Swap for God's sake

Sachin a good skipper?
Last year, there were whispers that had Shaun Pollock been allowed to continue the Mumbai Indians' captaincy in IPL-1, they would have won the games to see them through to the knockouts; Sachin missed some games, during which Pollock led the team to a frightening five consecutive wins including the eventual champs Rajasthan Royals who seemed unflappable even at the time.

Well, this year's IPL edition took off with the little master captaining his side to a comprehensive win over runners-up Chennai Superkings.

Dhoni's 'A-Gony'
Why was Joginder Sharma sent ahead of Manpreet Gony (No. 10) who impressed no less as an allrounder last year. Probably, yes, to get the crucial runs if it came down to a collapse. But on this occasion, the match situation at six wickets down should probably had go the Chennai Superkings captain thinking differently. Joginder Sharma distinctly couldn't get the ball off the square for three or four deliveries on two separate occasions. I think the match was lost here for the Chennai Super Kings.

Chidambaram Stadium Paradox
Takes me back to 1997 when in a one-day series against Pakistan (Saeed Anwar's 194 n.o.) Indian chased the mammoth total well, with Dravid duly getting a century on the belter of a batsman's track. However, come the crunch and we have Nayan Mongia walking out at his appointed number when a slog was on to get those elusive runs in the last overs. Hey, wasn't Sunil Joshi the effusive left-handed allrounder, top hand player and all that, the right bet to displace Mongia, which Tendulkar somehow didn't think of. Lack of some imagination in the team's think tank at that stage. One or two blows over the heads of the fielders, mechanically more possible by Sunil Joshi would have set us on course but we fell woefully short. The paradox in this context is that we're talking about the winning Mumbai Indians captain donning the role at Chennai a decade ago. Hope some cues are taken in Indian cricket and if this analysis is right... there is no batting order cast in stone in limited-overs cricket.