So, the campaign for the Indian Premier League teams is over as Delhi Daredevils who were the only Indian team to have qualified for the semi-finals, lost their match against Highveld Lions. It will be only fair to say that the four IPL teams failed to deliver on expected lines and were outplayed by the foreign teams.
Things were always expected to be difficult as the tournament was being played in South Africa. It was the start of the season and the pitches were fresh and offered a lot. Indian players have never been comfortable on these conditions but no one expected such poor show from the Indian teams.
Let’s have a look at the journey of IPL teams in the Champions League Twenty20.
Kolkata Knight Riders: The reigning IPL champions KKR was the first team to be knocked out from the semi-final run. They lost their first match to Delhi Daredevils by a huge margin of 52 runs. In their second match, Auckand Aces defeated them with more than two overs to spare. That defeat meant that KKR was out of the Champions League based on the other results of the group. Their third match against Perth Scorchers was rained off and in the fourth match they beat Titans comprehensively by 99 runs.
The problem for KKR in this tournament was their batting. Their highest run-scorer was Brendon McCullum and he too had an average of 25. Their captain Gautam Gambhir scored only 49 runs in three innings with 44 of them coming in the last match. Jacques Kallis scored at an average of 9 while Yusuf Pathanwas a slight better at 16.5.
Chennai Super Kings: The two times IPL champs and one time Champions League winners had a terrible outing this year. Like KKR, they lost their two opening matches and were knocked out. Their first defeat came against Sydney Sixers by 14 runs and second against Lions by three wickets. They did win their remaining two matches against Mumbai Indians by six runs and Yorkshire by four wickets but those were matches had no impact on the tournament.
The problem for Chennai was their bowling, against Sydney as they conceded 185 runs. Against Lions they were not able to stop an inexperienced batting line up to score 159 runs. Their main bowler R Ashwin conceded runs at an economy of 9.5 and took only three wickets in his four outings. Ravindra Jadeja was equally pathetic, leaking runs at an economy of 9.2. Even their pacers struggled in the later part of the innings.
Mumbai Indians: The defending champions had a disastrous outing where they failed to win even a single game. They lost their first match against Lions by eight wickets; their second match against Yorkshire was abandoned. In the third match they lost to CSK by six runs and in their final match Sydney Sixers defeated them by 12 runs.
Mumbai Indians failed in all the departments as their team did not perform as a unit. In the first match it was their bowlers who failed to deliver and in the last match it was the batsmen who let the team down. Star players like Sachin Tendulkar and Rohit Sharma failed with the bat. And in the bowling department skipper Harbhajan Singh and Pragyan Ojha failed to deliver.
Delhi Daredevils: They were able to make it to the semi-finals but it was not a performance that they will be proud of. They were scratchy in their approach and were outplayed in the semi-finals. In the first league match they defeated KKR by a huge margin while their second match against Auckland was rained-off. In their third match they won against Perth Scorchers by three wickets while their last league match was again washed out due to rained. In the semi-finals they were outplayed by Lions by 22 runs.
So, apart from the match against KKR, they didn’t perform at all. Against Scorchers they needed to chase 121 runs and they lost seven wickets in the process. In the end it was the bowlers who took them home. The problem for Delhi was that their star players didn’t fire. Virender Sehwag’s struggle continued and players like Ross Taylor and Mahela Jayawardena didn’t perform even in a single game.
By Gaurav Jha
Indian Sports News Network