Published: May 23, 2011, 11:08 AM (IST)
Edited: Mar 24, 2014, 05:34 PM (IST)
By Suneer Chowdhary
Kolkata Knight Riders played in the first and the last (qualifying) game of this season’s Indian Premier League and on both occasions were involved in a game that went down to the wire. Unfortunately and coincidentally, in both the games, the Knight Riders looked good to win the match for most part of the second half, only to have the match stolen away from them in a jiffy.
While it would be pointed out again and again that James Franklin was lucky to get those edgy boundaries, the one who seemed luckier was Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Despite losing to the Royal Challengers Bangalore, and comfortably at that, and seeming for most part of the next game that they would have to go through a lengthy, three-match long play-off process to defend their title, the eleventh hour hurrah for the Mumbai Indians turned things around for the Super Kings.
Chennai went through as one of the top two sides in the competition and will now have a chance to avenge their defeat at the hands of Bangalore, while Kolkata will need to win against each of the three other teams remaining in the competition.
While one may argue that such matches are an inevitable result of a format like this, it must be said that it was a surprise to see Brett Lee and Laxmipathy Balaji bowl the last four overs of the game – that on a pitch which had seen Iqbal Abdulla, Shakib al Hasan and Rajat Bhatia take their pace off the ball and make Mumbai Indians batsmen dance to their tunes. Why Yusuf Pathan was bowled only one over is beyond comprehension.
Mumbai Indians befuddled no lesser. The decision to keep Andrew Symonds out was a mild surprise, but to have his new “best friend”, Harbhajan Singh come in at the No 3 position defied logic. The side was lucky to escape the fate that Bangalore had had to endure in one of the previous games when the confusion in their ranks could be seen from their decision to promote Zaheer Khan up the order. Bangalore had lost that game, before Chris Gayle drove all those cobwebs of self-doubt away.
Only a couple of games ago, Wriddhiman Saha’s inclusion in the Chennai Super Kings playing eleven was questioned, only to be topped by Dhoni’s decision to bat him ahead of himself, Albie Morkel or Dwayne Bravo. The riposte came in the form of Saha winning the man of the match award for his superb innings that drove the side to a win over Kochi Tuskers.
On Sunday, it was the turn of Franklin to repeat the dose. Much had been spoken about how Symonds should have been played ahead of Franklin, who seemed to have done nothing so far in the tournament. He seemed to have turned the corner tonight with his brilliant all-round performance – there were a couple of wickets that he bagged before that surprisingly calm but effective 23-ball 45.
(Suneer is a Mumbai-based cricket writer and can be contacted at suneerchowdhary@gmail.com and Tweets here @suneerchowdhary)
