With IPL getting complex and interesting, With 5 teams struggling for 2,3 and 4^th place, it was the “nothing to lose” team KKR had yet another last over finish but fortunately they were on the winning side this time. Apart from 2/3 matches most of the matches for KKR were last over finish and if they were batting first they used to finish it in first few overs itself. ( please do not ask how? ) 

It was great chase by Kolkatta Knight Riders. Macculum played beautifully well for is 81 in 48 balls and Hodge I think played his best innings in IPL so far. Having said this, I know he has also played couple of good innings this season as well but they were on losing side both the times. KKR has been a perfect example of how it is when things are not going your ways. They dropped simple catches, the top edges went to boundaries when they were bowling and then the same top edges or even good shots went directly to fielders when they were batting, few bad decisions against them added something more to it. Frustration was visible on Macculum’s face. 

They say Agarkar is inconsistent but I really feel he also is a damn unlucky man. He was bowling with no fire in first couple of matches but started bowling well later but even for him edges went for boundaries, lower full tosses went for sixers. If you have seen it carefully he has bowled  excellent bouncers this time similar to one he bowled to MS Dhoni yesterday. I think he needed some confidence to be given to him which  Macculum has given and looked pretty active after been dropped twice. He bowled an excellent 19^th over against Deccan Chargers, it was a perfect Malinga over with all the Yorkers bowled on the spot giving away singles on each delivery, had he been with a little luck he would have got atleast couple of wickets. I normally do not believe in luck but incidents like Yuvaraj Singh taking 2 hat-tricks , Rohit Sharma taking one make me believe in luck, fortune etc.

 For Chennai Super Kings it was like they have won the match, half before the match, 25% after the toss and 25% after scoring 188. I heard someone from their team saying it was good enough score to win. ( against Kolkatta J is what actually he meant J ). Dhoni in after match interview perfectly described the match, “ One of the greatest chase in IPL and One of the worst bowling performance in IPL. Dhoni would not have thought even in his wildest dreams that they will lose the match. It really came as shock for them. Now they need to win their last match or at least not lose it with huge margines.   

 I hope KKR to put up another cracking performance against Rajasthan Royals tomorrow and gain some confidence for many of them to claim a position in next year IPL. Let’s look forward to today’s match where I want Royal challengers to beat Delhi Dare devils… this will make it even more interesting

Instead of saying, these two are likely keys for success here onwards in IPL, the more appropriate sentence would be - lack of any of these two is potentially costly: common sense and unpredictability. By English meanings of the terms, both sound contradictory, however in the context of the on-field cricket action, they are not.
I am fairly inspired by the common sense cricket displayed by the Delhi Daredevil’s duo of Dilshan and AB de Villiers against Rajasthan Royals on 17th May. Though RR’s butterfingers and sloppy fielding helped DD, it was pleasing to see the assurance with which ABD & Dilshan paced their innings. This is exactly what Rajasthan Royals and some other teams lacked in IPL 2. Watson’s absence on one side, but what has really hurt Rajasthan Royals is Smith’s failure and lack of a batsman who can take up similar role.
If we look at Royal Challengers Bangalore, leave Taylor’s heroics aside, they also lacked assuring batting performances. Though Mumbai Indians had Duminy, a lot of ‘uncommon’ sense around him prevented MI from doing well. On the same factor, Kings XI Punjab disappointed us a lot as they had the best people to play such cricket – Sangakkara & Jayawardene. The later did not play a couple of matches due to injury where the former was not in his usual sorts for most part of the tournament.
Though Delhi looks good on the common sense batting front – thanks to ABD & Dilshan, the potential threat for DD is predictability. This team has become a set of fairly predictable people and if the pattern continues, they are likely to throw all away in semi finals. All good wins and great performances won’t count then. Your predictability allows your opposition to have a good plan against you. Off course, the way Sehwag plays is very predictable but on his day, it just doesn’t matter whether you have a plan against him or not. Still, it makes a big difference in the moral with which opposition team takes the field. If we see, Munaf Patel was looking extremely confident to take on Gambhir & Sehwag, and he got both of them. He kept bowling short and on-body to Sehwag, he almost knew that Gambhir would try to step out every now and then. The problem for Delhi is – I and you also know how Sehwag, Gambhir, Dilshan, ABD and Dinesh Karthik would approach the batting. This, I feel, may go against DD (unless Sehwag does what he can).
There is at least one answer available for Delhi Daredevils batting – Warner. I think, he is a ‘must’ inclusion in big matches and then top 3 can be shuffled. It is not a bad idea to have Sehwag at 3 looking at the pattern of success of slow bowlers in the middle overs. Or even if Sehwag opens, he might just remember how Gambhir and himself approached last T20 World Cup. India’s typical score in first 5 overs used to be 25 or 30 for no loss. 30-35 for no loss is better score than 45 for 2 in first 6 overs.
On Delhi’s bowling, Nehra-Nannes-Sangwan-Mishra have done great job. But still, Nehra & Nannes are again 2 predictable bowlers, especially Nannes. And we know how worse can Nehra’s bad day be.
The word ‘predictable’ is an alarm for Delhi Daredevils.

