Tags:
Journalism of Courage
The structure of the tournament deems that it must be so,that at this stage,in the second qualifier match,a winner plays a loser. But when the Chennai Super Kings take on the Delhi Daredevils at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Friday,it will be a contest of several juxtapositions,beyond just the contrasting outcomes of their last games.
Delhi had after all been the first team to secure the top-four and then the top-two spot during the league stage. They topped the table with the most wins and the best net run rate. Chennai would not have dared hope after the loss to Kings XI Punjab in their last league game. But here they are. Delhi,the form-team of the tournament,have already burned their get-out-of-jail-free card in the first qualifier and are a game from elimination. And Chennai,unconvincing and out-of-sorts,living on borrowed time for long stretches,are a game from the final. If you look at it that way.
It is not just about how they got here either. Even how the teams aggregate,their composition and balances,the nature of the pins that have fired for them thus far and the way they historically shape up at this stage of the league make for an almost exact set of opposites. Delhi’s top order has come good consistently Virender Sehwag had a run of five successive 50s while David Warner,joining the side midway through the tournament,spanked an unbeaten ton in his second game for the side. Chennai,though,have struggled to name the same pair to open the innings for a few matches in a row.
Murali Vijay,Faf du Plessis,Michael Hussey,Subramaniam Badrinath have all had their turns and the current combo of Vijay and Hussey has only recently found its feet. If Delhi’s middle-order was its only nagging,and as yet unresolved worry,Chennai always had the personnel to pull off the lower order heist and seem to have gotten their house in order in that department just in time.
But it is the bowling that turns the contrast knob up to eleven. Delhi,almost incongruously for a T20 tournament in India,have a line up that consists almost entirely of pacemen Morne Morkel,Irfan Pathan,Umesh Yadav and Varun Aaron,with the token left-arm spinner thrown in only grudgingly. Chennai,at the best of times have one bowler in that bracket Ben Hilfenhaus. If Delhi’s often lone spin bowler (Pawan Negi or Shabhaz Nadeem) almost feels a sense of apology when he is clubbed with the hulking fastmen that have flattened sides in the same bowling set-up,Chennai’s battery of spinners will swagger out at Chepauk.
Also,Dhoni’s men know a thing or two about crossing the penultimate hurdle having made it to the final on three previous occasions. In the four seasons thus far,Sehwag’s Delhi have reached this very stage twice,only to be turned back at the gates on both instances.
The mini-battle
The sides set up along the polar ends of such an assorted set of axes that,(if so inclined) one is tempted to conclude that they,or at least the captains,are of altogether different philosophical inclinations. There was plenty written about their differences coming into this IPL,supposedly heading warring factions in the Indian team during the tri-series in Australia. But they are together in their bullheaded adherence to their doctrines.
Sehwag faced a choice on a sluggish Pune track,but stuck to his guns and went in with the same pace-dominated attack that had served him well. Dhoni,on a greenish track in Bangalore,still named just the lone outright pacer in his eleven.
Both captains,in a way,had taken the leap of faith in their last games. Dhoni ended it with the affirmation of a win. Sehwag was left to deal with the doubts that come with a loss. On Friday,the Delhi skipper will be asked to choose in much the same way as on Tuesday,but this time,with a Bayes conditionality thrown in. Given he knows where that lane leads,will he still go down it?
