The Hindu : Sport : Stage set for a battle of the Kings

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, May 31, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Sport

Sport

Stage set for a battle of the Kings

G. Viswanath

CRICKET / Dhoni’s men had won both their league matches against Yuvraj’s side

Photo: Vivek Bendre

HIGH EXPECTATIONS: Someone like Albie Morkel, who is getting ready for practice at the MIG club in Mumbai on Friday, needs to spend more time in the middle to maximise Chennai Super Kings’ scoring potential. —

Mumbai: The time is upon Kings XI Punjab to pack a punch, stay on top of the game against Chennai Super Kings, take revenge and get in position for a shot at the DLF-IPL title.

Equipped in equal measure in key departments of the game, the attractive and dominating team has notched up 10 victories in the league. However, Kings XI took several solid blows from the punishing blades of Michael Hussey, Suresh Raina and S. Badrinath and was felled in the home and away matches by Super Kings.

The thumping win against league topper Rajasthan Royals in the lead-up to the knockout ought to have given Kings XI plenty of happiness but Yuvraj Singh’s bunch of engaging cricketers must be wary of Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s men.

Ups and downs

Super Kings would look back at the IPL journey with pleasant memories of a rousing start and equal measure of trepidation over its attrition rate once Mathew Hayden, Hussey and Jacob Oram left for national duty.

Relying heavily on the three, Chennai prevailed over its first four opponents but the decline was so steep thereafter to make its advancement to the knockout uncertain.

The loss of half a dozen matches and managing to pull back an odd one in between from the beginning of May pointed to a run-of-the-mill performance and a struggle to find a winning combination again.

However, a last-ball win over Delhi Daredevils at the Kotla and Raina’s blows against the Deccan Chargers has taken Super Kings to the semifinals.

The waning fortunes in batting was quite evident and it could not match the form it showed in the opening match when it made 240 for five at Mohali with Michael Hussey setting the pace with a 54-ball unbeaten 116.

Dhoni will remember that it was his team which batted first at Mohali and made high scores to bring Yuvraj Singh’s team under pressure and marched towards victory.

S. Vidyut is expected to take Stephen Fleming’s place and Dhoni could counsel Parthiv Patel to play some smart cricket at the top order.

The Mohali side, which did not taste success in the first week of the competition, won five matches in a clutch and after the defeat against Chennai regained its form to win four more before getting the better of Rajasthan Royals last Wednesday.

Simon Katich left for Australia winning the ‘Man of the Match’ award but the Preity Zinta-owned team was lucky to get another Australian in Shaun Marsh, who has the ‘Orange Cap’ firmly on his head.

Terrific trio

Seven short of touching 600 runs, Marsh and fellow Australians Luke Pomersbach and James Hopes have turned out to be a terrific trio for the Mohali team.

India bowlers Sreesanth (19 wickets), Piyush Chawla (17), Irfan Pathan (14) and V.R.V. Singh (11) have played their part by mixing orthodoxy, enterprise and a bit of variety.

They have a knack of taking wickets and Dhoni would do a lot of introspection before deciding on the opening pair: Will it be Patel and Vidyut or will he spring a surprise? Someone like Albie Morkel needs to spend more time in the middle to maximise his side’s scoring potential.

The teams (from):

Kings XI Punjab: Yuvraj Singh (captain), Shaun Marsh, James Hopes, Kumar Sangakkara, Luke Pomersbach, Mahela Jayawardene, Irfan Pathan, Piyush Chawla, S. Sreesanth, V.R.V. Singh, Ramesh Pawar, Uday Kaul, Gagandeep Singh and Tanmay Srivastava.

Chennai Super Kings: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain), Parthiv Patel, S. Vidyut, Suresh Raina, S. Badrinath, Albie Morkel, Makhaya Ntini, Manpreet Gony, Muttiah Muralitharan, Laxmipathy Balaji, Joginder Sharma, C.K. Kapugedera, S. Anirudha, A. Mukund, P. Amarnath and Arun Karthik

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport