Its one of those days when you are delighted that your predictions go wrong. What can i say about the Royals – i think i am going to be in a huge dilemma in the unlikely event of a MI vs RR finals :-) They are my soft spot team since 2008. Naman Ojha, you beauty as one commentator would say!!!! And Aneesh Vijayakar called it right – the Chennai team isn’t coming together as well.
And then there’s the Chargers. While I’ve always said that too many ‘oldies’ will crimp them & they wont make the semi-finals; Gilchrist and the Chargers lost the plot. I thought the law of averages would catch up with Tendulkar & that Gilly would fire. Neither happened & Warne’s tactic of starting with a spinner against Gilchrist seems to be paying off now.
After having Mumbai at 119/7 , you would have thought that Kemar, RP and co would have delivered the sucker punch. Instead Harbhajan delivered the 19/20 punch. (19 runs in the 19th over and 20 runs in the 20th). Who would’ve thought ??
Harbhajan’s performance was out of the world today. Definitely the man of the match in my book. But take a look at this chart alongside. He’s the No 1 Batsmen (based on averages) and No 1 bowler (based on economy rate) in the Mumbai Indians team. I pulled this chart in the break so its changed some now – Harbhajan has added a few more wickets but Malinga has moved up on economy.
However the strength of the side seems to be the bowling by far. 5 bowlers with economy rates of under 8 and at least 3 match winners (Bhajji, Zak and the slinger). Plus Bravo & Pollard will improve as we go along.
That said , i do worry about the batting. Its been revolving around Tendulkar and not having a single other player with a 30+ average is worrying as also the fact that all the rest of the Indians are young and susceptible to pressure as we go to the knockouts. Need to have Bravo move up, perhaps even consider Duminy (at the expense of McLaren) at some stage and Pollard stay as the finisher. Otherwise the middle order could spell trouble when it matters.
A few more thoughts on what's working in this competition as i looked at this chart. Till then though – what an outstanding performance.
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