Anshuman Gaekwad
Money alone cannot ensure success in sports.Shane Warne led Rajasthan royals proved that in the first IPL T20 Cricket.Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries spent $111.9 million for the Mumbai Indians while liquor baron Vijay Mallya was the second highest owner coughing up $111.6 million for Bangalore Royal Challengers.The Emerging Media Group, who owns Rajasthan Royals, was the lowest bidder and paid $65 million to become the least expensive franchise in the eight-team IPL. It also bought the least expensive players during the IPL auction but it fetched them handsome dividends.
Before the start of the tournament everybody termed Deccan Chargers as favorites. No
one could find fault with this given the big names with seemingly the perfect credentials for slam bang cricket in the Hyderabad side. But things went wrong right from the beginning.Teams led by Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman,Virendra Shewag also Failed to reach in the final with lots of icons in their side.
The departure of Andrew Symonds after the first four games was going to be a blow but Deccan Chargers still had the personnel to score quickly in Adam Gilchrist, Shahid Afridi, Rohit Sharma, Scott Styris and Herschelle Gibbs. But apart from Gilchrist and Sharma all others failed to perform.The vastly experienced Chaminda Vaas was a big letdown and only the promising left arm spinner Pragyan Ojha came good.But as a team they were not in a position to win this tournament.
At the start of the tournament the chances of Royal Challengers were not so high, but certainly none could have predicted that the Bangalore team would be battling it out with Deccan Chargers towards the end of the competition to avoid the last position. They were labeled as a Test team but the charge was not entirely true.They had players of the calibre of Jacques Kallis, Mark Boucher, Misbah ul Huq, Ross Taylor, Zaheer Khan and Dale Steyn who have excellent credentials for slam bang cricket. But most of these players failed to live up to their reputation.They saved their face somewhat by winning two games in a row late in their campaign.Also blame game within the team let them down.
Mumbai Indians along with Deccan Chargers and Royal Challengers were the three costliest franchisees and yet the Sachin Tendulkar led team could finish no higher than fifth at the preliminary stage.They missed their captain fom the beginning and also Indians lost the services of Harbhajan Singh early in the campaign for reasons that are well known.They lost their first four games and then won six in a row to come back into contention for a place in the last four. But then they lost three consecutive close matches and out of tourmnment.But I think they could easily reach in the semifinal.Some of the matches they lost could well have gone the other way with a little bit of good fortune. Along with Rajasthan Royals they were the only side to have a record of six successive victories. The Mumbai side's batting and bowling had their purple patches and the all round skills of
Shaun Pollock and Dwayne Bravo went a long way in keeping their campaign going.
Another team that had a bit of a roller coaster ride was Kolkata Knight Riders. Two wins followed by four losses and then three wins followed by three losses all added up to sixth place in the points table. Losing the services of Brendon McCullum after just four games was a bit of a setback but they were reinforced by the inclusion of Shoaib Akhtar. The Kolkata team's main strength was their bowling which was manned by Ishant Sharma, Akhtar, Ashok Dinda, Ajit Agarkar and Umar Gul. But the bowlers failed to perform in time.Moreover their suspect batting quite often came a cropper and in the ultimate analysis it was this weaker aspect of their game that cost them a place in the semifinals.They also failed due to faulty team composition in some matches.Chennai & Punjab lost in sudden death situation but they showed good cricket throughout the tournament specially the King's XI.But their strength were not enough to beat Rajsthan Royals who played as a "champion team" from the beginning.
The lesson to be learnt from the failure of these four fancied teams to progress to the next stage of the IPL is that money, big names and iconic stars do not guarantee success. Even in Twenty20 the traditional values of cricket - leadership, team work, dedication and determination - are important which Rajasthan Royals proved by wining the tournament.We can say its not the big stars from abroad, our domestic cricketers are the winner in this Toyrnament.
Hakweye / Chivach Sports