It was a superb match last night between the KXIP and DC. DC won it by 5 wickets and the match witnessed some superb batting performances. In my last blog i mentioned all the three teams with foreign captains have got just a theoretical chance to make it through to the semi finals but the DC skipper Gilchrist would be happy that his team has reached 14 points and now he knows that he has got a fair chance of making it to the semis. Another win would ensure them a birth in the semis, but that is not going to come easy against a side that beat CSK at home. DC have got their last match against the DD tomorrow and more importantly it is at Delhi.
THE PITCH
At the toss both the skippers said that the pitch had the amount of grass more than all the other pitches put together in this tournament. Both the captains wanted to bowl first at the toss but the outcome of the match was 352 runs in thee span of 39.1 overs with three half centuries. Were the captains wrong in judging the pitch? I guess they were not. Any captain would love to bowl at a grassy pitch. How can one forget the defeat that India had against Bangladesh in the 2007 world cup. Dravid won the toss and ,on a grassy wicket just as the one last night, chose to bat first. India were all out for 192 and Bangladesh won the match by 5 wickets. India eventually crashed out of the tournament.
BATSMEN CALL THE SHOTS
Yesterday it was purely a batsmen day on a purely bowling track. Right from the start of the innings the batsmen took charge. Kumar played another beauty of innings and showed why he is the best wicket keeper batsman in the world, Adam Gilchrist being retired from International cricket. Mahela held the innings and once Kumar was gone he played his shots. He started to play those big shots from the 16th over. He scored five gorgeous boundaries of RP Singh in the 17th over and in a T20 game a single over can just turn around any match.
The DC innings started with couple of quick wickets more importantly that of Adam Gilchrist. Gilchrist is due for his big innings and any opposition would vary of it even though he is not in form at the present. DC were 54 for 2 just when Rohit walked in. Suman and Sharma set up a beautiful partnership of 66 runs in just 40 balls when Suman got out to Chawla. Rohit stood up from there and finished the game from there on.
But then why were both teams able to post such big totals on which any team would struggle to bat? It could be the experience of Jayawardene that earned him that 93 and Sangakkara that he was able to score a brilliant 52. But from the DC the batsmen who shined were far less experienced than the two Sri Lankans. Suman is going through a purple patch in his career and this IPL could well put his career in the track. Rohit Sharma has got a chance to prove himself again in the World T20 starting on April 30th. Rohit is really a class player and he does not have the numbers that he should posses.
TEAMS FACE STERNER TEST
The average first innings score in this IPL is over 170 and we have seen a lot of big chases in this IPL. So it was not surprising for me to see both these teams go up to 170 plus scores and the result going the chasing team's way. But this IPL has also got a team that has not lost a match defending any total in excess of 140. Indiscriminate of who qualifies for the semi finals, all the four teams would have to face a very sterner test and the teams would be looking for their out of form senior players to come back to form and win the games for them. It is more important that the teams get their combination right, going by form rather than seniority or player worth.
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