A mistake made by Smith

Well the South African captain - Greame Smith no doubt should have considered his decision a million times or else repent regarding the same a million times when he chose to field first in a test match and that too involving Australia against whom he has had a series loss in the ODIs. There are hardly any cases in a test match where a captain wins the toss and chooses to field first because, in most of the cases, the pitch gets deteriorated day by day making it tough for the batsmen. In such a case, anyone who faces the bowlers first will have the initial advantage.

It has been more than two years since South Africa faced Australia be it on their home soil or outside. In the last two times since the two teams have met each other, both of them have walked away with a series. Much to anybody's surprise, South Africa won the series 2-1 in Australia while Australia won the series by the same margin in South Africa in the return series. This time, the series is scheduled at South Africa and if anybody has to go by the history, then it should be Australia walking with the honors. However, that has a long way to go.

In the first day's play at Cape Town, the scorecard clearly suggests that the pitch was a tough one to bat on with the way the Australian batsmen scored losing 8 wickets in between. There was Michael Clarke who scored an unbeaten century and Shaun Marsh who supported by scoring a handy 44 runs. In the end, the Australian run-rate was 3.89 runs an over. Though one side of the story suggests that the pitch was tough for batsmen, there was Michael Clarke who scored runs at a quick pace by ending the day scoring 107* runs from 114 balls.

With rain taking away almost 40 overs of the day's play, a lot of excitement has been stripped off the match making people wait for 24 hours more to see their favorite teams play it out there. One has to congratulate the South African wicketkeeper Mark Boucher for claiming his 500^th victim behind the stumps. This was not something achieved by either a batsman or a bowler. Very rarely do wicketkeepers and fieldsmen make news for the good reasons unlike batsmen and bowlers. With none of the wicketkeepers making it to even 400, Boucher's efforts and achievement should never go unnoticed.

KUDOS to the Chennai SuperKings

Well one has to really appreciate the efforts of the Dhoni led Chennai Super Kings after they won their last game against table toppers Kings XI Punjab by 6 wickets. One can relax the matter by saying that the Chennai Superkings did it against a team that finished in the 8^th position of the points table which could be the worst possible position in this year's edition of the Indian Premier League. However, one should not forget that, though the Kings XI Punjab team were placed in the last position, they put up a mammoth total of 192 on the board, thus leaving the Chennai team with a tough task to face.

Nevermind that the Punjab team had lost all opportunities to make it to the last four of the tournament, but a win in the inconsequential games towards the fag end of the league stage of the tournament would give them some relief not only to the players but also to their franchisees and their fans. On the other hand, this was a do or die match for the Chennai Superkings, failing which they would have seen themselves catching up with their opposition namely their Kings XI Punjab by not making it to the semis. Moreover, it was a captain's knock which led to the Chennai team's success.

Hardly anyone would have thought that the Chennai Superkings would make it to the semis after most of the important players from the team had to return back home or warm the benches after injuries got better of them earlier in the tournament. The list includes players like Andrew Flintoff who was the highest bid considering all foreign players and Jacob Oram who is another all rounder along with the likes of Mike Hussey to name a few. Likewise, even the captain - Mahendra Singh Dhoni had to sit out from a few matches owing to injury, having Raina as their captain.

Despite the pressure for Dhoni's team to perform, they showed no signs of fear chasing a mammoth total of 193 runs imposed by the Kings XI Punjab. The Chennai team lost just 4 wickets enroute to their successful run chase which speaks for their confidence in their team and their captain as well. Just a night before the Chennai made the mammoth total of 193 look easy and gettable, the Royal Challengers Bangalore failed to go past 140 runs chasing the very same total of 192 against the Mumbai Indians despite getting Sachin Tendulkar early in the innings. As a matter of statistics, the Chennai will be making to the semis of an IPL for the 3^rd consecutive time.