IPL 2 – Day 20 – Game 2 Make Hay it is Rain(a)’s day
Oh…. I have to hit a big SIX to cover all the matches to cover before the 41th match starts (assuming I complete this post within the next 30 minutes).
I am determined to cover all the backlog today by hook or Lalit Modi. I am writing these posts not for you who is reading this. I am writing these posts for me and all the IPL players out there. We will read this at leisure when we have all retired and have nothing else to do and when Cricket would have become Coffee10 instead of T20.
Game 2 of D20 of IPL T20 was between two of the Kings as well as between a king and a queen. Chennai Super Kings (owned by the cement king of Tamil Nadu) and Kings XI Punjab (owned by Bollywood queen pretty Preity Zinta).
Chennai came into this match having picked up momentum (who dropped it by the way?) while Kings XI came in with a mixed bag of wins and losses and no clear one way trend. The difference between the two teams’ earlier matches was that Chennai enjoyed consistent performances from its performing players while Kings XI had to look for a new savior every match.
Ahead of the match, I was visualizing it as a head to head battle between the current Indian Captain and possible future captain of India. In my opinion, despite the camaraderie shown by Dhoni and Yuvraj on the field, below the surface there is a rivalry between the two much akin to the old rivalry between Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev.
The first salvo was fired by Dhoni when he won the toss and decided to bat keeping faith on the Massive Hayden and (comparatively) tiny Raina, totally unfazed by the low score posted by Royal Challengers Bangalore.
But the next salvo was fired by Yuvraj, aided by the IPL jinx through Irfan Pathan as the newest Chennai opener Badrinath became the latest hen laying the golden egg. It is becoming difficult to keep track of the number of batsman getting a duck or a golden duck in this tournament.
It was once again left to Hayden – Raina duo to reconstruct the innings for Chennai Super Kings and they did it in style. Raina batting like a colossus and Hayden batting like a Goliath that no David can defeat. Together, Raina and Hayden were averaging 10 runs an over. As if that was not enough, Sangakkara spiced up the wounds of Kings XI by missing a simple chance to stump the highest run getter of tournament so far. The only way the run rain from Raina and Hayna could stop was by having a real rain and the God’s obliged Preity Zinta’s prayer at the Hindu temple in Durban during the tournament
The God induced strategic break resulted in the match being curtailed to 18 overs a side. Two overs post resumption Raina departed having scored 32 of 20 balls with four fours and one six.
But there was no respite for the Kings XI bowlers as Dhoni walked in to join hands and legs with Hayden. Dhoni started off with a four and continued to plunder the bowlers all over the SuperSportsPark.
I wondered if Dhoni and Hayden had previously worked in ISRO, Sri Harikotta. Even the scientists at Sri Harikotta may not launch rockets when it rained. Hayden and Dhoni cared nothing about the weather while batting. Like they cut diamond with diamond, Dhoni and Hayden countered rain with rain – raining sixes and fours.
In all they scored eight fours and eight sixes, that is 80 runs or 80% of the runs scored in a partnership that lasted 100 runs in… oh my God…just 47 deliveries (less than eight overs). It is one thing to have one of the batsman attack and other playing second fiddle; it is totally another when two batsman attack in tandem from both sides.
Last time we witnessed something like that was in the match between Mumbai Indians and Kolkatta Knight Riders when Jayasuriya and Tendulkar tore apart the bowling of Kolkatta Knight Riders averaging 1.71 runs per ball (127 runs off 74 deliveries). Even that savage attack paled into insignificance as this lightening partnership between Hayden and Dhoni produced 2.13 runs per ball (100 off 47). When Hayden finally got out missing a well deserved 100 by just 11 runs already 17 overs had been bowled and just one more over remained in which Dhoni and Albie Morkel added 9 valuable runs to post a total of 185 for the loss Badri, Raina and Hayden.
D/L method added two extra runs to the target thereby challenging Kings XI Punjab to score 188 for a victory.
When Kings XI started their innings, thankfully there was no golden duck. But the first over still produced a wicket when Morkel castled Sohal off the second delivery. Kings XI had strengthened their batting by recruiting Simon Katich and he walked at the fall of the first wicket to join Karan Goel.
Both Morkel and Tyagi, opening the bowling for Chennai bowled reasonably well when Dhoni brought in Gony to bowl the fifth over of the match. Katich found the right bowler to accelerate and launched on Gony blasting three sixes in a row zipping the run rate closer to the required rate that had climbed up to 11.4 by the fourth over.
By the seventh over Goel was also gone gobbled up by the Goan spin wonder Jakati. If you anyone thought that was a set back for Kings XI, they were soon proved wrong as Prince King (Yuvraj) walked in to join Simon Katich. If it was Hayden and Dhoni doing the damage for Kings XI, now it was the turn of Yuvi and Katich to payback. And they did it in remarkable style. But their partnership didn’t last long as Katich departed after reaching his fifty in just 25 balls (3 fours, 4 sixes).
At the fall of Katichs’ wicket, Kings XI still needed 104 runs from 54 balls – nearly two runs a ball. Yuvi intelligently asked Jayawardene to come in ahead of Sangakkara. Jayawardene responded brilliantly to the call.
I have not seen anyone else than Jayawardene play the world’s greatest off-spinner Muralidharan with such great authority. In particular there was one grand six hit by Jaya off Murali, walking two or three paces making himself room and then walloping the ball for a six over extra-cover. Exhilarating stuff!
In the meanwhile, Gony was helping Yuvi by dropping a dolly at long-on. This sloppy fielding at an important juncture resulted in Yuvi joining forces with Jayawardene to deliver more boundaries.
When four overs remained, Kings XI needed 44 runs.
That was when Dhoni played the master stroke. Sensing that the faster bowlers were going for runs he brought it Suresh Raina to bowl the 15th over.
What Suresh Raina bowled was what we used to call in our beach cricket days “poi bowling” – which simply means bowling nothing deliveries at a dicey length to catch the batsman in two minds.
To play those deliveries effectively the batsman has to be fearless and should not be in two minds. But these deliveries have the inherent ability of catching the batsman in two minds because they are bowled dead slow making the batsman wait longer and at a dicey length that prohibits any footwork by the batsman since he cannot gauge the speed of the delivery.
Raina bowled now one, but two overs of “poi bowling” that effectively won the match for Chennai Super Kings. One should also mention the fantastic 18th over bowled by Lakshmipathy Balaji when 24 runs were needed off the last over and Yuvraj at the height of attacking batsmanship was at the crease giving away just 11 runs.
Though the brilliant batting of Hayden, Dhoni and Raina set that impossible target for Kings XI, in my mind those 12 balls bowled by Suresh Raina for just 8 runs at a very crucial juncture was the real turning point in the match. Had those two overs been bowled by anyone else (Morkel, Jagati etc.) Kings XI would have taken atleast 12 runs in each over and romped home winners with one over to spare!
And finally…someone has to have a re-look at the Duckworth-Lewis. It is absurd that on the application of the Duckworth Lewis, team batting second has to chase more runs than what the team batting second has to chase. Few months back we had a match in which the team batting second actually scored few runs more than the team batting first but still lost the match because the DL method had set the target higher than what the first team actually scored.
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