A bookie calls Shane Warne before the match between Kolkata KnightRiders and Rajasthan Royals.

Cell phone rings. Warne picks up.

Warne : hello

Bookie : I am ….. Here.

Warne : yes tell me

Bookie : how is the pitch

Warne : ya dry and good for batting

Bookie : I want u to loose today’s match

Warne : impossible

Bookie : I will pay u $200,000

Warne : will be difficult to make KKR win.

Bookie : I will pay u $250,000

Warne : May be I could help you by reducing the margin. u tell by what margin we should win. will be much more easier

Bookie : no KKR should win

Warne : OK. I will try my best

Bookie : no make it.

Warne : OK.

Bookie : what will be the score

Warne : 200, if we bat first

Bookie : no make it 120

Warne : Impossible. Agarkar and Kartik are playing.

Bookie : 120 no change.

Warne : I will try

Bookie : OK. If KKR bat first

Warne : 110

Bookie : no make it 175

Warne : no u are asking too much. Ganguli is playing.

Bookie : OK make it $300,000

Warne : This would be the toughest match in my life

Bookie : OK, deal is made.

Warne : yes

Bookie : bye.

Match starts KKR bats first. KKR score only 120 in 20 overs. During the lunch break Shane’s cell rings.

Warne : hello

Bookie : its me. why did KKR score only 120. Our deal was 175.

Warne : What can I do ? They run one when they could run three, defend full toss, get out on wide balls, all catches and shots. I mean, if there is any. exactly directed to the fielders. But I will tell you this, Knight Riders are too good at this , I tried re-arranging the field.but they never miss a fielder.

Bookie : still u could bowl more no-balls. We got only 53 extras.

Warne : I asked all my bowlers to bowl badly. I also made Smith and Asnodkar bowl.

Bookie : Okay. leave that. I want u to loose the match.

Warne : I will try.

Bookie : Rajasthan Royals should be all out for 110

Warne : OK.

Bookie : bye.

Rajasthan Royals bats. They are making a serious attempt to not hit the ball and if at all they hit trying their best to hit to the fielders. They try to run only singles for doubles. But sometimes, they can’t stop themselves from running.

All Rajasthan Royals batsmen charged down to Kartik’s bowling and they purposely miss the ball hoping at least one
would hit the stumps. But they got to run a bye for that as McCullum is still searching for the ball . Inspite of the bad display of batting, they score 118 of 19 overs. Last over, 3 runs
required, the worst part is that its an Agarkar over. Warne is batting with Carseldine.

Bookie gets really furious.
Warne is ready to face the last over his cell rings (he plays with his cell).

Warne : hello

Bookie : its me! . What are you upto ?

Warne : We tried the best we could

Bookie : OK forget it. I want u to loose the match

Warne : what can I do. Fate !!! Agarkar is bowling

Bookie : I don’t know. u are loosing

Agarkar bowls. Warne tries to hide his bat behind his back. But the ball hits the bat and goes to third man. So they take a single.
(cell rings)

Warne : sorry what can I do I was hiding my bat but still the ball comes and hit my bat. If I play much worse than this everybody will find out.
Bookie : (gets really tensed). OK I can understand. But please don’t take last two runs.

