Chennai Super Kings (CSK) goes to South Africa with couple of current SA front line players in A.Morkel and Ntini. A.Morkel is in brilliant form and Ntini doing reasonably well in tandem with Steyn should do lot of good to the CSK team. 1st season coach K.Wessels should be helping the team in providing inputs on the nature of wickets and conditions in various venues across SA.
Even though i am a CSK supporter, i feel that its not going to be as easy as last time around with the tournament moving to SouthAfrica. Having said that CSK is the most balanced team on paper with Hayden available for the full season,addition of Flintoff, In form Morkel & Raina, Dhoni the most successful captain in recent times is backed by some good local talent in S.Badrinath,Vidyuth,Anirudh makes a very good line up. Flintoff,Morkel in the line up provide great balance, they can bowl minimum of 7-8 overs and SA wickets should help seamer's better. Murali/Ntini along with L.Balaji,Goni should provide a solid bowling line up if not great bowling line up.
My 11 for the first phase of the tournament with all the players available.
Hayden
Anirudha Srikkanth // Vidyuth
Suresh Raina
MS Dhoni
Albie Morkel
Andrew Flintoff / Jacob Oram
Subramaniam Badrinath
Lakshmipathy Balaji
Manpreet Gony / Amarnath
Muttiah Muralitharan / Ntini
JoginderSharma / Ashwin
(There are few new names in Bailey and other local talent, we may have to take note of these talents in the 2nd phase. We will be pushed to think on Hussey availability for the latest stages of the tournament)
Hayden will be given the free hand to attack and play his natural game and score as many runs as possible in the initial 10 overs. Raina,Dhoni,Morkel,Badri and Flintoff just make a great top order which i am sure any bowling attack will worry to restrict.
I feel CSK has the best batting line up and if the bowling does reasonably well CSK should win comfortably. CSK should be chasing scores around 180-190 easily and the bowlers will be comfortable to restrict score around 200-210 not less than that at least in the initial phase of the tournament. To reach the semi-finals, Hayden,Raina,Morkel, Flintoff (to an extent )Murali and L.Balaji should perform consistently well. It goes without saying that Dhoni will have to lead side with more imagination and use the local boys well.
Having done the above analysis based on the past performance, cricket has never gone the way one would like to or no amount of analysis works. The DC (Deccan Chargers) were the best side on paper last year with all the big hitters (Gilcrist,Gibbs, Symonds etc) in the side they finished last in the table.
As a true CSK fan, lets support (watching set Max :(), pray and wish CSK does well to reach the last four, may be after that we will cry,pray and do what ever to see that CSK wins the trophy.
Next Post on Rajasthan Royals !!!!
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3 comments:
Now, I think this series of analysis by you should end up with the prediction of the winner this time, ofcourse, keeping aside the 'its the game of the day' and 'best team on paper' ideologies.
Vasu,
Why you (or anyone) are not even considering to mention M. Vijay ? Is he going to end up as an one test wonder ? Guess the problem is no one has seen him bat at all. I had the opportunity to see him bat in Ranji QF and SF during lunch, and he reminded Laxman in stroke play. Vidyut /Abhinav etc from what I have seen are vulnerable to even decent bowling. Left / Right combination of Hayden/Vijay followed by Raina/Dhoni is a great top order for T20.
And we have Thushara who I think is a better bet than Ntini, bringing variety to the attack. But I dont see why Murali would be dropped in place of Thushara/Ntini etc (though he was dropped for a match last year for Morkel).
All matches will be played during the day or atleast end before late evening, so that will play a part in the final XI. We have seen how the conditions change in SA between day light and flood lights !!
Rajesh,
Vijay is a great opener and no doubt that he is special.I would love to see him in the longer version of the game.
The point is,from what little i have seen him he is test cricket material and i don't want him to play this slam bang crap cricket and find himself in a spot.He is young and needs the correct brake, Dhoni leading the side and Vijay failing few games in the T20 will spell doom for his whole carrier not only T20.
At times we are forced to talk about petty politics in cricket and if you closely watch the IPL games in the 1st round you will know how he handled the local talent (specially Badrinath) when compared to other players. TamilNadu cricketers are very vulnerable and they will give up easily.I don't want to see Vijay be the face of the same old story of TN players. http://speakcricfunda.blogspot.com/2008/10/curse-of-tn-cricket.html
I think some time back i had mentioned that its time that we had some sort of a backup for the top 4. I would say its time that selectors think of moving into No3 as replacement for Dravid.I feel slectors should give the No3 spot to any of the three Vijay/Raina/Rohit /kholi in the sub continent test matches and groom them to take on the seaming and faster tracks abroad.
Coming back to IPL, I have seen both Vidyuth and Anirudh, both are fantastic stroke players and Anirudh in purticular is in Cheekas mould and best suits T20.If Vidyuth plays he can be used for few overs also (he played India U-19 as a bowler).
Ntini might have an edge over Thusara just because he is more used to the conditions and knows little bit more about the wickets and has always been successful. Since we can play only 4 foreigners Hayden,A.Morkel,Flintoff are automatic choice and one other person should be a bowler so its between Murali,Ntini,Thusara for at least the initial stages of the tournament.
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