Mumbai to Jaipur is not very far
Both the MI v/s DDD match and the RRs v/s the CSK match seem to be following a similar pattern. Both teams batting first ended up scoring a smallish total against formidable batting opponents. Whereas the MI's batting fell apart from the word 'go' which the batters accepted as marching orders, the Royals kept on pushing and plodding against the Raina's and Orams of the world hoping General Patten would do the job for them. The blind faith in him is beginning to wear a bit thin. Sending a messenger with a water bottle after every over didn't do much to change their fortunes.
Knowing that the wicket was offering slow turn, all spinners were going to play an important role in both the second innings'. Both captains tried their best to bring the 'bowl slow' strategy into effect. Shane Harwood was brought into the attack with the asking rate at almost 9 an over, which turned out to be a master stroke.He hadn't bowled only over till then with a few overs from Warne, Patten and Jadeja still up the sleeve. Actually there were many master strokes in the Harwood over. MI had SRT bowling himself at the same juncture with similar results.
One is waiting to see if there are howls of disapproval of Warne's strategy as one has witnessed about SRT. One match doesn't make a great or a mediocre captain and this is certainly not a defence of SRT's captaincy record till date. But Sehwag summed it brilliantly in yesterday's match. Each team has a few batters/ bowlers who can change the game and you hope that it's your key players who emerge better at the end of the day. All the berating of Sehwag as a captain in the one test that he captained against the Kiwis can't be thrown out of the window if DDD win the IPL 2009 and MSD's good captaincy record won't come to a naught if CSK fails to win it. The only point of contention is why is a CSK v/s RR match built up as a Warne v/s MSD clash whereas a DDD v/s CSK match hailed as a match between 2 strong teams? Captaincy is important in a T20 match for sure but there are more digital decisions that a captain has to take in this format.He will surely have more role to play in behind the scene activities in terms of the team spirit, building a winning combination; more of the softer issues of the game.
Jo Jeeta wahi asli captain need not be true all the time.