Dhoni's CSK royally Challenged out by Kumble's RCB

2nd semifinals between the tournament favourites Chennai Super Kings vs Royal Challengers Bangalore, & boy what a game in the end for all cricket lovers like us.......an unbelieveable upset.

CSK had started in blazing fashion with Parthiv Patel & Mat Hayden taking on the opposition bowling, with Parthiv being the surprising leader. However, somewhere CSK lost the plot & inspite of a brilliant start upfront, they could not capitalise & the team ended up with a rather dodgy poor total of 146. In fact the last seven overs produced only a meagre 3 boundaries, & the last over produced only 2 runs in the first five deliveries, & only a boundary in the last ball made the total look respectable. Top batting guns like Raina, Dhoni, Morkel, Oram, & even the openers could not make a serious impact & non of them could convert a start to a good match winning total. It was disappointing to see a tournament favourite team like CSK struggle for runs, in a pressure match of a semifinals.

The reply by RCB was authentic, with Manish Pandey, the centurion from the last match carrying his rich batting form into the game. he was sweetly timing the ball to the boundary, & though they lost Kallis & Merve early, Manish in partnership with Rahul, carried his team to the threshold of a memorable victory. Though, Murali pulled back things a bit, but the CSK did not have enough runs in thier kitty to battle out & Ross Taylor and Virat Kohli took them beyond the finishing line. Manish was breathless with his sublime batting & Rahul showed what experience & class is all about. Boundaries just kept puring in the RCB never looked in trouble. It was in the end a very clinical performance by this team. In fact a closer look says that RCB have been a different lot under the fascinating captaincy of Anil Kumble, & from midway through, when they were langusing in the bottom half, have won seven of their last ten matches. As Anil put it during the presentation ceremony, "It would be good to end with just one more tomorrow & get the IPL trophy home." The team certainly looks a resurgent lot & extremely fit & capable at this stage.

So the finals tomorrow id between Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Deccan Chargers Hyderabad. Incidentally they are the two bottom laggards of the last year's edition. Who would have thought & expected these two teams to feature in the finals this year????

Both the team look in cracking form & we, the cricket lovers look forward to some outstanding cricket tomorrow.

May the best team win.