The Fortress Remains Unbreached

          This couldn't get better for CSK and the fans. Home win - second in a row as well - what more could a CSK diehard ask for? The MAC, unbreached in 2011 so far, was a sea of yellow. (The seats are yellow too!) All-out support for the likeable CSK, who eventually emerged champion. Not a soul left the stadium till the trophy had been handed over and the victory lap finished. Perhaps this wasn't the closest of games, but no one cared. (Except Gavaskar.) All that Chennai wanted to see was a win - and that they did get!
          CSK won the toss and chose to bat. Dhoni always says that anyway, and the Chennai pitch is a slow turner which slows down unbearably as the match progresses. A wise decision anyway. Out came Hussey and Vijay to a roar from the crowd, and neither left for quite a while. They put on the highest opening partnership in the IPL ever - 159 runs. The mammoth partnership featured big shots and energetic running between the wickets. The frantic running seemed to take a toll on Vijay's stamina. Should he have gotten out? Turns out, no. He seemed to get his energy back and made a match-winning 95. Five short of a century, people say. Why don't they look at the fact that it was a brilliant innings, saved for the final? Along with that, Hussey's 63 helped piece together the mammoth stand. Add to that a few chipping-ins from Dhoni and the rest, and a last-ball six from Bravo, and what do you get? The highest total in an IPL final - 205-5. There were two instances of wickets falling from consecutive balls, but that didn't prevent them from reaching 200.
          Ashwin was thrown the new ball. The unusual new-ball off-spinner rewarded Dhoni for his decision, and how! He fooled Gayle, the most feared man in RCB, and Dhoni gleefully pouched the edge. The umpire's lifted finger all but meant they had won. Ashwin also removed the other opener, Mayank Agarwal, on his next over. A flash of hope for RCB in the form of a 32-run partnership by Kohli and AB de Villiers went by, but when Jakati picked up the latter, RCB needed one of the middle-order men to fire up. Saurabh Tiwary played a few shots, but it was too late, the title had slipped out of RCB's grasp for the second time.
          After the last ball of IPL 2011 - a six, incidentally - the crowd erupted in boundless joy. Ashwin expressed his wish to become the Manchester United of the IPL, while Dhoni praised his openers and Ashwin. The various awards were given away - some funny ones, like Best Pitch and Outfield - before the CSK players received their golds and lifted the trophy - again!
          Chennai were deserving winners. They also get to play the Champions League. It is in India, too - will the fortress remain unassailable?

One Down

          There we are - one finalist decided, one to go! And Qualifier 1 was the mother of all thrillers. Looking back, I don't know why I didn't just turn off the television and go to sleep when Chennai Super Kings were 7-2. Was it a will to watch it till the end and thus tune my body clock so I could watch Q2 and the Final without too much of a headache? Or was it - unlikely as it may be - hope?
           Whatever it was, I'm glad I stayed up anyway! Raina's innings made Virat Kohli's look small, while Morkel's effortless sixes made Wankhede look small! The Bangalore innings started fast, with the only blemish being the dismissal of the terrifying Gayle. He fell cheaply again, two times out of three, perhaps diminishing his aura. However, even without the West Indian's help, RCB made 175, riding on Virat Kohli's 70. Stiff target on all tracks. Even stiffer if your openers are gone for just 7.
          Ah, but CSK have got a star No.3! Never take Raina lightly. He delivers when it matters. He made a partnership with the steady Badrinath, then the cool-cucumber skipper Dhoni, then a path-breaking one with big-hitting Morkel that won them the game. Raina's 71 not out saved the Chennai Super Kings embarrassment against their rivals. The 18th and 19th overs went for 40 runs, bringing them withing 12 runs of the target. The last over was bowled by the other skipper Vettori. He's the most economical bowler so far in the IPL. So what? Bring 'im on! A winning six (sounds familiar?) by Morkel and even the normally expressionless South African all-rounder jumped for joy as CSK became the first team to make two consecutive finals.
          Mumbai Indians beat Kolkata Knight Riders in the Eliminator to set up a Qualifier 2 with RCB. In doing this, they knocked out Gambhir's side again, (Shahrukh Khan knows this feeling, doesn't he?) and seemed to have regained their form for good. Now whether they can survive RCB is the question. The winner will play CSK in the Final in Chennai. CSK, unbeaten at home, remain the favourites. Can they win two consecutive titles as well?