Warne talks to Carseldine. Agarkar bowls. a juicy full toss. Carseldine uses all his batting skills to restrict that one to a single. Scores are level.
(cell rings)

Bookie : OK. Past is past. Atleast finish it in a tie. I don’t know what u are going to do u are not taking a single or u give u’r bat to the umpire.

Warne : OK. OK. Don’t worry this time I will! see to it we are not taking the single. Let it be obvious also. I am not taking the single.

Agarkar bowls, unfortunately he bowls a no ball. RR wins the match.
Bookie goes mad and Shane warne faints in the field itself

After a couple of good results, Mumbai Indians are back to square one in desperate situation. They do not have anything or anyone else to blame but themselves.
The most sober line to express about MI’s loss against Rajasthan Royals in an IPL match on 14th May is – they made a mess out of it.
We would tempt ourselves to say that poor tactics of sending Takawale to open the innings with Bravo, poor tactics of having Sanath, Sachin & Duminy at 4, 5, 6 respectively. However, I agree with MI’s thinktank for the changes in batting order. I would like to emphatically say that Sanath, Sachin & Nayar were their best bet to attack the slow bowlers’ gang of Warne, Botha, Pathan & Jadeja in the middle overs.
Unfortunately, changes in batting order are not enough to win matches. If order is changed, batsmen need to have the crystal clear instructions about tackling various situations. And if they do have the right instructions, they need to religiously execute those. This is where we can not be sure about ‘what went wrong’. This is why I would not conclude whether it was a failure in tactics or execution.
Possible tactical failure –
Suppose, Takawale had the instructions to give a stand to Bravo. This is alright. But I guess, he was not very sure what he would do if Bravo failed. And if Takawale was asked to play the way he did even after Bravo’s early loss and Rahane coming in next, this is a pure tactical failure. If Sanath had come at 3, Takawale’s batting could still be justified.
Possible execution failure –
Suppose, Takawale was asked to give a brisk start, which he can do – this was a good surprise MI had planned. But Takawale failed to do that. My problem is not his strike rate, but the way he approached the innings. He played 22 balls and hardly attempted aggressive shots. This is an execution failure.
If they thought, Takawale would do an anchor role – I feel it is an extremely forgettable tactical mistake. However, I don’t think that was the case. Giving a stand to in-form Bravo for a few overs is fine but the way he batted after early loss of Bravo should have been different. Don’t know what instructions he had got, so don’t know whether it was a tactical or execution failure. Failure is failure and needs to be dealt with.
Easy to say and write this sitting in Bangalore having no obligations and stakes – but as a keen follower and lover of the game, it is difficult to be non-critic on such undesirable display by the most desirable personalities of the game.
No need to mention how good Munaf’s last over was and how good Warne is – high stakes match, bowling against Sachin and Sanath, and he gets both of them plus Rahane. How many times he has done this in important matches and God only knows how many times he will do it before he stops playing cricket.

In one of my first few comments on this forum I had mentioned that one of the things that IPL T20 would add to the game was great fielding. Sadly though more than half way through the tournament I only have images of missed catches lingering and not any stunners plucked from thin air. Interestingly the malice seems to be spreading across all teams and even world class fielders seem to have caught the virus. The ‘drops’ could have been attributed to the poor domestic (that would be in comparison with the other domestic leagues) fielding standards which has thrown up the likes of Munaf Patel, Ashish Nehra etc. Through the tournament we have now seen the likes of Symonds, Duminy, AB de Villiers, Rohit Sharma etc. spill catches they thought they would have taken for practice. We do not often get to see wicket keepers drop the skiers with their gloves on but we have in this tournament seen the likes of Dinesh Karthik, Mahesh Rawat, Dhoni drop them. There surely has to be a trend or a reason for having so many catches dropped through the tournament. I could only speculate and come up with my thoughts on this –

Dew factor and windy conditions
All through the tournament we have seen the dew factor have a significant impact on sides bowling second. The swirling winds of the Rainbow nation have for sure made a few players (most of them seasoned professionals at that!) look like absolute novices when attempting to hold onto the skiers.

