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Bangalore: It’s not exactly do-or-die for Deccan Chargers as they take on Royal Challengers Bangalore for the first time in IPL 3, simply because even if they do manage to peg back the hosts at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, they could still end up dead as far as progress in the tournament is concerned.
A minimum of four wins out of the five remaining games is what the Chargers require to even have a semblance of a chance of making it to the semis and while it may be an unpalatable fact for the defending champions, most of it has been their own doing (or should it be undoing).
They have lost from winning positions, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory on more than one occasion, made unnecessary changes to their line-up, as in dropping the highly successful Chaminda Vaas, who doesn’t just have 8 wickets to show from five games but also an economy rate of 6.66 (the devil at play?).
Incidentally, the Sri Lankan left-arm seamers replacement, West Indian Kemer Roach has gone for 10 an over, while the man who later displaced Roach, Aussie Ryan Harris has been taken for 9.25.
Captains though have their reasons and a lot of them don’t like to be questioned but then they will have to answer someone or the other, won’t they? As far as RCB are concerned, they would rather have Adam Gilchrist continue to sideline Vaas.
For, it is only when they have to got off to good starts - in terms of quick runs and not losing wickets - have RCB ruled, be it home or away. Vaas, until he was in the side, invariably picked up early wickets.
RCB, too, have had to make some tough calls. Spoilt for choice in the foreign players’ category, they had to leave out someone like Dale Steyn from their line-up for their last game, while also having to do with a makeshift wicketkeeper in the hard-hitting Robin Uthappa for a few games now.
On the hard surface here, they may be left with no choice but to bring back Steyn but then they will have to leave out one among Jacques Kallis, Cameron White, Kevin Pietersen and Ross Taylor.
All we can do is wish Anil Kumble luck here for each one of the above foursome can win a match on his own with the bat. That should actually mean that Kumble would be better served simply drawing lots at least for the latter three, leaving Kallis the all-rounder and the holder of the Orange Cap in the thick of things.
Whatever the combination, RCB, who have lost only one home match thus far and need to win three more in all to safely qualify for the semis, will be heavily backed by a vociferous crowd, which can act as an extra player.
Switch to Adam Gilchrist for whom nothing has gone right in this tournament personally.
None of his big guns, be it Andrew Symonds, Herschelle Gibbs or Rohit Sharma, who all but did it in Monday night’s thriller against Rajasthan Royals, have realized their potential as yet and this has hurt the team and left them in the seventh position in the table, just one rung above the position they finished in the inaugural year. Looked at it that way, things can only get better from here.
Team from
Bangalore Royal Challengers Anil Kumble (capt), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Abhimanyu Mithun, Virat Kohli, Rahul Dravid, Manish Pandey, Vinay Kumar, KP Appanna, Balachandra Akhil, Praveen Kumar, Jacques Kallis, Roelof van der Merwe, Dale Steyn, Mark Boucher (wk), Dillon du Preez, Eoin Morgan, Kevin Pietersen, Cameron White, Steven Smith, Ross Taylor, Sridharan Sriram, Shreevats Goswami, Robin Uthappa (wk)
Deccan Chargers Hyderabad Adam Gilchrist (capt & wk), Andrew Symonds, Ryan Harris, Azhar Bilakhia, Srikkanth Anirudha, Arjun Yadav, Ravi Teja, Harmeet Singh, VVS Laxman, Pragyan Ojha, Rohit Sharma, RP Singh, Tirumalsetti Suman, Venugopal Rao, Chaminda Vaas, Dwayne Smith, Kemar Roach, Herschelle Gibbs, Scott Styris, Bodapati Sumanth, Ashish Reddy, Monish Mishra, Mitchell Marsh, Anirudh Singh, Jaskaran Singh, Rahul Sharma
Stats and trivia
Match facts
Thursday April 8, 2010 (day/night)
Start time 20:00 local (14:30 GMT)
