IPL Day 22: Of grit and graceful grit

In the match between the last year’s finalists, the competition started even before the first ball was bowled with Warnie hurling a bouncer at Dhoni by calling Chennai poor chasers at the toss. Not the one to duck ungainly at the bouncer, Dhoni added more spice by saying that Rajasthan Royals will be under pressure to put up a big total against CSK’s strong batting line up.

After yet another first over dismissal from Albie Morkel, CSK built on the pressure to ensure that Rajasthan Royals didn’t get away to a great start. After a patient 3o from Graeme Smith, some lusty hitting from Ravinder Jadeja in the middle and a cameo from Shane Warne ensured that RR put a decent enough total to make a match of it.

With Hayden continuing his rich vein of form, it looked like CSK will cruise through easily despite the loss of Vijay and Raina by the 6th over. Then came Warnie and bowled a mesmerizing over to Badri which would have given the CSK dug out a few uncomfortable moments. Having watched it from the other end, Hayden took it upon himself to take the attack to his ex-teammate and how well he did it. First he reverse swept Warnie for a four, but what followed was pure genius. In a pitch which was stopping a bit after pitching, turning square, against the ever so wily Warnie, Haydos walks down the pitch with the calmness of a monk and whacks it over long on for a six. And amidst all this not a thought of failure!

Having survived the Warne scare, Badri grew in confidence at the other end and scored 18 runs off an over from Shane Harwood. First he moved inside the line to lift the ball over fine leg for a six, then steered a boundary wide off point, helped himself for a boundary on the on side when the bowler erred in line and finished off with a cheeky little upper cut over the keeper’s head. The match was almost settled in that over. But Warnie came back and got Hayden stumped down the leg side to give RR some hope. But Badri ensured that CSK romped home without any more damage. It was a fine display of gritty batting from Badri after being made to look clueless against Warne and he admitted just as much in the post match conference too!

But the match wasn’t over yet. Just like how it started before the first ball was bowled, it ended after the last ball was bowled. Shane Warne comes out to the post match conference and says they were 20 runs short and Dhoni claims they gave away 20 runs too many!

In the first match of the day, Deccan were off to a flier only to lose their way mid way through but Symonds on his comeback match resurrected the slide beautifully. He handed out a special treatment to Sreesanth especially and with Venugopal Rao playing a nice little cameo, Deccan put up a competitive 168 on the board.

Kings’ XI got off to rollicking start with Sohal displaying his weird brand of cricket - moving away from the stumps almost all the time and trying to clear the off-side field. He did it astonishingly well and when the bowler chased him, dispatched the ball over fine leg for a six too. Just when Kings’ XI looked like running away with the match, Gilly brought on his man with the golden arm – Rohit Sharma. And Rohit struck in his over not once but twice, dismissing both Sohal and Katich in the same over. In came Yuvraj and Sangakkara and cruised along at a fair clip until a moment of brain freeze resulted in Sanga paddle sweeping Shoaib Maqsusi onto his stumps. Immediately after, Yuvraj too seemed to have gotten a brain freeze when he played an ungainly pull of a ball which stopped a bit after pitching to give a skier to Gilly. Going into the Strategy break, Gilly should have backed themselves to win.

But Mahela had other ideas. With 82 required from 10 overs, asked Irfan to refrain from doing anything silly and motored along at a fair clip for the next few overs. He lost Irfan along the way and was involved in a run out soon after but that didn’t seem to deter him too much though. Just when the run rate seemed to be climbing to more than comfortable levels, Mahela upped the tempo by tonking Suman over mid-wicket for a six and then came down the next ball and thwarted it over long-on for another six and continued the assault into Ojha's next over too by hitting him to square leg for another four. A couple of balls later, a slight indecision and cramps resulted in his run-out. But Brett Lee and Piyush Chawla ensured that Mahela’s dismissal wasn’t regretted.

The beauty of Mahela’s innings was that under so much pressure, he summoned all his grit but didn’t look ungainly for one moment through the innings.