‘Sighting’ issues
Some experts have hinted that the lights could be an issue…especially the twilight time seems to have resulted in more than a couple of spilled chances. The tendency of the batsmen in this format of the game is also to go hard at the ball which a lot of times results in flat hard hits and against the multi hued background it would be quite a task getting a sighter.

Concentration
Or rather the lack of it…Jonty Rhodes in a recent interview said that as a fielder you need to keep expecting every ball to come to you. There are distractions galore at the venues – the noisy crowds, drums and the music and last but not the least the cheerleaders With the fast paced nature of the game it is easy for individuals to get ahead of themselves and plan for the next course of action and suddenly you are a touch slow to react and end up missing a catch.

Hopefully we shall not see a dropped catch at a crucial juncture decide any of the matches in the knockout stages of the tournament. Fingers crossed or should I be saying ‘butterfingers’ crossed!

Last week the prospect for the tournament was looking extremely dynamic with 7 out of 8 teams having opportunities to make it to top 4. Unfortunately, this week it does not look that great. Still a plenty of fun in the points table is possible – but may be only theoretically.
Week is set to separate top from bottom. What looks more likely is -
Delhi Daredevils and Chennai Super Kings are well set to grab the positions in semis. Kolkata Knight Riders have already occupied an unenviable (:)) position of no-stress and 2 teams Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bangalore depend on others’ failures as much as on own success. They will cherish failures of Kings XI Punjab and Deccan Chargers more than relishing their wins. If KXIP and DC do well in their next 2 games, MI and RCB would soon be fighting for 6th spot. Rajasthan Royals are in a spot of bother too; however I feel they are well equipped with Warne’s cricketing acumen to see them through.
I just had some fun calculating what can happen theoretically. Considered all the remaining matches and gave 2 points per match to the team which is lower in the points table than the other one at the moment – for example, RCB Vs KKR, calculated 2 points for KKR and 0 for RCB; MI Vs DD, 2 points for MI; DC Vs RR, 2 points to DC and so on. With this hypothetical (but not impossible at all) calculations what we may have in the end is – MI and KXIP in the semis and any 2 of DD, RCB & DC will qualify based on Net Run Rate.
Another extreme consideration like, DD & KKR lose all their matches, MI & RCB win all their matches, KXIP win all matches except against MI & RCB and for remaining matches same logic as above, we will see DD, CSK & RR not qualifying for semis.
Hypothesis! Hmm…what if it goes that way.
Can we hope for such scenarios? May be not. But also things are not so clear yet. We may still have a lot of fun hidden in this IPL-2. Let’s wait and watch what actually happens.

We often hear from the experts that ‘A captain is only as good as his team’. I thought let’s put that to the test as we are more than half way through the tournament and it would be a good time to evaluate Captains of the individual franchises and see how influential have they been as far as their team’s fortunes are concerned.
Delhi Daredevils: Virender Sehwag
Viru has always been viewed by most experts as an instinctive and street-smart cricketer and to a modest extent he has been able to bring that out in his captaincy as well. However he has not set the batting charts on fire so far and hence not led by example as such. Besides he has missed a couple of games due to injury which has not helped. Many experts feel that T20 is tailor made for a Viru explosion but that kind of an innings is still awaited from the man. He has however used Amit Mishra in a very shrewd manner so far in this tournament but the absence of Glen McGrath is going to hurt the Daredevils sometime later in the tournament.
Stand-in Captain: Gautam Gambhir
Too early to comment yet
Chennai Superkings: MS Dhoni
Mahi continues to do a good job of leading the team through the mini-crisis in the beginning of the tournament. His simplistic approach is what has been the secret of his success. His boldness adds to his simplistic approach wherein he has volunteered to lead by example by promoting himself up the order and taking more responsibility. The team for sure will look up to such a leader. If it was not for Mahi probably the Superkings would not be 2nd in the standings as of today. There is however room for improvement in his ‘fringe’ player usage – he has not yet found a way to use Albie Morkel (a potential match winner especially in South African conditions). His usage of Murali could also probably be better than it has been so far in the tournament. On the flip side though he has nurtured Shadab Jakati (an absolute unknown quality from the domestic circuit) extremely well in the latter half of the tournament. MSD’s man management has been fairly good so far but there is a lot of scope for improvement on the ‘tactical’ aspect of his captaincy.

