CricDigs Blogs

First off, congrats to the Royals. They deserved to win the trophy. As far as Chennai goes, they did really well. Any other team in Chennai’s place would have given up the match after those monstrous sixes by Yusuf Pathan, but Dhoni proved once again why he is a good captain.

But then, the chain is only as strong as its weakest link. The case in point being Balaji. He bowled a horrible over which literally took the game away from Chennai. Two juicy full tosses at 120 kmph is something you just can’t afford to bowl to any batsman in any format of the game, let alone to a dangerous player like Yusuf Pathan, that too in a T20 match.

The 16th over from Balaji sealed the game for the Royals. Murali had just bowled a beautiful over and gave away just 5 runs. Balaji came in, bowled horribly, and gave away 13 precious runs. To win a match of this magnitude, you need all your players to fire up, and when one ***** up, it spoils the party big time.

I know some of you would say that I’m being unfair to Balaji and even Raina dropped an important catch, blah, blah, blah. But let me clarify one thing. Raina is a multidimensional player. A superb batsman and a very good fielder. He made up for his dropped catch with his superb innings and a terrific direct hit which got rid of Yusuf. But Balaji is a unidimensional player. He is a medium pace bowler. His batting skills and his fielding skills are better left unsaid. So, basically, if he screws up with his bowling, it’s going to cost the team big time.

Anyway, it was a fantastic match. Most importantly, the huddle after the match was good to see from the Chennai Super Kings. Usually, when teams lose, players don’t tend to look at each other and walk away quietly. But Dhoni, being the leader that he is, made sure he conveyed the message that they put up one hell of a fight against the Royals and there is nothing to be ashamed of.