IPL 2 – Day Tendulkar – knight raided
Kolkatta Knights were raided in broad day light. This will qualify as the Kolkattan (k)nightmare and day Ten-dulkar.
Oh boy! Tendulkar did he age reverse a few days back? It was vintage Tendulkar scotch all of twenty years’ seasoning. If Sanath was on song then Tendulkar was rocking. Only the very first ball he faced Tendulkar was beaten. After that he started having a ball there – every ball that he faced. If we saw a fifty from him playing through the twenty overs in the first match of IPL Vs. Chennai Super Kings, we saw him compile one punctuated with fours and sixes scored at will in just 34 deliveries – two less than the number of years since he was delivered to this fortunate motherland.
Day Ten was not very great for me personally both my personal favorites in this IPL failed to win. However, the disappointment was nullified due to the fact that better teams won both the matches.
If last IPL was dominated by Australians playing in various teams. In this IPL we do not have many current Australian players participating. Still two yesteryear Australian players are making their present felt. While Warne is not as successful as last year leading his team, Adam Gilchrist has successfully turned the tables for Deccan Chargers. From bottom of the table last year now they are the table toppers, winning four out of all four played so far.
I could not see the first match of Day Ten between Deccan Chargers and Chennai Super Kings. Followed it on Cricinfo. When CSK notched up 165 in their twenty overs, despite the early shock of losing Parthiv Patel in the very second ball of the match, with the help of the reliable contribution from Orange Cap Mathew Hayden (49) and useful contributions from Dhoni, Raina and Jacob Oram (41) I thought Deccan’s Charge might get halted by CSK.
But I miscalculated the ability of Chennai bowlers to put speed breakers on Gilli and Gibbs. I was thinking that law of averages might catch up with these two and they may fail in this match.
It was not to be. In fact, the way Gilli and Gibbs went about scoring runs at will it appeared the match might end by the 15th over itself. If CSK took 20 overs to score 165, the powerful Deccan openers put up 67 before the fielding restrictions came off at the end of the sixth over.
Gilchrist scored 44 of just 19 balls with five fours and three sixes while Gibbs was lagging behind Gilchrist and was made to look a slow scorer.
Except for the willy Murali and part-timer Suresh Raina none else made any impression on the DC batsmen, especially Gibbs (69* in 56 balls). Had Suresh Raina and Murali not tightened up the game for CSK giving away just 35 runs in the 8 overs bowled by them the match would have got over by the fifteenth over. It is unfortunate that Chennai’s bowling is not finding its bearings in this season in spite of the presence of Murali in the team. Morkel has not clicked as an all rounder in this edition.
I think they cannot continue ignoring Ntini from the team (if he is available). Unless and until Chennai sorts out its bowling woes, victory will continue eluding them. This might well be the worst phase as Captain for M S Dhoni. Next few matches are crucial for CSK and will show if Dhoni was just riding luck all these days or he is really a thinking captain.
Getting back to the second match of the day, between Mumbai Indians Vs. Kolkatta Knight Riders, I was really not hopeful that KKR will be able to beat the men in blue simply because of the better bowling attack possessed by Mumbai. Compared to Mumbai’s bowling resource consisting of Malinga, Zaheer, Harbhajan and Bravo, KKR had none of note except Ishant Sharma and an awfully out of form Mendis.
Such a weak bowling attack of KKR pitted against batsman of the caliber of Sachin Tendulkar and Sanath Jayasuriya is bound to fail, especially when the Little Master comes out to in a mood to blast anything bowled at him. As Sachin and Sanath deciding to score only by showing the ball to the crowd time and again KKR bowling started to look even more ordinary than they looked on paper.
Only the strategy break brought some respite for the KKR team. To their credit, they pulled back the match from total domination of Mumbai Indians with the help of Lakshmi Ratan Shukla. Though KKR bowled much better post strategy break, due to the lusty hitting by Tendulkar and Jayasuriya Mumbai still posted a score of 189 leaving KKR to score at a rate of 9.5 runs per over if they wanted to win. I think but for the strategy break Tendulkar would have scored a century in Twenty/20 cricket and thereby filled the one stone missing in his glittering crown.
To score at that rate, KKR needed both Gayle and McCullum to click. With McCullum’s wretched form continuing (scored just 1 run facing 6 balls) hope rested only on Gayle. He too failed. When chasing such a big score if a team loses both openers for almost nothing there is no way the team can come back and win a match unless there was someone else who can hand some lusty strikes aka Yousuf Pathan. Only Ganguly showed some fight and none else.
In my opinion it is time now for KKR to put into use their “multiple captain” policy and bring back Dada as the Captain. Dada cannot do miracles but surely he has the experience of leading and motivating a team longer than Brendon Mc-Null-um.
While I was watching the match between KKR and Mumbai Indians, I was writing the Day Nine post and this is what I wrote inside that post watching the onslaught of Sachin and Jayasuriya.
(As I write this post bit late than normal for my daily dispatch – the match between KKR and Mumbai Indians is on the tele. I stop writing to watch, Ganguly igniting Sanath Jayasurya’s bat to launch to mighty sixes – the second one going full 90 meters. Ajanta Mendis, the super bowler who could not bowl the super over well again Rajasthan Royals, commences the next over. Before I complete the previous sentence Mendis moved to his fifth delivery of his first over in which Tendulkar briefly becomes Yousuf Pathan to send one out of the ground – Mumbai Indians are already 86 at the expense of all KKR bowlers in just 8 overs).
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” I think but for the strategy break Tendulkar would have scored a century in Twenty/20 cricket and thereby filled the one stone missing in his glittering crown.” – Superb.
I agree with you on changing the captaincy cap from Mccullum to Dada. Ganguly posseses the needed ability to motivate the team and bring back winning. Though we cannot really assure that Knight Riders will go on to wint the trophy but surely they will get some respect through few wins.
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