IPL 2 – Day Twelve – Kings are back, ruling Indians
There were two matches on day twelve.
First between Bangalore Royal Challengers and Kolkatta Knight Riders and the second between Kings XI Punjab and Mumbai Indians.
Going by the form in the current IPL I expected both the matches to be closely fought for different reasons.
Both BRC and KKR were lowly placed (as at the close of day eleven) and hence I thought a fight between two weak teams should stand proof for the theory “negative x negative = positive”.
In the case of Kings XI Punjab Vs. Mumbai Indians, it was a case of two teams performing not exceedingly well but quite impressively. Pitting each player of one team against another (Sachin, Sanath notwithstanding) and hence I thought a fight between two equally placed strong teams should stand proof for the theorty “positive x positive= positive”.
Both the matches went on expected lines. Both were hard fought and in both matches the team that held the nerves till the end won.
First the match between BRC and KKR. Before the match started, stung by criticism over his poor form and to an extent his captaincy, Brendon McCullum had said he will relinquish captaincy of KKR if the team doesn’t go to the semi-finals in this IPL.
Don’t know if Brendon has been following election speeches of Indian leaders, his statement made me believe so. With his poor batting form KKR was always getting into a match one batsman short and that too at the top order.
The other handicap was his own captaincy. Besides, there was an outside negative influence in the form of Bucha-none as the team coach. With so many things pitted against, there was virtually no chance of KKR qualifying for the semi-finals.
In that situation, Brendon’s statement only meant that he wanted to stick on to captaincy knowing fully well of KKR’s fate or rather scripting KKR’s fall to the bottom of the table. May be Brendon is under the impression that Lalit Modi might spring a surprise by turning the table upside down just before the Semi Finals making KKR the leaders on the table! Height of optimism?
When you study probability one of the earliest lessons they take is about the probability of head or tail falling when you toss a coin. Since there is a 50% chance of either side falling McCullum is better placed at the toss. This time the 50% probability favored him 100% enabling to (at least) win the toss for this match.
McCullum wanted some extended rest. So, he chose to bat first, padded up, reached the crease with Gayle and did his match day exercise of going upto the pitch and coming back soon. This time (again) he didn’t trouble the scorers much coming back off the first ball of the match falling to Pietersen.
Once again the hopes were pinned on Gayle. He didn’t bely expectations and batted in his own attacking style. He scored forty very valuable runs for KKR punctuated with six boundaries. However, I still feel that Gayle has not fully capitalised on the starts to power his way ahead to play a match winning knock (save for one match). Dada has been having a patchy IPL as in the last year. He failed this time. KKR had to be helped by new addition to the eleven Van Wyk and Wriddiman Saha to impose a not too imposing total of 139 on BRC.
The track was turning and they told on the tele that KP read the pitch better than McCullum to have more spin options. Four wickets were shared between KP, Kumble and Appanna in Eleven overs. Jumbo was at his measerly best while capturing two wickets for his team.
Chasing the total, BRC had somewhat their best start in this IPL scoring 69 runs before they lost their first wicket. It might become boring and repetitive for you if I said once again the strategy break favored the fielding team. But it is a recurring fact. KP scored a better than before 13 (!) runs. Because of the not to demanding total posted by KKR, Royal Challengers could take their time in scoring the required runs without royally challenging the opponent bowlers with just one ball to spare. Mark Boucher played with patience and ended up unbeaten on 25. BRC ramped home with a victory taking their total wins this IPL to two in six matches, giving some satisfaction to Mr. Mallya.
The better match of the day was between Mumbai Indians and Kings XI Punjab.
As we all know MI has arguably the best bowling attack in the IPL with Malinga, Zaheer, Harbhajan and Dwayne Bravo supported by Sanath and Sachin. With Sachin and Sanath as the openers they have an attacking and well experienced (even though the oldest) opening pair in the competition.
Even though I expected Mumbai Indians to win the match, I did think that the younger side of Kings XI Punjab can spring a surprise. The best bowling attack of MI broke the spine of Kings XI keeping the pressure throughout the innings. It needed the patience and genius of Kumara Sangakkara to compile a superb 40 after the dashing openers crashed instead of smashing the MI bowlers. None except Sangakkara batted well for Kings XI leaving them with a score of 119 which I thought would be easily chased by MI.
But what followed was the unexpected – reminding everyone that “cricket is a game of glorious uncertainities”. Jayasuriya briefly became Brendon McCullum to lose his wicket off the very first ball giving a sneaking chance for the Kings XI and the God of Indian Cricket departed in the next over pushing Mumbai Indians further back. By the fifth over Mumbai had already lost three wickets.
However, JP Duminy, the newest kid in world cricket, applied himself with the same never say die spirit shown by him in Australia some months back. In the company of Abhishek Nayar and Dwayne Bravo he improved the hopes for Mumbai Indians while also maintaing a reasonable good scoring rate.
But the Kings XI bowling, despite not having very big names, has been proving very effective in South Africa. Irfan Pathan has been bowling well and Yousuf Abdullah (South Africa) is truly a find of this IPL.
The pressure built by them consumed J P Duminy just short of the victory line and Kings XI snatched victory from the jaws of defeat which ensured that Sangakkara got a nice hug and a kiss (on the cheeks) from Preity Zinda with whom Yuvi refused to shake hands as he had injured a finger or two while fielding.
This match also proved that more than the resources that one team has it is clever captaincy and marshalling the resources available intelligently which will win matches. This post will not be complete if I do not mention the master stroke played by Sangakkara who deputised as captain of Kings XI in the end overs of Mumbai Indians innings. He made Puyush Chawla bowl the penultimate over of the innings when MI needed 19 runs of 12 balls at the last moment after Yousuf Abdulla had been handed the ball to bowl that over. (Cricinfo records that the message came in from Yuvraj Singh at the dugout to give the ball to Piyush Chawla. Whether it was Sangakkara or Yuvraj, it was really a master trick).
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Bucha-None: Well said Sathyamurthy.
I heard that Sharukh is trying to sell his share to some big names. Whether those are just rumours or going to happen, for sure KKR will reach the first place in the table after round-robin gets completed. Yes. Top team to lose most matches.
The god of Indian cricket was in the probability of getting out for cheaper runs this time. I expected it. But Duminy is a very matured player. He resembles Hashan Tilakratne of Sri Lanka.
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