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What an incredible day.

Two matches, one with high scores going down to the wire and the other played on a bed of live wires. By for the best day in IPL history, I would say.  The second match was not Twenty/20 but Twenty-one/21.

I am very disappointed that Chennai Super Kings lost the first match which was also a thriller by nine runs.  I didn’t watch this match and only followed it on cricinfo intermittently.  A B Devilliers scored a fabulous (almost) couple runs a ball unbeaten -  first in this tournament – century backed up by a equally hard hitting 50 by Tilakartne Dilshan.  Flintoff is another high cost player having an unimpressive run.

In reply Hayden tore apart the bowling of DD to put CSK on a solid platform for a victory chasing the highest team score.  The advantange was squandered by CSK because of some panic and some inexplicably bad rotation of strike, making me think if there was something fishy.

I personally thought if CSK didn’t try hard enough to win.  I cannot understand why Albie Morkel was content on giving strike to Joginder Sharma when he should have taken charge in forming the strike, especially in the last over. Even in the first match of the tournament – against Mumbai Indians – Dhoni was content taking singles giving strike to Joginder and the likes instead of going for the kill.  Inexplicable.  Makes me think if there was some betting involved.

Read these ball by ball comments on the last over of the CSK match against Delhi Daredevils:

Joginder Sharma is in, 15 required off the last over
19.1	Nannes to Joginder Sharma, 2 runs, Joginder makes room, lofts it over extra cover, but they stroll only for two
19.2	Nannes to Joginder Sharma, 2 runs, just short of a length, Joginder slaps it to wide of long-on, and they take two again. Surprising? Wouldn’t they want Morkel on strike?
19.3	Nannes to Joginder Sharma, OUT, Warner, the substitute, makes the difference again. Joginder hit a fullish delivery straight to mid-off and ran, and gave up half-way through, and Warner hit the middle stump out of the ground
	Joginder Sharma run out 4 (3b 0×4 0×6) SR: 133.33
We are down to Morkel now, three boundaries will do it
19.4	Nannes to Morkel, OUT, this is not smart from Bala, Morkel fails to hit a full and wide delivery, but Bala for some reason wants the single, Morkel doesn’t. Sangwan from cover flicks it to the bowler, and Bala is at the strikers’ end
	L Balaji run out 0 (0b 0×4 0×6) SR: –
19.5	Nannes to Morkel, 1 run, and it’s all over for Chennai, Delhi have won it, a full delivery, Morkel looks to clear his leg and hit big, and the same story repeats, the inside half of the bat, and only a single to long-on
19.6	Nannes to Muralitharan, no run, short of a length, Murali goes for the big swing, and misses, the ball misses the stumps too, but Delhi have completeed a solid comeback

I was able to watch the second match of the day in full, thanks to the rain delayed start. And what a match it turned out to be.

I run out of words to describe this match, which can as well get crowned as the match of the tournament.  The thrill and excitement was full with the balance swinging between the teams throughout.

The match was dramatic throughout; especially when Shane Warne was marshaling and motivating his largely  inexperienced team.  Captaincy at its supreme best was at display.

You needed a man like Dada to be at the helm of KKR team to match Warne.  Unfortunately, Brendon McCullum is several notches short as an inspiring leader.  If one had any question on how Rajasthan Royals won the last IPL there were answers aplenty at display.

Two different genres of captains were on display on day six.  M S Dhoni – cool and composed all the time and Shane Warne – extremely intense, involved, emotional and very vocal.  I personally like Warne and Dada style leaders.  When they lead the intensity percolates to you.  The interesting part is their intensity helps in lifting up the morale of the entire team.

Shane Warne was encouraging the youngsters, patting them on their back, egging them on, showing confidence at their talents and working hard to raise their utility value above par.

I had thought that he created enormous pressure on the eighteen year old before the start of the IPL by his encomiums on the still IPL uncapped Kamran Khan before the start of the tournament.  With such hype behind him, Kamran Khan’s performance in the first match against Bangalore Royal Challengers was anything but impressive.

Going by that performance, any other Captain would have dropped Kamran from the team. Especially when the team had lost a match and had to come back strongly.  Not Warne.

He backed his words by continuing his trust and confidence on Kamran.  It was trust at its best and test by fire when the ball was given to the rookie eighteen year old to bowl the last over of the match, when just six runs separated the two teams.  Kamran bowled the last over well despite starting off with a wild wide.  While one has to appreciate Kamran for the excellent performance, it is undeniable that Warne extracted such performance from the youngster by easing the pressure and giving encouragement all the time.

