Warnie magic worked again. Tendulkar and Rayadu shines in Mumbai win.

Warnie magic worked again.

Winning 2 out of 2 is the story of Rajasthan Royals and Losing 2 out of 2 is the story of Delhi Daredevils. So far Delhi Daredevils looked completely out of sorts in IPL 4 and Sehwag not firing from the top is hurting them even more. Delhi Daredevils are paying  price of the mistakes done by their owners who didn’t retain their star players except Sehwag and bought the players who don’t have much ability. One or two brilliant performances here and there will not going to help much. So Daredevils and Sehwag have to come good in coming matches. Venugopal Rao and David Warner saved Delhi yesterday from embarrassment as both help Delhi to reach respectable total.  Rao played the innings of IPL 4 yesterday and Warner also shined but those efforts gone in vain as Rajasthan Royals win the match convincingly as Delhi bowling was completely out of sorts just like their top-order batting.

Warnie’s magic worked again and under his captaincy Rajasthan Royals is doing quite well. Whatever Warne is doing as captain is giving him optimum results. If we talk about personal performance of Warne, He is spot on every time he comes to bowl. Yesterday Warnie picked up 2 wickets in one over and put the Delhi on  back-foot. So Warnie is leading from the front and that is creating magic in this team as every player is determined to do well. Apart from Warnie’s captaincy, Shaun Tait bowled the fastest delivery in India which clocked around 157.7 Kms, quite thrilling that delivery was. At this moment Rajasthan Royals looks formidable side. Rahul Dravid played brilliant knock of 38 yesterday. He was positive in his approach and played the shots all over the park. His classy batting showed that T20 is not only about bang-bang. Its more than that and if you play good cricketing shots then also you can succeed in T20.

Delhi left with lot of soul searching and Rajasthan is full of confidence and slowly becoming the force in IPL 4.

Man of the Match

Shane Warne

Tendulkar and Rayadu shines in Mumbai win.

Genius of  Tendulkar did it again for Mumbai. Mumbai registered comprehensive win over formidable Royal Challengers Bangalore. Mumbai is repeating its IPL 3 performance in IPL-4. They have won 2 out of 2 and now topping the points table.Tendulkar is in sublime form and that doing wonders for Mumbai. If we look at Top 2 teams in IPL 4 there is great similarity in their success.  Rajasthan Royals won 2 out of 2 and Warne is leading from the front and same is the case with Mumbai Indians as well. Sachin is performing and Mumbai is winning. Tendulkar ended up with brilliant half-century and he also helped young Rayadu to play the dream innings. Rayadu played fantastic innings and never looked in any kind of trouble. It was clearly Tendulkar effect. Tendulkar shared his Man of the Match award with Rayadu which was again great gesture from great cricketer.

Malinga once again provided early breakthrough to Mumbai Indians with his lethal toe crushing yorker. RCB was completely looked out of sorts against superb Mumbai bowling as free-flowing players like Dilshan and DeVilliers looked like tied down as they failed to score freely against Mumbai bowling. RCB posted small total for Mumbai to chase and Mumbai chased it down quite comfortably. So now RCB have 1 win and 1 loss under their belt. Mumbai also executed their plans well against Zaheer Khan as their opener Jacobs went after Zaheer Khan initially and negated his effect completely. That was really master tactic from Mumbai Indians which helped them in winning this match quite easily.

Man of the Match

Sachin Tendulkar

Kings XI will face Super Kings.

After disappointing start to their IPL 4 campaign Kings XI Punjab will face defending champions Chennai Super Kings in Mohali. Chennai is a very formidable team to beat, so it will going to be a tough task for Gilly and his boys to beat Super Kings. Under Dhoni’s magical captaincy Chennai has started it IPL 4 campaign on successful note as they beat formidable KKR in opening game. On paper CSK looks far better and settled team compared to Kings XI Punjab which has under gone complete make over. Kings XI looks very weak in IPL 4 if compared to last 3 seasons. Gilly’s captaincy is the only hope for them but Gilly as a batsmen is still a big doubt. In his prime Gilly was force to reckon but after retirement he looks ordinary with the bat.

