What a fantastic show of clean hitting! The week started with a heavy duty Chargers – on a mission to win their first game in the league. On the other end, the Mumbai Indians who were sailing in the same boat until last night could only watch how effective Sachin would have been in the same conditions – Good bounce and tremendous crowd. The Hyderabadi crowd for the Delhi daredevils match were surprisingly nonchalant to the heroics of Viru the other day when he had hit a similar(41 ball 94* the match was completed missing him one of the worthy hundreds – you dont get a century every day in T20) but you could say a complete array of strokes all over the park! putting that innings above Gilly’s knock in my honest opinion if at all 
.
The match started without Harbhajan(deputy to Sachin following his injury), enter Shaun Pollock and he seemed to bring in the much needed South African luck to his team – failing in each of their crucial encounters - Sanath, Uthappa, Ronch and Co. left with scoreboard wanting more than what was required from them! Forgiving Bravo and Nayar(he almost won a match for the MIs’ sans Nehra’s antics with the bat of a free hit against) and the current skipper – Mr. Pollock. There is something seriously missing in MIs’ arsenal – and this is one of the team which is raring to fire as of now on the points table.
Again the Chargers started with two lefties – not much of a difference, strategically it would be wonderful if they change their strategy a bit and bring Vaas(he didnt play this match) at the death and start with RP and local lad Kalyanakrishna or even Afridi(take a chance buddy! you never know). Their bowling once for clicked as Symo didnt bowl 
. It was a decent display as the MIs’ started to play their shots right from the word Go! and with Sanath and Uthappa falling cheaply – It only meant low scorez..and they were dismissed for a humble total of 154 – only to be humbled by Mr. GrillChrist – man! he was deadly and if he continues to show his batting in the same way – Chargers you have struck Gold in him finally.
You could only see every short ball dispatched with disdain anywhere between long-on – midwicket areas. Occasionally a dot ball would be cheered by the local crowd but it was definetely a moment to cherish for the mumbai team as Gilly was merciless for all the mistakes commited by the bowlers in length or line. He pulled-hooked-drove and the icing was the six over the long off which was done with an artistic elegance from this old war horse. Interestingly he surpassed his team mate’s record for the fastest 100 in this tournament…..which was marred by Sehwag’s wonderful performance at Hyderabad the other night.
Chargers registered their first win and seemed that the slap on Om Shanth Shree Shanth was a bit too early from Harbhajan as he had a lot of task to do – Save Mumbai from atleast some defeats with his bowling performance on field rather than bowl(read ‘slap’)-out off the field. This was definetely uncalled for and the 11 match ban was particularly hard against this poor chap considering the ambience it was done – Sree Santh is no saint, the whole world knows it. Bhajji would have done a lot of good by saving the energy in hitting him at the end of the tournament(he could have got a lot of company by that time…now he has unecessarily singled out and created a sense of caution into his IPL mates in hitting out Sreesanth)…folks you really feel that Sreesanth should be put in with some sense in showing off his emotions in a more befitting way – put the ball in the right areas and do your job – thats how it is for a BOWLER – all the super star and thalaivar-giri should stay outside the field….he is a BOWLER right…??? It was a dramatic episode to watch he(as if he was a monk) crying and harbhajan trying to be as calm as he could after behaving like a ruffian after the match….ultimately an elder brother and a younger brother finish was the most wanted climax of the recent crickywood premieres.
MORAL of the Sreesanth and Bhajji episode: Sreesanth instead of slapping back at Harbhajan tried doing it through BCCI – to save some face ultimately poor guy Bhajji was slapped a 11 match ban by the Board of Complete Confusion of India – So is this a case of Gandhigiri or what?…..it is left to the intelligent people of India. Why was Sree Shanth let off
:…10 on 10 to Dhoni for putting a wonderful thought in his article.
But in a wonderful way – the ultimate potboiler for the Indian News channels kept scrolling the news of ‘Bhajji slaps sreesanth’, ‘Sreesanth cries on the field’ and runs certain series on the same story with wild captions ‘Tears on the field’ etc…- I was actually perplexed at Headlines today – leaving out Mr. Khali(their sole bread winner these days than the regular useless crap it puts up on their space daily) and catching Sreesanth – Bhajji episode, way to go ppl…this was terribly awesome…and the awards as usually go to the Hindi news channels viz…Star news and Aaj tak – they are way way ahead of the industry in using the media space for putting all the worst possible episodes renamed as ‘News’. I seriously hadn’t wished my weekend to be spoiled like this – Thanks once again Gilly for making the Cricket a Headline again and saving me from the evil clutches of todays money centric journalism…dont care about the news or dont care about the content…just care about the ‘aam aadmi’ and the ‘aam aadmi’ is just away from all these tensions safe and secure from the evil Idiot box – the TV as he cannot afford one….
let me take rest..i am diverging from the topic…
Congratulations Chargers on your first win and wish many more from them…until the ‘May 11th encounter’