It was once again super captaincy on the part of Warne when he gave the ball to Kamran to bowl that super over and then chose to send in Yousuf Pathan and Ravinder Jadeja to chase that super over target of 16.

Put into bat RR, it appeared at one stage that it will be lucky to reach a score of even 130.  But notched up 150 thanks to the final over assault of  Abhishek Raut scoring two sixes, one four and a couple. Yusuf Pathan had earlier blasted two sixes and six fours in 21 balls to notch up 42 easing up pressure for the Rajasthan Royals.

Any other team would have found 150 inadequate to defend; especially when the opposition’s line up included blasters such as Chris Gayle, Brendon McCullum and Dada.

Not Rajasthan Royals lead by Shane Warne.  (Look at it on the back drop of the difficulty Viru had defending the so far tournament high score of 189 and you will know the wizardry of Shane Warne).  Other than Shane Warne and Greame Smith there are no superstars in the RR team (Shilpa Shetty is excluded from the count, even though she was wearing the Royals’ colors).  Warne reversed the famed theory “Captain is as good as the team“, making one think  “a team is as good as its Captain“.

If you removed Shane Warne from the Rajasthan Royals team and placed odds for that team successfully defending 150, I think 10 to 1 everyone would have gone in favor of KKR.  Even with Warne KKR appeared to be having the match comfortably in their grasp when Gayle was at the crease at his striking best and later when Dada settled in to play a masterful innings amidst high tension.  There was a brief period when RR seemed to have snatched the upperhand but Dada used up a no-ball and a free hit from Munaf Patel to hit two consecutive sixes and brought down the run rate.

At the home bend, KKR needed sixteen runs of two overs and the penultimate over was bowled by my man of the day Warne giving away nine runs but dismissing Yashpal Singh who didn’t listen to Dada to stay calm.  Then came the final over of Kamran in which Dada also got out trying to hit a boundary and getting caught behind.  Ishant faced the last ball and got the single to level the score and the first ever tie in IPL led us to the superover.

I think Gayle batted very well in the super over to score sixteen runs off Kamran Khan.  It would have been a winning score, but for McCullum who chose Ajantha Mendis to bowl the super over with a new ball and Shane Warne who chose Yousuf Pathan as the main striker to better the superover score of KKR.  I would have gone for Chris Gayle to bowl the super over as he would have bowled slow yorkers at Yousuf Pathan making it difficult to lift the ball.

Overall, both my favorite teams in lost their matches but I am not disappointed at all as cricket won the hearts of millions – hands down!

Watch the super power hits of Yousuf Pathan in the super over:

My scores at the end of Day Six at the Cricket Fantasy Game.

Match date : 23-04-2009 08:00:00 PM
Match : Team Kolkata Vs Team Jaipur		Batting		Bowling			Fielding
Players	Franchise	Runs	Balls	Overs	Runs	Wickets	Catches	Runout	Score
Shane Warne	Team Jaipur	2	2	4.0	25	2	0	0	233
Swapnil Ashok Asnodkar	Team Jaipur			0.0	-	-	0	0	0
Kamran Khan	Team Jaipur			4.0	18	3	1	1	460
Graeme Smith	Team Jaipur	15	21	0.0	-	-	1	0	85
Brendon McCullum	Team Kolkata	3	9	0.0	-	-	0	0	1
TOTAL									779

Match date : 23-04-2009 04:00:00 PM
Match : Team Chennai Vs Team Delhi		Batting		Bowling			Fielding
Players	Franchise	Runs	Balls	Overs	Runs	Wickets	Catches	Runout	Score
Gautam Gambhir	Team Delhi	0	1	0.0	-	-	0	0	0
MS Dhoni	Team Chennai	5	7	0.0	-	-	1	0	186
Lakshmipathy Balaji	Team Chennai	0	0	4.0	19	3	0	0	355
Matthew Hayden	Team Chennai	57	27	0.0	-	-	0	0	530
Joginder Sharma	Team Chennai	4	3	1.0	8	0	0	0	19
Manpreet Gony	Team Chennai	6	2	4.0	45	1	0	0	107
TOTAL									1197

Overall my standing is 4,257 with 11,273 points; the person at the number one spot has 20,809 points .  I have to make up in the remaining games alongwith Chennai Super Kings

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