Fab Four

          With Kings XI Punjab's winning run ended on Saturday, the four qualifiers were finally decided. And deserving ones, too! The league stage's final day couldn't have been better planned. The last-four scrambled for places. With the semifinal-final system phased out, it was better to finish in the top two - you get two chances to make the final. First, Royal Challengers Bangalore hosted Chennai Super Kings for the top spot.
           It was a lacklustre performance by the defending champs - the run rate seldom rose above five and wickets kept falling. Only the skipper Dhoni and second keeper Wriddhiman Saha even reached double figures. The first wicket fell with just seven on the board, and RCB never looked back. Even the usually reliable Badrinath fell cheaply, leaving the hitting work to Dhoni and the all-rounders. The captain hit seventeen runs from the last over to take the score to a moderate 128.
          Though Ashwin removed AB de Villiers in the first over of the chase, Chris Gayle did the job for RCB (have we seen this somewhere before?), winning them the game by eight wickets by way of an unbeaten 75. The only other wicket was that of Virat Kohli.
           Now CSK would have finished third had Kolkata Knight Riders won at home against Mumbai Indians, but a last-ball win for MI helped the 2010 finalist finish third and CSK come second.
Goswami and skipper Gambhir left early in the innings, but Jacques Kallis stabilised things for KKR. Tiwary, Yusuf and ten Doeschate chipped in to help KKR post a challenging 175.
          Tirumalasetti Suman departed early. There was an interesting decision to send Harbhajan Singh to bat at No. 3, so that the better batsmen could be held back till the chase got hotter. It paid off - the off-spinner hit 30 off 29 balls. Rohit Sharma and Kieron Pollard's cheap wickets did not help the chase, but James Franklin hit an unbeaten 45 that earned him the Man of the Match award. The visitors needed 21 off the last over bowled by the expensive L. Balaji. Franklin hit four fours and a single. Ambati Rayudu needed to hit four runs off the last ball now. He hit a six and the MI team leapt out of the dugout and onto the field. It was a moment of joy - the MI team had finally regained thair form!
          The play-offs promise to be as exciting. Great cricket, unfortunately there will only be one winner!

One G Force Replaces Another

          Wow. Gilchrist just went ballistic on Tuesday night! On a day when we expected Christopher Henry Gayle to do the hitting and add to RCB's winning streak and end Kings XI's hopes, we saw him get caught behind (by Gilly!) without adding any runs to the board. That massive parnership for the second wicket just took the game away from Bangalore. Can a team allow the opposition to score 206 without them intervening even once?
          Of course, no man can build a partnership on his own. Shaun Marsh too played excellently, scoring 79 off just 49 balls. I don't want that to pale into insignificance behind Gilchrist's century. He might have taken time to catch up, but he hit 30 runs off a Johan van der Wath over and that was that. Gilchrist's versatile name was a delight for the person who thinks up the messages for the big screen in the ground. 'Gilliant' and 'Gil-orious' were some of the bright ideas. The former Australian keeper-opener-batsman departed late in the innings after being caught (by Gayle!) to a huge ovation from the enthusiastic Dharamsala crowd.
           The chase started poorly for the away side. Needing nearly 12 runs an over, it dampened their spirits considerably when Gayle was dismissed. It was only the beginning - a steady flow of wickets kept coming. The only considerable partnership was that for the fifth wicket - 29 runs off 3.4 overs. That was all - KXIP never looked back. Piyush Chawla took four wickets for the second consecutive time, aiding the team in dismissing the visitors for just 121. KXIP had won by a massive 111 runs, keeping their last-four hopes alive.
          This only goes to show that when Gayle doesn't have his day, no one in RCB does - CSK could keep this in mind during their next and final league game before the play-offs. RCB has become too dependent on the West Indian.
          Yet another IPL century - I'm loving this!

The Royals Saga

          Rajasthan Royals has had a rollercoaster ride of a tournament. They retained the wily, aging yet still-feared leggie Shane Warne and dangerour all-rounder Shane Watson. They also wisely chose Johan Botha, Ross Taylor and Rahul Dravid at the auction, but the bowling line-up seemed rather untested except for the aforementioned spinner.
          The 2008 champion won their first two games against relatively soft opponents Deccan and Delhi by eight and six wickets respectively, then lost two games against a rejuvenated Kolkata Knight Riders. Their next game against Royal Challengers Bangalore was washed out, and the teams split points. This gave RR an odd number of points, allowing them to leapfrog teams who had won as many games as them. They then travelled to Mohali and lost to Kings XI Punjab by a good 48 runs.
          RR then began a home winning run that made them look scary and in contention for a last-four spot. They beat Kochi Tuskers Kerala, Mumbai Indians and Pune Warriors India, all at Jaipur, and the skipper nicknamed the Sawai Mansingh Stadium 'the fortress'. The double-R's visited Chennai, the latter's own fortress where CSK had not lost at all, and RR promptly lost by a good 8 wickets. The 'return leg', five days later, was also won by Chennai, breaking the home winning streak. CSK won by a massive 63 runs, a good margin in all forms of the game. RR then hosted RCB, who were on a roll after Chris Gayle's arrival. Not surprisingly, Bangalore won by a good 9 wickets.
          The Royals were in trouble. A place in the play-offs was highly unlikely. With Shane Warne announcing his retirement for the final time but then getting in trouble for getting upset about their home ground's pitch and using foul language, they would have wanted to send him off on a high, but that seemed unrealistic. RR then went to Indore to play Kochi and got bundled out for a paltry 97, only to see the 'hosts' chase it down in seven overs.
          Quite a tournament these inaugural edition's champs have had so far. And I won't be surprised to see another twist.

