A captain entreating for rest from chaotic scheduling or a team banking overly on a perfidious pitch is not the way to win a tournament, as Chennai Super Kings discovered. The defending champion was knocked out in the group stages of the Champions League T20, after losing three of its four matches, which were all played at Chepauk — its perceived stronghold.
With such backyard arrangements, another title was being taken for granted by fans, who failed to factor in the level of jadedness of a number of team members or the state of preparedness of visiting sides.
Speaking after David Warner took the home team by its scruff and blasted it out of contention, coach Stephen Fleming articulated standard responses for the failure. Fleming said some of the players — Michael Hussey primarily and members of India's squad to England — were dragged down by an “element of fatigue” and that the side found it hard to adapt to the re-laid Chepauk square.
Difficulty
The coach also mentioned the difficulty that an IPL team faces in coming together to battle well-knit units that spend more time with each other.
Which is all be fine, except that Hussey, spent after national duty in Sri Lanka, finished Super Kings' premier batsman with 160 runs at an average of 40, and the track — two-paced, low bounce, the works — was always considered to be an ally of the home side.
A patch-work Mumbai Indians sneaked into the last four despite its burgeoning crock-list; and Trinidad and Tobago exited after being in a winning position in each of its matches. Reading too much in the lottery that is Twenty20 cricket is a fool's pastime, but there were some blatant impediments that ground Chennai's title defence to a halt.
The batting was a principal concern. Opener M. Vijay's four innings yielded 45 runs. Although he was unlucky to be at the receiving end of a Lasith Malinga special and an unbelievable Justin Kemp catch in the first two games, Vijay was indiscretion personified in the next two as he lost his stumps both times —– going for an ugly hoick against Sunil Narine and charging down like a mad bull to Steve O'Keefe.
S. Badrinath, not the most enterprising Twenty20 batsman at the best of times, gathered 16 (21b), 2 (6b), 14 (26b) and 13 (14b). Suresh Raina, who totalled 68 runs, flattered to deceive after getting a start in three of his four innings.
A weary M.S. Dhoni threw his bat around in the first game, but failed miserably against T & T when his 22-ball seven put the visitor firmly in the driving seat. Wriddhiman Saha (14 runs in three innings) was the ultimate deadweight.
Over the years, the bowling department has bailed Chennai out on the occasions its batting has faltered. But the re-laid pitch this year confounded even the home boys.
Off-spinner R. Ashwin (five wickets, ER: 6.62), a prominent figure in Super Kings' success, was steady at best, while Shadab Jakati (two wickets in four games) was sans effect — except when he invited hell upon his team by dropping Warner early in his knock.
The fast bowlers took a fair beating. Doug Bollinger had one decent match (4-0-25-2 versus Cape Cobras) before getting the hiding of his life (3-0-48-0) against NSW. Albie Morkel picked up three wickets (ER: 8.20) and batted too far down the order to accomplish anything with the bat.
In the end, Super Kings lost a match it had dominated, won a match it should have lost, floundered against T & T after restricting it to a sub-par total, and was thrashed by Warner in the last fixture. All the games, except the trouncing against NSW, could have gone either way.
And maybe it was in his parting shot that Fleming approached the root of the problem,
“You cannot expect to win everything in Twenty20.” Now try telling that to the fans.
