be reminded specially that cricket is a team sport unlike badminton and table tennis. It was of course not a good selection when someone like Saha, Badrinath and Abhimanyu the included in the squad. If the scorecard of the match is given a close look at, Badrinath and Saha did play upto expectations and Abhimanyu was not included in the playing XI.

Not much was expected from Saha and Badrinath but, they did live upto expectations when Badrinath scored 56 in the first innings that included a 40 run partnership along with Sehwag in the first innings. Later on in the second innings, Saha had his say when he scored 36 runs and stood for 150 balls or 30 overs and almost 2 hours at the crease. All these despite not guaranteed a place in the coming test. Even Murali Vijay was pretty decent with the bat when he scored 32 runs in the second innings. Most of the damage was first done by the bowlers when they let the South African bowlers cut loose.

It is justified the way the Indian bowlers despite playing in the home conditions could allow the South African batsmen not only to pile up 556 runs on the board but also allow a 300+ run partnership between Hashim Amla and Jacques Kallis. If there were no Laxman & Dravid in the squad, there were Sachin, Sehwag, Dhoni and Gambhir who could have solved the issue related to batting. Of course, Sehwag and Tendulkar came up with hundreds in the 1^st and the 2^nd innings respectively. But, Dhoni and Gambhir were absolute failures with the bat in the Nagpur test.

In the bowling department, if not for Zaheer Khan's first spell in the first innings, even he was not upto the mark and so were the other bowlers viz Harbhajan, Ishanth Sharma and Amit Mishra. The bowling department indeed requires some or a lot of refinement. For, someone like Sehwag had to bowl as a full time bowler and that too in a test match under the conditions where the South African batsmen were in full bloom. Luckily Sehwag got a wicket which is a different issue altogether. No matter what the first test squad had to say but, the inclusion of someone like Raina and Sreesanth would be just another blunder for, the former is a new comer to tests and the latter battles injuries most of the time.

A rare & common loss for India

This was a rare loss for India against Sri Lanka and a common loss in the finals of a multi nation tournament. What a series this has been with India and Sri Lanka winning and losing alternatively everytime they meet up to play a game. And, as the rule went, India had to lose this game. Sri Lanka won the first encounter at Dhaka last week, following which India beat them in their second encounter only to lose in the third meeting with the Lankans. Unfortunately, this happened to be the finals of the tri nation tournament which India lost. Had there been three games each in the round robin stage, may be India would have won the finals of the tournament and with it the series as well.

This once again pointed towards India who always have a poor run in the finals of a tri nation tournament to be more precise. This has been the case since Sourav Ganguly took over as the Indian captain in 2000. But, one thing that needs to be given a close look at is the fact that the series contained Bangladesh as the third team, against which winning is not at all an issue and so is making it to the finals. But, frankly speaking, and if viewers' opinion is considered, it should have been India to have walked away with the honors than Sri Lanka.

India had an upperhand not only throughout the series but also against Sri Lanka if the past three years or so are considered. Sri Lanka have been no match for India as it is evident from the past where Sri Lanka managed to win just 7 matches (including the finals of this tri nation tournament) out of 17 games in the past two years since the bi lateral series between the 2 countries in 2008 which India won 3-2. But, this time when it mattered the most for both the teams, India had to compromise being the runners up in the tournament.

In their last meeting, India had thrashed the Sri Lankans by getting to the target with as many as 104 balls to spare. But, that was not the case when Sri Lanka won the game by taking it until the last 7 balls of the game. Until the last game between India and Bangladesh, India was one of the teams not to have lost all their ten wickets even once in the series along with Bangladesh. But now, in the finals India were all out for a score of 245 which now makes Bangladesh the only team not to have been all out throughout the tournament.

Indian players' roles reversed!!!

Who is to be blamed when a team puts up a mammoth total and yet has to compromise by being on the losing side? Bangladesh did well to put a massive total (atleast as far as the standards of international cricket in Bangladesh is considered) against India when they scored a team total of 296 on the board only to lose the match by a huge margin of 6 wickets. Bangladesh's efforts would not have gone unrewarded had they bought India close to winning the match by making them bat for close to 50 overs and in the process get atleast 8 Indian batsmen out.