Kings XI also don’t have big names in its line-up. Like Delhi Daredevils they also made the mistake and failed to buy right players for their cause. On the other hand Chennai retained their key players and bought the same players in the auction who played for them in last 3 seasons. Chennai is a far better and settled team and they are favourites in this contest.

Team Info:

Chennai Super Kings

Mahendra Singh Dhoni (Captain/Wicket-Keeper), Suresh Raina, Murali Vijay, Wriddhiman Saha(Wicket-Keeper), Ravichandran Ashwin, Subramanium Badrinath, Joginder Sharma, Sudeep Tyagi, Abhinav Mukund, Aniruddha Shrikant, Ganapathi Vignesh, K Vasudevdas, Shadb Jakati, Vijaykumar Yomahesh, (Foreign) Albie Morkel, Michael Hussey, Dwayne Bravo, Doug Bollinger, Scott Styris, Ben Hilfenhaus, Nuwan Kulasekera, Suraj Randiv, George Bailey, Faf du Plessis. Stephen Fleming(Coach)

Kings XI Punjab

Dinesh Karthik(Wicket-Keeper), Abhishek Nayar, Praveen Kumar, Piyush Chawla, Bhargav Bhatt, Bipul Sharma, Love Ablish, Mandeep Singh, Nitin Saini, Paras Dogra, Paul Valthaty, Shalabh Srivastava, Siddharth Chitnis, Sunny Singh, Vikramjeet Malik, Amit Yadav, (Foreign) Adam Gilchrist (Captain/Wicket-Keeper), Shaun Marsh, David Hussey, Stuart Broad, Ryan Harris, Dimitri Masceranhas, Nathan Remington.Michael Bevan(Coach)

Kochi will face Warriors challenge.

Kochi bowling have to show their mettle when they face formidable Sahara Pune Warriors in Navi Mumbai tonight. Batting came good for Kochi in the first match but it was their bowling which failed to defend 161 on pitch which had little assistance for the seamers. Sahara Pune is full of confidence after their win against Kings XI Punjab.

Kochi bowlers including Sreesanth have to fire because Kochi batting is quite good.  On the other hand Sahara Pune is having fantastic team and doing well under the leadership of Yuvraj Singh who is in tremendous form this season with both bat and ball. Sahara have very good batsmen in their ranks and that is helping them in excelling in this tournament. They already won their opening match while Kochi yet to open their account of victory in the tournament. Both teams have made their debut in IPL this year and it will be interesting to see who wins the battle today. Sahara Pune are favourites.

Team Info:

Kochi Tuskers

VVS Laxman, S Sreesanth, RP Singh, Parthiv Patel(Wicket-Keeper), Ravindra Jadeja, Ramesh Powar, R Vinay Kumar, B Akhil, Chandan Madan, Deepak Chowghule, Kedar Jadhav, Raiphi Gomez, Sushant Marathe, Tanmay Srivastava, Y Gnanswara Rao, Yashpal Singh, Prashant Padmanabahan, (Foreign) Mahela Jayawardene (Captain), Brendon McCullum(Wicket-Keeper), Steven Smith, Muttiah Muralitharan, Brad Hodge, Thisara Perera, Steve O'Keefe, Owais Shah, Michael Klinger, John Hastings. Jeff Lawson(Coach)

Sahara Pune Warriors

Yuvraj Singh(Captain), Robin Uthappa(Wicket-Keeper), Ashish Nehra, Murali Kartik, Abhishek Jhunjhunwala, Bhuvenshwar Kumar, Dheeraj Jadhav, Ekalavya Dwivedi, Ganesh Gaikwad, Harpreet Singh Bhatia, Harshad Khadiwale, Kamran Khan, Manish Pandey, Mithun Manhas, Mohnish MIshra, Rahul Sharma, Sachin Rana, Shrikant Wagh, Shrikant Mundhe, Imtiyaz Ahmed (Foreign) Graeme Smith, Tim Paine, Angelo Mathews, Nathan McCullum, Callum Ferguson, Wayne Parnell, Mitchell Marsh, Jerome Taylor, Alfonso Thomas, Jesse Ryder.Geoff Marsh(Coach)