Five in a Row

Its five in a row as Chennai super kings surpassed their previous success ratio in a row of 4 victories in the IPL season 1. With a dashing win against the Kings XI, chennai seen to that they made sure they extend their winning streak by beating the defending champions, the Rajasthan Royals once again in this season in an Low Scoring game.

Winning the toss, Shane Warne decided to bat first , pointing out that chennai were not good chasers. On the other hand MSD, returned Warne's compliments saying that they are in pressure to post a huge total considering the fact that his team were a strong batting unit from the rest of the teams, with an form Hayden, Raina and himself in the cards. From there starts the mind games of the 2 captains.

Its not just bout the cricketing strength , but the score settlement that chennai were longing for since the last season especially after losing all 3 matches to the royals, particularly in the finals were the royals sneaked past the totals in the final over of the game.

And so the game started with Morkel giving the early break through the team needed for this whole season.Now given that their opening combo was out smarted royals were sent into a defensive mode and scored really at a low rate at the first 6 overs. However the point to notice here is that the royals preserved wickets in order to give Yusaf the chance to sink the opposition at the final 4 overs or so.

Though the plan worked well for some time, the score board didnt tick much and the pressure got the better of the batsmen owing to which they lost regular wickets. Also people that its only because that MSD used 7 bowlers in first 10 overs that the batsmen couldn't possibly settle themselves down for a decent scoring on the board.

After the strategy break the royals lost Smith, following which Jadeja and Pathan took the responsibility to score something reasonable a total to defend for their bowlers. And while accelerating the run rate, they lost their wickets by the brilliance in catching, courtesy Raina and Oram, despite the team's frequent misjudgement in catches. After that there wasn't much of a show other than Warne himself to post a total of 140 runs on the board.

Now the chennai's turn to bat. Expectations high. And the drama was on when the team with the most formidable batting line up was thought of finishing the match within 15 overs or so struggled to score runs. With the pitch turning more slower as time passed by, made it difficult for the batsman to play strokes. While veteran batsman Hayden played his way through to pick the odd boundaries and singles , the other side he lost 2 partners within 6 overs. Well not the ideal start the super kings would have thought of having, that is until the partnership of Badrinath and Hayden clicked and was locked in to drag the game without losing wickets and at the same time keeping up to the scores so it doesnt move out of the hand reach.

Warne started his overs, trying to demoralize the team's pride with his leg spin making it harder for the batsman to play. Well the trick worked well with badrinath but hayden was no push over, so he started doing what he knows best.Demolish the bowling attack to send them in defensive modes.He scored more than 10 runs in the over of Warne's,including a trade mark, walk down strike.

And that over of warne's set the pace up for super kings and raced to the to run rate in Harwood's 2nd over where he was outplayed by badrinath's smart play and sensible strokes. From there the equation was run a ball. Warne brought himself to claim the wicket of Hayden, but then, he and badri seen to that they stood and done the damage. Chennai team finished the game with almost 2 overs pending, and Badrinath was adjudged the Man of the Match.

Symonds at present and in the past!!

Now here we look at the pics of Mr.Sensation of all times.Andrew Symonds, cricketing star of Australia and Deccan Chargers, now sporting the new hair style and look where he looks better from the previous one he sported up for the last couple of years... And he does seem to be in a good mood in the picture at the right than on the left.Feel free to write your opinions..

Rajasthan outsmarts the Royal Challengers

Captain versus Captain. Leg Spin versus Leg Spin. And goes the comparison if we take Shane warne and Anil kumble into consideration. Not much happened,went as expected for the challengers, but it did so for the Royals. The defending champions proved why the deserve to be on top four contenders for the semi-finals. And thats exactly what was carved out when royals decided to field first with the aid of luck in winning the toss with a fresh pitch which provided swing and bounce to the seamers.

The opening slot disappointed yet again for the challengers. There was not a single player who played that key anchor role to take responsibility for the team. And they even scored lesser than the ball count, with wickets tumbling out in all manner.

After that happening, one cannot expect anything else other than a royals win with lesser runs on the card with more balls to spare.. and so it ended well in the batting too with having nearly 4 overs to spare, royals winning by 7 wickets.

On the whole, yet another dismal performance of royal challengers, outsmarted by the royals in all departments of the game.

Super Kings the undisputed

The Tension was high with 2 strong batting line-ups eager to clash up with each other.Even better, its the clash of 2 brute forces the IPL can ever witness. With the odds ,of Chennai team winning over Punjab team on 3 occasions the previous season, was well in favour with MSD.Despite the nature of pitch, he was so convinced on his batting force led in front by Hayden, that he did not even hesitate for a moment that he choose to bat first.

