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On 4/20/09, harshit shah <mr.harshshah@gmail.com> wrote:
> In the first match of the IPL in 2008, Brendon McCullum smashed an unbeaten
> 158 from just 73 balls to set up a crushing win for his side. A year later,
> as season two got underway across the Indian Ocean in different conditions
> and under grey skies, Sachin batted 20 overs for an unbeaten 59 from 49
> balls. It was as valuable as McCullum's blitzkrieg, if utterly different in
> execution and appeal, for it came on a track not entirely conducive to
> batting and laid the platform for Mumbai Indians' victory.
>
> Stumbling and bumbling, Mumbai managed to put together a competitive total
> after the core of their vaunted batting struggled to cope with the uneven
> bounce at Newlands. There were few fireworks from the big bats and the team
> owed plenty to the vast experience of Tendulkar, who absorbed the pressure
> superbly. Where Chennai's pacers were tidy in restricting runs during the
> middle stages of Mumbai's innings, it was the spinners Harbhajan Singh and
> Sanath Jayasuriya who derailed Chennai. They varied their pace and reined
> in
> the big hitters before Lasith Malinga kept the tail under control.
>
> The pre-match drizzle in cloudy Cape Town influenced MS Dhoni's decision to
> field on a damp pitch, and though Mumbai's opening partnership yielded 39
> in
> 5.4 overs, it wasn't convincing. Jayasuriya slashed and swiped and survived
> a run-out before he mowed fellow Sri Lankan Thilan Thushara to midwicket
> for
> 26. The ball didn't come on to the bat, as was evident in Tendulkar's
> frequent grimaces and constant shuffling to manoeuvre the bowling.
> Tendulkar
> attempted and connected with a few risky shots over the infield and was
> dropped on 10 by Matthew Hayden at first slip, off a leading edge induced
> by
> Andrew Flintoff.
>
> Play was then held up for 12 minutes when a dog found its way onto the
> field. Failing to be enticed by whistles, calls, dives and even an inviting
> snack, the canine intruder got bored and finally trudged away. After the
> resumption Chennai's bowlers made swift inroads.
>
> Shikhar Dhawan struggled for fluency and was undone by the slow bounce as
> he
> top-edged Manpreet Gony. Gony then held on to a sharp reflex catch to get
> JP
> Duminy with a clever bouncer in his next over and, taking the cue, Joginder
> Sharma dropped short and had Dwayne Bravo pulling to deep square leg. It
> was
> proof that the short-pitched ball can work well on such tracks. With
> Tendulkar keeping one end up, Abhishek Nayar walked out and played an
> invaluable cameo that provided a late push. Nayar larruped Flintoff for
> three sixes in a 22-run over in his 14-ball 35, while Tendulkar kept the
> innings alive by batting through the 20 overs. That 46-run partnership
> would
> prove decisive.
>
> Chennai's chase was dented in the first over when Parthiv Patel steered
> Malinga to Tendulkar at slip. Suresh Raina caressed an impressive boundary
> in Zaheer Khan's first over but fell in the next, pulling Bravo to deep
> square leg where Rohan Raje made a difficult chance look easy. Malinga was
> tight, and Tendulkar showed the value of taking pace off the ball as a
> run-checking tactic by bringing on spinners at both ends, as Chennai's
> batsmen remained restless.
>
> And as long as there is limited-overs cricket there will linger the
> prospect
> of the spinners' choking the opposition during the middle overs, especially
> when an Indian and a Sri Lankan are bowling. Today Harbhajan and Jayasuriya
> did that job. Flintoff didn't last long against Harbhajan, going for a wild
> swipe and popping back an easy catch.
>
> Hayden - who bullied young medium-pacer Raje for three successive fours and
> drilled his old friend Harbhajan for a straight six - chased a wide one
> from
> Jayasuriya and picked out a diving Zaheer at cover. Jacob Oram then
> perished
> to an ugly slog against Jayasuriya, leaving Dhoni with plenty to do.
>
> Dhoni swung his bat freely but the rest perished with a whimper. Malinga
> gave away nothing and his crafty yorkers and reverse-swinging variations
> netted him excellent figures of 3 for 15 from four parsimonious overs.
>
> The crowd had filed in two hours ahead of the toss in gloomy conditions,
> and
> by the end of the first game of a double-header day they'd seen the weather
> clear and the ball go past the boundary several times. Mumbai celebrated
> the
> win animatedly in front of a healthy crowd - it wasn't exactly a boisterous
> Wankhede cauldron, but the IPL thinktank has reason to smile after the
> tournament opener.
>
