The Royal Challengers again lost despite feilding their full strengh team, Misbah looked good and scored 21 of just 8 balls and then got out in an unusal way hit wicket, that was unlucky for him and the Royal challengers, Dravid again played defensively and wasted too many overs in the middle, he had a negative impact on Cameroon white who followed his captain and abandoned his natural game and both of them wasted the platform created by Kohli and Misbah.
The challengers scored 144, the total was never enough and the duo of Marsh and Pomerbach made the Challenger bowling line up look ordinary, Marsh probably played the best innings of the tournament so far, there was nothing unconventional about his strokes he struck the ball with brute force and timed the ball to perfection, he pulled any thing shot with perfection and with out hestitation and anything pitched up was either driven or lifted above long off, Dravid made a critical error of taking Steyn out of the attack after his first over it ruins a bowlers confidence and when Steyn was brought back for his second over Marsh scored 21 in that over and the ball was flying all around the park.
In 5 matches Marsh is averaging 98.6 he has scored 295 and was N.O twice, the guy will soon find his place in the Australian national team I am surprised why a player like him who is technically so correct is not a part of the team right now.
The Kings XI has found their perfect combination, their bowlers are in good rhythm and if Yuvraj singh gets in form then it will be really hard to beat them. The tournament is entering in an interesting stage there are three teams fighting for the fourth position and with Sachin coming back in the line up of Mumbai they will be a tough team to beat .
The two upcoming matches of Mumbai against Kolkata and Chennai will determine their fate for the rest of the tournament. Chennai has won two in a row without their ace players.
Dhoni is leading from the front , Kolkata is also on surge, Ganguly is leading the side well, its yet to be seen the impact of Shoaib Akhter’s inclusion in Kolkata’s line up, both Shoaib and Sachin are getting into action after a long lay off, it will be thrilling to see Shoaib have a go at Sachin and Jayasuriya.
The Kings XI and Rajasthan are quite safe on the top of points table :
Punjab XI and Chennai both have played 9 matches and have 6 points each if both Delhi and Kolkata win their next league matches then they will also have 6 points each from 9 games and it will bring them at par with the Punjab XI and Chennai, its hard to make any predictions in this format of the game one good performance can topple an All star team all I can predict is that the next round will be very interesting. Some teams might regret that why they didn’t fired up early in the tournament, it might be too late for them to do the catching up.
Shoaib with his performance made a statement, Fuck you critics, Fuck you PCB.
Shoaib proved me and other critics wrong what a performance
Kolkata will play its next match against Delhi, both teams have points,Delhi’s top order is firing consistently, Sehwag,Gambhir and Dhawan are in good form, but they lack a batsman in the lower order who can score runs quickly,they played ABD and Dilshan and benched Malik, I don’t think Dilshan is a better bat than Malik its just that Malik never got the opportunity to bat except once, Delhi should bring back Malik, Mahroof is a better choice than Asif he can score runs and brings variety to the attack.
Kolkata has mutiple problems although they have won 2 in a row but against the weakest teams, Challengers and Chargers,they are getting Akhtar in the attack he will be replacing Umar Gul, Shoaib hasn’t bowled much in the last six months his form is doubtful but if he in rhythm he will prove to be a handfull,but so far Kolkata’s problem hasn’t been its bowling, its their batting which lets them down,since the departure of McCullum they haven’t been able to find an opening combination, in the last match they tried Salman Butt who failed once again and I am doubtful that he will be successful in this format, they need to put ABD in the opening slot and bring Hafeez back in the lower order, Hafeez has been very economical, and is a handy bat, ABD does have the experience to open and he will do fine.
Ganguly is a smart captain, a lot better than Sehwag who made some critical errors in the last few matches as a result of which they have lost a few close matches,both teams are fighting for the fourth place so we might see a good match.
I am sick and tired of watching one sided matches, T20 can be as boring as tests if there is no contest.
The misery of Pak players continues,Misbah just when it looked he was going to prove his point, lost his wicket in an unusal way,its all over for Banglore unless some miracle happens,if anybody deserved to be benched on that team its Dravid who is so confused and defensive minded as far as his batting and captaincy is concerned, on top of that he is being arrogant with top international players he has failed to handle them properly.
SE marsh is proving to be the find of the tournament,he seems unstoppable as a bowler I was wondering where one can bowl him, runs were flowing out of his bat and it was all timing grace and class, nothing ugly, this player has good future.
The Royal duds are alomost out of the tournament Dravid is pathetic as a captain, he is a great test player but in the shorter version of the game he is a burden.
Wasim
I agree its hard to predict in this format,but I sense Mumbai will prevail over Chennai.
As far as Akhter is concerned he will get embarassed one last time.He will get thrashed all over the park.