European Football Leagues

          The football season in the hub of the sport, Europe is drawing to a close. Many teams have alredy clinched silverware and some are on the brink of their respective titles.
          Borussia Dortmund, who had a big lead for a lot of the season began the series by clinching the German Bundesliga title, leaving Bayern Munich and Bayer Leverkusen to fight for second. Interestingly, Schalke 04 who impressed in the Champions League by reaching the semifinals beating holders Inter Milan on the way, is an unimpressive fourteenth in the German league.
          AC Milan claimed the Scudetto after seven years, breaking a long Inter Milan reign lasting five years. The Rossoneri last won the 2003-04 season.         
Barcelona followed, winning the La Liga in Spain, leading rivals Real Madrid for most part of the season. They won after a draw at Levante.
          Manchester United are on the brink of a record 19th Premier League title. They share the record for 18 championships with Liverpool and just need to draw with Blackburn today or Blackpool next week. In the unlikely scenario that the Red Devils lose both games and second-placed Chelsea win their games, goal difference will decide the winner.
          The fight for the Eredivisie in the Netherlands has down to the wire, with FC Twente leading narrowly by 71 points to Ajax's 70, and PSV Eindhoven has 68 points. There is a virtual final today - Twente and Ajax meet. A win for either team will see it emerge champions, while a draw will see Twente finish as 2010/11 Eredivisie winners.
           Another two weeks and we have the Champions League final upon us too. Ah, football.

The Chennai Fortress

          The Chennai fortress reinforced its reputation as impenetrable after Chennai Super Kings defeated Rajasthan Royals on Wednesday. The home side successfully chased down the 2008 champion's 147 without too much of a problem after the visitors lost a flurry of wickets in the end.
          The Royals started off really well, with an amazing partnership between openers Shane Watson and Rahul Dravid, scoring 86, their highest this season, in the first ten overs. They looked well poised for a 180+ total till spinner Shadab Jakati took a stunning return catch to dismiss the Australian for just 32. The procession had begun. Jakati later dismissed the dangerous Johan Botha, while Albie Morkel took wickets off consecutive deliveries to put the pressure on the Royals. Suraj Randiv and R. Ashwin also picked up one each. The visitors were considerably slowed down towards the end, losing six wickets for just 61 runs. The holders had restricted the opponents to a sub-150 total, which is never really too hard to chase.
          Murali Vijay was dismissed early but that didn't hinder the hosts' chase too much, as southpaws Mike Hussey and Suresh Raina put on 137 runs for the second wicket. Raina was dismissed in the penultimate over, but it was too little, too late for the Royals as Mr. Cricket hit the winning runs and further strengthened Chennai's 'unbeatable at home' image.
          This was a crucial game because, Mumbai and Kolkata are very likely to make the top four. I think the remaining two spots will be fought for by Rajasthan, Chennai, Bangalore and Punjab if they mage good use of the games in hand. Again, there are no clear favourites and this could be won by whoever clicks at the right time.
          Who will make it?

The IPL Roundabout

          This IPL is truly open. There was no clear favourite in the beginning, there is no clear favourite now and I wonder whether there ever will be. It seems to be a rule that the teams in the top have simply have to lose to at least one of the teams in the bottom hemisphere. And with not too much difference in the points, a last-gasp win could see you move up five places.
          Pune is a case in point. Armed with a reasonably strong side featuring World Cup Player of the Tournament Yuvraj Singh, they hovered in the top four for a while before slumping to six straight losses and are now rock bottom. The other new side Kochi pulled off three big upsets, namely Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata before losing three consecutive games and are now ninth. Chennai did the opposite - they were second from last after two wins and three losses but after winning home and away against Pune and beating Deccan comfortably at home they rose up to fourth.
         Adam Gilchrist, the captain of Kings XI Punjab, understands that a side should not briefly play really well, top the group and then slump to defeats and then rely on the points gained earlier to earn them a place in the last four. He said he would prefer to top the table later in the league stage.
          The last four stage is more complicated than the traditional semifinals-final method. This year, there will be a 1st vs 2nd positions game (First Qualifer) 3rd vs 4th (Eliminator) then loser of First Qualifier against winner of Eliminator (Second Qualifier). This means that the loser of the First Qualifier will have a chance for redemption if they lose, unlike the old way. However, this system takes time for one to grasp as it is novel, though perhaps more logical.
Looking forward to see some great matches and a deserving winner!