Rajasthan Royals: Shane Warne
Sorry guys but this guy happens to be my personal favorite  International cricket I would say did not have the privilege to see him captain Australia – thanks to his indiscretions in part with bookies and in part with mischievous text messages to a certain English lady. Thanks to IPL however we are getting to partially see what Australia probably missed out on. If you look at the Royals team on paper they do not have real big guns but Warne usage of the squad proves once again that sometimes ‘Whole is not necessarily equal to sum of the parts’. The loss of Shane Watson has not helped the team’s cause but Warne’s excellent utilization of Kamran Khan, Yousuf Pathan, Ravindra Jadeja and Graeme Smith is what puts the Royals 3rd in the standings. While Warne has lead the team admirably what is lacking is a match winning performance from himself which is due given that he has been unusually quite in the tournament so far. Going by Warne track record though I would say ‘Cometh the hour, cometh the man’! The tactical and strategic acumen that Warne brings to the job in my opinion tilts the scales in his favor as far as the best captain in the tournament is concerned when compared to Dhoni.

Deccan Chargers: Adam Gilchrist
Gilly and his chargers started off like a men possessed wanting to prove to the world that they did not deserve to finish bottom of the table last year. Gilly has lead the team adequately so far but there is definite room for improvement on his usage of VVS and Styris and some of the fringe players like Ravi Teja and Venugopala Rao. Given the current state of mind of a certain Mr. Symonds it is difficult to say whether his absence has helped or hurt the team yet. The team however suddenly seems to have gone off the boil suddenly and Gilly will have rejuvenate the likes of Gibbs, Rohit Sharma, VVS, Pragyan Ojha, RP Singh and Fidel Edwards. His own performance so far has been a mixed bag but hopefully he should get some more consistency into his own game in the latter half of the tournament.

Bangalore Royal Challengers: Kevin Pietersen/ Anil Kumble
KP it almost seemed was weighed down by the price tag and the expectations during his entire stint in the IPL. He seemed to be trying too hard and probably hence did not really succeed. KP’s relative inexperience also came to fore with some of the tactical decisions that the Royal Challengers have made – Rahul Dravid being moved up and down the order for almost no apparent reason (Rahul has been the most consistent player for the Royal Challengers this IPL season); Ross Taylor and Jesse Ryder also being moved up and down the order with no success; non-selection of Mark Boucher (a player of immense international experience) for the initial few games.
Kumble to a certain extent has brought in some semblance of order to the team and this is partially manifested in results. He has led from the front and has been one of the most economical bowlers in the tournament so far but he will have to get the likes of Uthappa, Kohli, Kallis, Ryder and Taylor to play to their potential if the Challengers need to make to the semi finals. There is too much of chopping and changing in the side currently which is not giving the team desired result. The overall performance of the team so far gives an impression that people are uncertain about their ‘roles’ in the team.

Kings XI Punjab: Yuvraj Singh
As much as I like Yuvi the batsman (my personal opinion is that the world can expect a lot more from him as a batsman if he plays to his full potential and for a reasonable length of time and not give a breathtaking one-off performance) he does not seem to possess any captaincy acumen. The gulf in potential to performance of the Kings XI team becomes even more apparent when you see the squad which has hugely underutilized Mahela Jayawardena and Kumara Sangakara. His handling of the bowlers leaves a lot to be desired – Irfan Pathan, Sreesanth, Ramesh Powar, VRV Singh and company would agree I feel. With Moody at the helm I feel Mahela or Sangakara would be better bets to lead the team. He might be able to contribute more to the team cause as just a batsman. Also on the fitness front Yuvi appears to be about 4- 6 kgs on the heavier side – this has been noticeable since his knee injury. He gives an impression that his knee is not a 100% and he would do well to work on his fitness

Mumbai Indians: Sachin Tendulkar
Sachin is the best example of the idiom ‘your best player does not necessarily mean he should captain’. For all the Little Master’s capabilities as a cricketer (a batsman par excellence, more than a useful bowler and fielder) he just can’t seem to deliver the goods as far as captaincy is concerned. His tactics through the tournament have been fairly baffling – promotion of Bhajji, usage of JP and the overall confused selection. MI would probably better served if the responsibility of captaincy was taken off his shoulders and we might just be able to see a better output from the Little Master. As much as I personally did not like Greg Chappell as the coach of the Indian cricket team he did make a remark about Tendulkar’s ‘naiveté’ as far as tactical/ strategic inputs in team meetings were concerned which seems to be showing up as the tournament is going by.

