Malings speaks

Very rarely does someone like Lasith Malinga is found throwing out his words when he recently comments on the floodlights to be a nightmare for the team batting second. Whatever, this makes bloggers like me to pen more about the issue in the form of critics and opinions. However, Lasith Malinga partly has something when he says the above statement supporting the team batting second. Mosyt of the time it has been the team batting first that wins the game but, one has to definitely make it sure that it is not only because of the reason cited by Malinga.

History says that India won the finals of the Natwest series against England in 2002 by chasing a mammoth total of 326 under lights and so was India's successful run chase against the West Indies later the same year when they chased down 324 against the same. At the same time, the other three highest successful run chases by South Africa and twice by New Zealand happened to be under day light. Here, Malinga's words have an upperhand. Whatsoever, pressure does exist with the team batting second no matter whether it is under lights or not. And this was yet again proved when Pakistan failed to get past 243 runs.

Most of the captains choose to bat after they win the toss rather than to bowl. The one undue advantage that the team batting first gets is that they have two options in hand, out of which they can choose to do one which will see them through that game. When they bat first, either they can put up a decent score for the opposition to chase failing which will see the team batting first win the game. And, in case they fail to do that, they can either get the opposition out or restrict the opposition from crossing the barrier.

Whereas, for the team batting second, the only thing left is to chase down the total imposed by the team batting first and there can be nothing like restricting the team batting first for a less score. If course, totals less than 200 are tough to defend but, the team batting second always has the task of overhauling the score put up by the team batting first. The team batting 2^nd will have to overhaul the score set by the team batting first. However, in the past 8 - 9 years or so, there have been many cases of 300+ scores being chased unlike the three occasions in the 90s which included India & Australia over Pakistan and Sri Lanka over Zimbabwe.

One thing that would be worth mentioning here would be the fact that Malinga comes from the team where once the world cup winning captain Arjuna Ranatunga wins the toss and elects to field first in the finals of the 1996 world cup and still ends up winning the trophy.

Sachin the lone scorer for Mumbai

One has to once again applaud Sachin Tendulkar who has made this edition of the IPL as his own. Though yesterday the Mumbai Indians team lost the game to the Chennai Superkings by a small margin of 24 runs, Sachin Tendulkar - like always never fell short of making another innings of his count. Sachin Tendulkar was there until the 7^th wicket of the Mumbai Indians fell. Of course, his dropping of the veteran Sri Lankan opener - Sanath Jayasuriya will surely be noticed by one and all. Sachin Tendulkar not only top scored with 45 but also saw his partner at the other end bat with confidence.

Once again, there was another innings for Sachin Tendulkar which went without the batsman hitting even a single six. But, the sixes which would have been expected from the blades of Sachin Tendulkar happened to come from the blades of the tail end batsman in Harbhajan Singh when he hit three of them out of the ground. That coincidentally happened to be the highest number of sixes that were witnessed from the match. If the Mumbai Indians' squad is given a closer look, Sachin Tendulkar is the lone scorer for his team and also the lone noted batsman if Harbhajan Singh is excluded.

Harbhajan Singh has made a name for himself as a bowler while he is found sending down nightmares for the bowlers. If not for Sanath Jayasuriya and Sachin Tendulkar, no other batsman from the Mumbai Indians' squad has made a name for himself in international cricket. Now that Sanath Jayasuriya is made to warm the benches, Sachin Tendulkar is found taking credit for whatever batting works his team is found doing. Sachin Tendulkar was awarded the man of the match on 3 out of the 9 games they have played so far against Delhi Daredevils, Kolkata Knight riders and Chennai Superkings.

Despite winning in the first match against Rajasthan Royals, the man of the match happened to be Yousuf Pathan for his fastest IPL hundred. And then in the match against Deccan Chargers, Harbhajan Singh was awarded the man of the match for his 18 ball 49 with it being the 2^nd time a player was given the award for his batting prowess which so far has been three with Rayudu taking the honors in the match against Deccan Chargers once again. In the match against the Kings XI Punjab, it was a bowler in Lasith Malinga who was awarded the man of the match for his four wicket haul. So, till now there have been just one other batsman in Rayudu who has been awarded the man of the match if Tendulkar is sidelined.