And thus started the innings,where the chennai team's opening combination of hayden and badrinath not lasting as long as expected, with badri being caught on first ball from Irfan. That was the only time, Punjab was happy.. But then,reinforcements came in form of Raina, the star middle order batsman of chennai starting to score at the regular format the chennai team had fared so far. Later with the interruptions of rain forced the play to halt for sometime due to which the D\L method was used and shortened the 20 over game to 18 over game for each.

With the rain departing from the act, chennai started to fly high again only to see Raina get caught.In the mean time, hayden sneaked past the bowlers after surviving a stumping chance when Sangakarra missed the oppurtunity.Enter Captain Marvel, and the ruthless assault begins. Now, we know MSD was not at his best in this tournament, that is until he managed to regain his ownself in previous encounter.He was in such a stunning form that he was an unstoppable jaggernaut, joined forces with the immovable Hayden who punished the punjab bowling attack.The duo managed to stay almost the end the innings to post a total of 185 for the loss of 3 wickets when hayden fell short of his century by 11 runs in the penultimate over of the innings.

And now we start with the Punjab innings and the Chennai bowling's demoralization.Morkel gave the break through as usual for the super kings, with Sohal falling in the 2nd ball of the innings. After that, we had simon katich to take guard of the punjab's front attack playing pure cricket shots which was no luck or slog for that matter.The brilliance of the aussie batting should definitely be praised here cause such was the performance of hayden and katich that any cricket player would dream to come by some day.Katich reached his half century only to be taken out of the attack by Balaji, while Jakati the sensational spinner took the wicket of Goel. Thus far was the luck of the bowlers for both the teams... And then comes the trump card of Punjab team with jayawardene playing the partner roll.Yuvraj singh comes into play and there was no turning back from then, except when Gony missed the catch of the yuvi at 22. They added 60 runs from 4.5 balls and the target was brought down to 43 runs from 24 balls, when MSD decided to set the brakes in the innings of the agile punjab batting brilliance.Raina came in to give just 8 runs of his 2 overs while Balaji plotted up the slow balls mixing it up with yorkers. And the doors shut by with Punjab team chasing a mammoth total failing to impress the mounted target with an asking rate of 10+ an over.

Hayden was the doubtless choice for man of the match.He was all happy bout the team performance except for the fielding area. Not the first time that the team's flimsy catching were brought to the spot light. But then, they managed to pull it out at the right time,with 4 consecutive wins in hands after a disappointing start. Chennai team now stands on top of the stats both in points and runrate.

Chargers Triumphs to break losing streak

Now im not sure how much of an unstoppables the deccan chargers were after an array of losses, but it certainly went well for them on Wednesday. The Chargers beat the Mumbai Indians in a low scoring game. The toss won by Gilchrist and he decided to bat first. Despite the expectations of an explosive start, the chargers failed to do that for the fourth consecutive time with gibbs failing to make an impression. After that Gilchrist stayed on the crease batting unlike his real self, while the young lad summan took the attack on Mumbai Indians, who fell shortly after a brilliant bowling mix-ups of pace and bounce of Dwayne bravo.

With that in comes Rohit Sharma, to share the batting slot with partner and captain Gilchrist. However, the pair didnt last long(fell just before strategy break-gilly). Neither did the combination of Rohit and Smith worked like the other day with Chennai team.And so with contributions from Rao coming in the right time, the chargers managed to bring a defendable total of 145 runs on the scorecard.

And so comes the destructive duo in action with Mumbai all set to bat. Jayasuriya and Tendulkar... Now doesnt that sound rattling to any bowler? (Isnt it enough that u got a genius in sachin as such but u need a seige in jayasuriya to aid his cause?) Well that did'nt work today, like it most matches when the duo fell one after another in single figures. And then we had Duminy the star batsman who like always lived upto expectatAions.(No wonder there's so much hype bout this fellow.)ALong with the south african rising spectacle we had shah to chip in the scorecard's depth to a reasonable level. Now everything was ok until Suman came in to claim shah's wicket.

Now its not gonna make much of a difference when u think its just 3 down for half the total chased down.. But its a matter of concern when wickets get tumbling by.And so the pack of cards fell one by one, with Suman claiming yet another wicket of Bravo. After that it was the massacre all the way by the charger with a phenomenonal bowling from Rohit Sharma.He managed to complete a hat trick and made sure that the opposition was denied of any oppurtunity of scoring by removing Duminy.After that the hopes of winning were given up by Mumbai team was given up as the team fell short of 19 runs from the victory margin.

Chargers Flying high with Symmo's return

Things looked grave for the Deccan chargers with Fidel Edwards moving out of the IPL2 with 3 consecutive defeats with his departure.The hopes for changing back to good fortunes has been assured now with the return of All-rounder and star batsman of the chargers team, Andrew Symonds. Loads of responsibility happens to be rested upon those massive bull like shoulders of Symonds. And with the upcoming T20 world championship in england, IPL2 will sharpen his skills and show the world why he is one of the world's most feared batsman among the bowlers.