Kolkata Knight Riders: Brendon McCullum
Now here is another example of an ineffective leader harming their side real bad. McCullum cuts such a forlorn figure on the field that it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion now that KKR will not making too much of a comeback of sorts. Nothing has worked for the Knight Riders right through the tournament now but as a leader McCullum should have got more out of Dada, Murali Karthik, Ishanth, Gayle, Ajantha Mendis. Baffling also is the choice of players in the squad – the likes of Bangar and Aakash Chopra only helped them increase their ‘frequent flyer miles’. And why buy Mortaza, Pujara, Henriques if you were not going to play him. Relieved of the burden of captaincy McCullum could still be able to fire and some team would pay dearly for the lean run he has had so far.

The teams that are doing good in this year’s IPL (top half of the points table) have one thing in common, they all have very talented Indian youngsters or lesser known, lesser fancied players performing for them. Each of the eight teams have two current Indian nationals performing for them , they match each other if we compare man to man. Every team has atleast two foreign players performing good for them . But the real difference lies in the way the lesser known players have performed. If we check top four teams we observe,
1. Jaipur has Naman Ozha , Raut , Asnoadkar , Amit Singh performing well.
2. Chennai has Jakati , Tyagi ,Badrinath , Balaji performing well.
3. Delhi has Amit Mishra, Sanghwan, Rajat Bhatia
4. Hydrabad Has Suman , Ravi Teja, Venugopal doing great
While the teams lying in the bottom half have got disappointing results from their youngsters. They are depending too much on foreign players. Problem is you cannot have more than 4 foreign players in the team. But If you have young Indian players performing, it allows more flexibility with team compositions, and less pressure on stars.
So franchisees will be looking into this more seriously next time around. Auction of foreign players will always have media attention and front page coverage! But now franchising will have close look at Indian domestic players particularly from lesser known teams like Goa , Assam , Orissa , Maharashtra , railways etc. And its all win win for players , francisies , and Indain Cricket as a whole ! This will be really good opportunity for youngsters across India.
So here comes my Idea , can there be a tournament say ‘IPL domestic’ where teams will strictly consist of Indian players alone (on the lines of Challenger Trophy) . All eight teams will use it as opportunity to select best players for the main event. It will further improve quality of cricket played in main IPL . It might be tournament played over two weeks say in Diwali vacations! There is no T-20 Tournament in India which can give chance to the upcoming players. This will provide best opportunity for some of the youngsters as well as some forgotten cricketers. And believe me even these matches will be keenly watched by spectators ( if it is short tournament) . Mr. Modi does this sound smarter than Time-Out! And this is adding value to the game as well!!

First let me make it clear that I am a big Sachin fan but I have always felt that he is not a greatest match winner. Brian Lara, Ricky Ponting ( though I dont like this guy ) have been a better match winners for their team. I have far better admiration for Sachin than these guys when it comes to conduct, carrying yourself, having head on shoulders but these people take him over when it comes to match winning performance.

This is a pretty old issue but with Mumbai Indians performing badly this is the thing which came to my mind first as Sachin has not performed when it mattered the most and specifically while chasing.

We will try and anlyse why Mumbai Indians failed. Initially I felt the team looks good with likes of Duminy, Nayar along with Sachin and Jaysurya to pen the innings. They have a strong bowling department with Malinga at his best and Zaheer and Harbhajan bowling well.

Sachin started the tournament well with good innings in first and few games after that but slowly as he started getting out early the team especially the middle order became vulnerable except few good innings ( 3 to be precise ) by Duminy. Jaysurya has not been consistent through out the series and all other guys I always felt that play to impress Sachin rather than to play a good innings.