Moreover, it was no Yuvraj Singh or Virender Sehwag who proved to threaten the Bangladeshi outfit but it was some lesser known batsmen in Suresh Raina, Virat Kohli and of course the captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni (though who is not considered a chick in international cricket) . The Bangladeshi bowlers were able to get the wickets of in form and dangerous batsmen - Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir who could contribute just 31 runs of the 297 scored by India at the end of the innings. And, Yuvraj Singh returned back to the pavilion scoring only one run. Still, the odds favored India and that went on to become a reality.

India was at one stage found to be reeling at 51 runs on the board with three batsmen making their way back to the pavilion. The odds should have started doubting about India making it to the target which still didn't. The odds still favored India. However, the batsmen who cashed in on the offer was the Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni who scored another century which earned him the man of the match award which he pertly deserved. Even in the bowling department, the Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni was found bringing in Yuvraj Singh to bowl 10 overs.

On the other hand, frontline bowlers namely Harbhajan Singh, Aashish Nehra, Sreesanth and Zaheer Khan were found to bowl less than their quota of 10 overs. This may have been the reason for Bangladesh ending their innings scoring at a rate of just less than 6 runs an over. It was no doubt Yuvraj Singh who was the most economical of them all but, the decision of Dhoni to toss the ball repeatedly to a part time bowler with 5 main bowlers resting on the field draws a different conclusion. It is confusing to see the Bangladeshi bowlers belting all Indian bowlers with the esxception of Yuvraj Singh and Ravindra Jadeja.So was the case when Bangladesh could get the frontline batsmen out and surrender to new comers. How???

Unlucky Raina and the Lucky Parthiv Patel

When Suresh Raina raised his willow in the match between the Chennai Super Kings and the Rajasthan Royals believing that he had notched up a big hundred, I was reminded of the South African team led by Shaun Pollock way back in 2003 when the news from the dressing room proved to be wrong and South Africa had to settle themselves for a tie in the group stage match against Sri Lanka. The revised target from the dressing room after the Duckworth Lewis method was bought into play proved to be 1 run short than the actual target. Even Suresh Raina did the same mistake when he raised his bat thinking that his 100 was up, with the actual score being just 98.

Well it was not his mistake for, the electronic scoreboard had mis read his score to be 100 which was rather 98. And Suresh Raina had to pay the price for the mistake the elecrtronic scoreboard committed. This misled Raina to loft the very next ball high in the air giving Greame Smith a tough task which he completed with ease. However, Suresh Raina who is not known much with the ball was successful in taking a wicket. Well that in addition to taking two catches on the field I think would be equivalent to scoring a century. And what a match did Raina have, for he was the one who started it by scoring 98 and also ended the same by taking the catch of Trivedi.

This was not the way the Rajasthan Royals were expected to play, taking into account their heroics in the first edition of the IPL. As believed to be by most of them, it was not the Chennai Super Kings who finished the formality of taking the last wicket and winning the match but it was the Rajasthan Royals who completed the formality by losing their last five wickets for just 28 runs. None of the Rajasthan Royals' batsmen took the initiative to chase down the target imposed by the Chennai Super Kings whatsoever. The entire Rajasthan Royals' innings could produce just 2 sixes.

It is still not understandable for Shane Warne to opt to field first. If Shane Warne had taken the pitch to be a batsmen's paradise, it was equally amazing for the Rajasthan Royals' batsmen to succumb so badly and that too chasing a not so impossible target of 164. On the otherhand, even the Chennai Super Kings captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni is found to be lethargic with his team, for someone like Parthiv Patel who has been a 100% failure is found to make it to the playing XI despite all odds. Of course, the presence of big hitters like Jacob Oram, Hayden, Badrinath, Raina and Dhoni himself can make their batting look comfortable. But, I wish someone like Makhaya Ntini be introduced instead who could add strength to their bowling, with Dhoni keeping wickets.

Dhoni's strategy seems to be working right now, but, it is just unacceptable for anyone to have someone who's just a waste of money, slot in the playing XI and everything else. It would be a wrong signal for any team to have such players in the playing XI. However, Dhoni would be the best judge for that.