So in the end Mumbai Indians could not win the IPL and the inconsistent CSK won the tournament thus making MSD first Indian captain to win the IPL. Mumbai lost it more than Chennai won it. Robin Singh messed up Mumbai’s batting order for reasons unknown. How can you imagine Harbhajan Singh at 4 in a final chase. Pollard being holded till 8. 15 overs gone and yet no signs of Pollard being on the crease. What was MI management thinking?
CSK Perspective:
· They rode on Raina’s batting to be able to post 169 as target for Tendulkar’s MI. Raina was dropped twice but he capitulated on both lives to rankle MI.
· Hayden was patchy in the entire tournament and his struggle tonite ensured that the team got to the slowest 50 in a IPL final.
· Dhoni came at 5 after Dabri. Why ? Dhoni any day is a better batsman than the Dabri guy and he ought to have more time in the final given fact that it was his last chance to warm up before he took field on May 1, 2010 against Af in world T20.
· Bollinger was difference between the two teams and the balls he bowled in first 2 overs were awesome. Good enough to put the pressure on MI which never experienced pressure in league stages.
· Dhoni was superb in his captaincy skills. He paced the innings well and has used R Ashvin effectively in tandem with Bollinger. As a result the run rate was always going to increase for MI.
· Raina was awesome in his batting and fielding. Only if he could now play such innings for his country, he would go further distance than just playing well in IPL games.
· The team played better and won a tournament they did not deserve to win it if you consider their lop sided campaign in the league stages. But every time they found inspiration in MSD and he was a big influence on the team which was half dead at 7 games stage with a record 2-5.
MI perspective:
· Batting order was mess. Abhishek Nayar at 3 ? Really? He had not played many games to be worthy to walk at 3. He scratched around thus putting pressure on Tendulkar to accelerate and subsequently fall.
· Tendulkar being injured and thus preventing him to be in his typical own self.
· Pollard being sent at 8 ? Why ? Was he paid to be benched ? What was Robin Singh thinking ?
· Poor fielding. 2 catches grossed. 13 and 28 for Raina. Poor keeping in final over from Malinga which was turning out to be an excellent one. No run had been scored of first 4 balls and off next 2 11 runs were scored including a no.
· The Mumbai Indians team reflected consistently of the Indian team of 90s when only Tendulkar played and the rest did not. The others including Rayadu, Tiwari, Pollard, Dhawan, Nayar did not own up and expectedly lost. Given this huge dependency the team did not deserve to win. But then have a thought for Tendulkar. He did everything right. He trusted the so called youngsters giving them bigger roles than they actually deserved and scoring runs at will. Playing in despite an injury sets an example of his work ethic. Unfortunately his other team members could not get inspired.
· Poor bowling from 14-20th over when they allowed CSK to go to 5/168 from 3/96. Even Zaheer could not stem the flow of runs and he dropped a hi-flier which should have been caught.
· Inexplicable batting from the youngsters. There was no other guy than Tendulkar whom they could have used to learn the pacing of innings, but instead they chose to play ugly hoists thus leading to loss.
The focus now shifts on the WT20 which starts in 4 days time and India plays its league games over the weekend against Af and SA. The batting order for that game looks more like settled :
Gambhir, Vijay, Raina, Yuvraj, Dhoni, Sharma / Jadeja, Pathan, Zaheer, Harbhajan, Nehra, Praveen Kumar
More on the WT20 later. For now lets congratulate MSD for yet another win as a captain and with a hope that this would inspire him to give even bester shot to the upcoming World T20 and wrest the trophy back. I just assume deep within the mind MS would have thought this final to be a warmup.
