An 8 wicket defeat for the two time defending champions Chennai, has given them a reality check in just the opening game of the 2012 tournament! And that too in a home game at Chepauk, on an uncharacteristically green wicket with a lot of grass on it.
The lack of runs on the board highlighted the fact that in a T20 game, on a decent batting track, a team needs atleast 140 runs on the board to put up some kind of fight.
And that fight never came for Chennai. A tentative Murali Vijay with a new opening partner Du Plessis never gave the hosts the start they needed. Vijay’s 10 runs scored of 17 balls, was never the sort of innings that would inspire confidence. He looked tentative and out of sorts. With Du Plessis’ runout early on, and Vijay not able to play the role of the aggressor, it was only the fluent strokemaking of Suresh Raina that helped Chennai keep a healthy scoring rate.
James Franklin getting Vijay’s wicket in the 6th over proved beneficial for Chennai as Dwayne Bravo came out with more purpose and positive intent. The 8th over of the innings bowled by Franklin went for 14 runs, with Raina and Bravo smacking 3 boundaries in it to change the momentum in favour of the home team. Left-handed Raina’s presence forced Harbhajan to delay the advent of Ojha at the bowling crease, bringing him on in the 10th over and that immediately paid dividends, as Raina holed out in the deep, caught by Malinga for an attacking 36.
How much Chennai rely on Raina to be around in the death overs was highlighted by the fact that they slipped from 75 for 2, to be all out for 112, losing 8 wickets in the span of just 37 runs.
Credit needs to be given to Mumbai for having picked an explosive talent like Richard Levi, who lived up to his big-ticket billing, smacking an entertaining 35 ball 50 to reduce the run-chase to a benign farce. Unfortunately for Chennai, Ravidra Jadeja didn’t do anything in this game to justify the top dollars spent on him. But in his defence, it’s still early days in the tournament and all he needs to do from hereon, is forget the money spent to buy his services and try to play his natural game.