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| Match Review: May 7th - Mumbai Indians vs Rajasthan Royals |
| by dreamcricket |
| May 07, 2008 |
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By Dreamcricket Fantasy Analyst - Suneer Chowdhary
Toss and Team News: Mumbai Indians’ worst dreams –
that they would have had at the beginning of the season – would have almost come
true, when Sachin Tendulkar again decided he was not fit enough to join the
team. With no such luxury, and with a much desired win under their belt in their
last match, the Indians decided not to change their winning combination, where
as Shane Warne went in with the same side they had fielded in the last match
too. However, as mentioned in the second trading window roundup as well, both MI
and RR would have been playing only two matches during this period, lesser than
some of the other teams, not many of their players would have been picked up by
our DCTOs. With sixteen out of the 26 matches been won by the team batting
second, it was only natural for Shaun Pollock to win the toss and elect to field
first.
A Royal Challengers-Kings batting repeat? : One look
at both the scorecards – Rajasthan’s in this match, and Bangalore in their last
one against the Kings – and the similarity is startling. Then it was Virat Kohli
and skipper Rahul Dravid who reached double figures, where as the rest of them
crumbled under pressure. Today, it was the turn of Shane Watson and Swapnil
Asnodkar, to score a neat 30 each, but the remaining batsmen batted with the
luxury of a prince, and gave away good start given by the duo. Watson (All
rounder, $125,666) got a couple of wickets as well to boost his tally to $128.
Graeme Smith (Bat, $475,297) has been many of our DCTO’s favourite, but he
departed early in strange circumstances. The ball slipped between the bat and
the pad, and he walked even without looking back thinking he had been bowled. He
hadn’t, the wicket keeper had muffed up a stumping chance, and had enough time
to recover and destroy the stumps. Incidentally, the keeper was the diminutive
Yogesh Takawal ($49,989), who went on to pick up 4 dismissals, the first time
anyone’s done that in this league. Unsurprisingly, not too many DCTOs have him
in their sides, but for those who did, it was a nice little $170 pay package
from him. Ashish Nehra (Bowler, $50,257), who seems to be maturing in this
tournament like old wine, was the pick of the bowlers with 3 wickets for 13 runs
in his three overs, but everyone bar Jayasuriya, bowled well enough to at least
get the ‘economy’ bonus. Incidentally, Nehra was also the Man-of-the-Match for
his superlative bowling performance.
Jayasuriya disappoints, Takawal adds to tally: In a
low scoring match like this, the only chance for DCTOs had from the batsmen was
for one of the openers to go on and get a big score, which unfortunately was not
the case. Although the duo – Jayasuriya and Takawal – did their bit for the MI
team, our DCTOs would have been felt a little let down, especially by
Jayasuriya, who has definitely not lived upto his original, costly billing of
$975,000. He lost his wicket for 18 today when he – again – looked like going on
to make a big one. Robin Uthappa’s unbeaten 34 and a catch to boot gave his
owners $79, although by the time he came, the match was all over bar the
shouting. In a way, the match did not quite generate the excitement; it could
have, in this format of the game.
A touch of complacency probably. Or Warne’s forgotten his
baked beans in Rajasthan.
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