What makes the Mumbai Indians top heavy team is, it performs depending on the way openers have performed. I don’t see them playing well from 2/10 with Sachin and Jaysurya out, they tried change it in couple of games but sometimes they even show glimps of old Indian team in Azhar’s era who used to fail terribly while chasing and after Sachin’s dismissal.

They say a team is as good as its leader, which I feel goes spot on in case of Mumbai Indians. I alwys feel that Sachin has not been a greatest performer while chasing a target , there are n number of innings where he has failed to give a good start for India and if you see Mumbai Indians have lost all the matches when they are chasing. Sachin , we must say has been a little bit short of arrogance or aggression which is required while chasing.  

It will be great if some one can find out the number of centuries he has scored while chasing, I am sure the number will not go beyond 10/12 ( at least in one dayers). Most of the Sachin fans may not agree with me but I still feel Sachin may be a greatest batsman of all times but can not become greatest match winner of all times.

Most of you will read this blog after the match between delhi and Mumbai is over, in which I hope, Sachin proves me wrong atleast for this time. 

( Due to time constraint , I am not able to elaborate many of my thoughts and I feel this blog is incomplete and cut short in most of the points, so I ll request all of you to put in your thoughts and complete this )

Well one more match it should have won but couldn’t! What a pity every time they put themselves in winning positions and find the way to lose.  Last year it happened in four matches at least; and this year again, the same author seems to be writing the script. This team reminds me of Indian team of 90s.Is this just simple plane bad luck? Frankly it’s not the case!  If we analysed those close defeats or defeats from winning positions, we can easily find weakness! For me The three major causes in Mumbai’s poor run  are.

1.       Lack of depth in batting: You cannot expect to chase down targets and win 20-20 matches if your five down batsman is Harbhajan! With due respect to his ability, look at other teams Bangalore has Virat Kohli at number 7 . Even Kolkatta has better batting depth ( do they know it ?) So after 6 wickets its all over for Mumbai! Forget about decent batting lower order can’t even slog ! So when its 40 required from 30 balls with four wickets remaining, Match seems to be already gone !

2.        Middle order not firing:  Abhishek Nayer seems to be confused regarding his role, Bravo doesn’t seem to be in best of touch, and sachin never had confidence on Rahane. Its not lack of class but lack of form. This is putting more pressure on J.P. If he gets out trying to force the pace there is no back up. Last year they were missing Mr. Cool in middle order and this year they are missing Mr. Hot! Swapping Uthappa is proving costly!

3.       Conservative top order:  20-20 is game of momentum. You don’t require to put 100 runs partnership each time you go in. You require confidant and smooth start, more so with Mumbai due to lack of depth. Both Sachin and Sanath were one man army for their respective teams for many years in one day cricket , but their conservative approach is not helping Mumbai at all . Odd failure is expected but you need to put opposition under pressure! When someone is bowling at 120 Kph  with new ball why Sachin is thinking about six singles in the over  ?

So what’s the way out ? You cannot change squad in middle of the tournament and its two early to start planning for next season! And as they say “lot of cricket is still left” !  Here onwards its tough mountain to climb but such unpredictable is the game , everything is possible. 

The way out …………..

·         Use your strengths smartly: Lets take example of Jaipur , how smartly they are using Yusuf ! What is Mumbai’s strength ? Its the Experience of Sachin , Sanath , Zaheer and Harbhajan . Mumbai at any cost should use sachin and Sanath effectively. If target is too low ( like 120 against Mohali ) there is no harm in keeping Sachin in the middle order. If top order fires that’s great , but if it doesn’t  Sachin can still make others bat around him , his presence in the middle will make sure panic will not be created ! I know there will be many eyebrows raised over this suggestion but in such a small game sometimes you need to pull rabbit out of hat!

·         Pinch hitters : Mumbai requires them because they don’t have six heaters in  middle overs . Pinal Shah was a wise choice in earlier match , Harbhajan can also be option .  

·         Choose in form players: Can they use Bangladesh’s Mohammad Ashraful in middle order resting Bravo? It might add pressure on bowling department but that’s not the prime concern at the moment.  Yogesh Takawale or Ajinkya Rahane or some other youngster needs to be given chance. (See case of Suman for Hyderabad ).

And if possible Win The toss and Bat first! Come on Sachin we want you in semis !