Legends’ day out

It was a national holiday on Monday in South Africa and the Double header matches at the IPL provided the crowds with amazing entertainment. In the first match of the day, Team Chennai led by India skipper MS Dhoni took on the revamped Deccan Chargers. The Super Kings were given a super start by the Orange cap holder Matthew Hayden only to lose impetus at the strategy break. This strategy break, which was initially intended for commercial reasons, has proved to be the undoing for many of the teams, especially the team that bats. This is because it is difficult to regain concentration after the break, and bowlers take advantage of this big time. But some lusty hitting by Jacob Oram at the death provided the Chennai team with a respectable total of 165. But when as a captain you have to tackle Adam Gilchrist and Herschelle Gibbs batting at the top of the powers, even 265 would seem a low total to defend. Gilchrist literally finished the match in the first 6 overs with a 19 ball 44 and Gibbs carried forward the team with a beautifully paced innings. It is so heartening to see Herschelle Gibbs overcome his personal problems and play the type of cricket he is used to playing. One of South Africa’s greatest ever cricketers hitting a purple patch has come in as a boon for the Deccan Chargers who are in to prove a point this time. The only worrying factor in the Charge of their brigade has been the form of the very very special Laxman, who seems at the moment to be playing artificially and forcing the pace a little too early. As the Chargers are on a winning spree, the importance of his failure has been negated. He just needs to spend some time in the middle to regain his silken touch and once he starts firing, the Charger would be the team to beat.

The beauty of the IPL is that it has transformed what was a hypothetical situation some years ago into reality. As a cricket fan, I used to make an all time eleven which composed of players from different nations. The IPL has given all of us cricket fans a chance to see our dreams get translated into reality. Now you have Gilchrist and Gibbs, Sachin and Sanath opening the batting for their teams. If it was Gilchrist and Gibbs in the afternoon, it was the turn of the old masters from the subcontinent, Sachin Tendulkar and Sanath Jayasuriya to show what could have happened if they had been part of the same team at the International level. The only unfortunate part of this fairy tale is that at the receiving end of their brutal torture were the Knight Riders from Kolkata who seem to have found the abysmal depths of ordinariness in their approach. In 1996 both these players had rewritten the definition of an opening batsman with prolific hitting in the first fifteen overs. Thirteen years later, their bodies might have grown older, but not their minds. The problem for the opposition captain when both these batsmen are firing from both ends is that they can even dispatch the good balls for a four or a six. And Brendon Mcculuum was nothing but a sitting duck as all his bowlers were mauled at all corners of the ground. Sachin Tendulkar and Sanath Jayasuriya had rolled back the years and showed that class is permanent whatever be the form of the game. It was especially a masterclass from Tendulkar who has shown he can assume different roles to take his team to glory. He is assuming different roles at different times to take his team to victory. In the first match of the tournament, his team required him to stay all the 20 overs and he did so, playing a sheet anchor which proved crucial in the end. And yesterday he was required to be at his attacking best and he responded beautifully. It seems with Sachin batting at his best, Cricket becomes a canvas on which the master artist Sachin Tendulkar is using his brush with absolute dexterity. The beauty of two stalwarts was the manner in which they were batting and complementing each other. There was not an iota of ego in their approach which is why these two legends are timeless. Perhaps never in his short and bright career was Ajantha Mendis treated with the utter disdain that he was yesterday. The way these two legends played, even a die hard Knight Riders fan could not have helped but clapped.

Once the two openers were dismissed for practically nothing, victory for the Mumbai Indians became a mere formality. You can’t expect Sourav Ganguly to singlehandedly carry the team to victory with almost no support around him. In the Natwest Series final of 2002, Mohammad Kaif played an once-in-a-lifetime knock which practically ensured his permanence in the Indian Team for the next few years irrespective of his performance. Similarly, Brendon Mcculuum seems to be making a living out of his unrealistic knock of 158 in last year’s IPL. His performances after that match if analysed would look almost similar to a telephone number with each number representing each match. I wonder what prompted Buchanan to make him the captain of the KKR. The whole team is looking a spineless knit. The batting seems to depend completely on Gayle and Ganguly. With Gayle gone after a couple of days for national duty, the Knight Riders’ only purpose of playing in the IPL would be to provide points to the other teams. It is high time the team management did some proactive thinking by taking some strong decisions. The most important of these should be to reinstate Ganguly as captain and removing Buchanan as coach. This is because the team cannot go through worse than what it is going through at the moment. Ganguly is a strong enough character to carry the team singlehandedly. Arbaas Khan in his analysis on one of the TV Channels summed up the plight of the Knight Riders correctly:”He started as JOHN BUCHANAN …became DON BUCHANNAN…now it’s time he becomes GONE BUCHANAN”… I don’t differ from you Arbaaz…..