Let the home party begin
- Pleasing start but Riders face raging Chargers today
Mind Games
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John Buchanan There was definitely an edge of excitement and uncertainty as we went into the opening of the first DLF IPL tournament. Administrators, sponsors, event managers, players, supporters and officials, each in their own way, wanted the games to begin, yet had some trepidation about what the show might deliver.
Andrew Symonds of the Deccan Chargers practises at the Eden on the eve of the match with Kolkata Knight Riders. On Saturday, MS Dhoni’s Chennai Super Kings beat Yuvraj Singh’s Kings XI Punjab in Mohali by 33 runs. Virender Sehwag’s Delhi Daredevils beat Shane Warne’s Rajasthan Royals in New Delhi by 9 wickets. Picture by Gautam Bose
But all that was quickly dispelled as the opening ceremony, followed by some entertaining cricket, launched the IPL into history as well as into memory. From where I was sitting, it all seemed to go like clockwork to the point where the umpires and players were ready to commence play some three minutes early — this was almost an anti-climax to the extravaganza that had preceded it.
But that was only for a fleeting moment, because the immense talents of Brendon McCullum saw to it that fans around the world were treated to the best Twenty20 innings ever played. In fact, his 158 not out would rank him very highly both in ODI and Test forms of the game, not to mention that he played only 73 of the 123 balls bowled!
After Praveen Kumar had begun the game with a sedate first over, Zaheer Khan ran into the maelstrom called McCullum, with three fours and a leading-edge six flying from the bat in the second over.
Our team-talk had suggested that if the wicket was doing a bit, we would be prepared to minimise the damage in the first five overs so that we could build from there. I must say I wasn’t looking at Brendon at this point of the meeting, but obviously he had not heard as, in the fourth over, he swatted another boundary and a couple more sixes. By the conclusion of the fifth over, Brendon was rampant and Dravid had already been forced into two bowling changes.
Losing Sourav Ganguly in the sixth over slowed the onslaught somewhat as overs six through nine yielded only 17 runs. Ricky Ponting was feeding the strike to McCullum as well as giving him some guidance on how to approach his game at this point. This pair had put together another 50-odd before Ponting departed and David Hussey continued where the Australian captain had left off — rotating the strike to allow the diminutive Kiwi full access to the bowlers.
In a brief talk before the Knight Riders raced onto the field, Sourav had discussed the best length to bowl and how to keep the correct mindset for the innings. Young Ashok Dinda was given the first over — a huge vote of confidence from Ganguly — and the young man did not disappoint. He picked up a wicket in his second over after Ishant had delivered the perfect full leg-stump ball to Rahul Dravid, first ball at the other end.
It was a pleasing start for the Knight Riders. The younger members did well with Dinda impressing first up, Wriddhiman Saha doing a very good job behind the stumps to allow Brendon some breathing space, Laxmi Ratan Shukla responding well after seeing his first ball disappear, Ishant being a real handful with his pace and bounce, Hafeez doing an excellent finishing job for us with the bat, and the boys Iqbal Abdullah and Debabrata Das doing a lot of running to keep their team-mates supplied with every request. Also pleasing were the performances of our fielders who set out to demonstrate a standard that we want to maintain throughout the tournament.
Shah Rukh Khan sang the team song in the rooms afterwards. He has very quickly endeared himself to the team.
Yet we know that one game, one win, will not make a season. The Deccan Chargers will be far more aggressive at the top of their batting order with Adam Gilchrist, Herschelle Gibbs, Andrew Symonds and V.V.S. Laxman leading the charge. Still, nice to have the first game behind us, and we look forward, hopefully, to bringing the Kolkata Knight Rider fans to their feet with our first home game.
John Buchanan coaches Kolkata Knight Riders http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080420/jsp/frontpage/story_9161986.jsp
AuthorTopic: IPL 2008 : Key Match 4 : Chargers vs KKR : Clash of the Titans (Read 7717 times)
