By Vikram Afzulpurkar
Deccan Chargers throwing away their match against the Delhi Daredevils was pathos personified. No, it wasn't bad luck or nerves. Probably an outdated team strategy.
The issues this article will address are. 1) Is it necessary to narrow down the run-ball equation to a run a ball to give your team the best chance? 2) Is it pandemic of an Indian side, domestic or otherwise (with a minority of foreign professionals) to destroy effort of a top order batsman?
Labour lost
Adam Gilchrist's towering hitting was put to nought by his lower order. The same way that Chennai put to nought another Aussie, another left-hander and another opening bat's great starts earlier in the tournament. Fortunately Chennai have re-grouped and are looking better. But will the Deccan Chargers?
Are we all thinking?
To be fair, it was no individual's fault, nor I would imagine a team's. The blame if any would probably rest with the think tank and in no small way in the way everybody views 20-20 cricket. There is a mindset prevalent among all - cricketers, commentators, cricket gurus that if your team needs about 29 runs off 25 balls, you must strike from both ends to narrow that down to a run a ball. Quite rusty.
Where's the fulcrum?
Yesterday's Deccan Chargers - Delhi Daredevils match had exactly such an equation but instead of T Ravi assuming the fulcrum role to allow Andrew Symonds to attack, the lad chose to display heroics and pushed his luck too far with a backward glide. It points to a fundamental lack of thinking on the team's part, not to give him clearer or a different set of instructions - to stay put and get ones and twos where possible. The less said of his predecessor Suman the better. He too had departed 'heroically' trying to match Gilchrist's (of all the people!) pace.
'Momentum'
Hey, hasn't it been established that Twenty-Twenty is not a bang at both ends affair? We know that one partner, especially when the other is scoring, should play the anchor. The analysts have come up with the word 'momentum' as if exactly identifying the lacuna in batting during a 20-overs game. So, what's the confusion? Is it impetuous youth or a lack of good communication to these young guns, or their ability to understand the communication. Otherwise, it must be said team strategy is totally wrong.
The Equation
Let's address that run-ball equation. It is archaic thinking that with seven wickets in hand, you have to address a target of 29 more runs (25 balls) with suicidal hitting. Won't the odd boundary come within the next over and a half to narrow it down? Isn't Symonds capable of it? T Ravi started experimenting with strokes that take the ball over the wicket-keepers head or to some no-man's land, using the pace of the bowler. At least his judgement should have told him that he is not middling it today so better let senior partner Andrew do it. But he chose the gallant path to heaven. What was he thinking? "Now's my chance to show the world I'm as good as Symonds?" And seven overs earlier, Suman was probably thinking the same thing? And at a time that Gilly was launching balls to the moon. Guys, when there is no need, why err on the side of risk? Why not take a lesson from the Twenty-Twenty cricket that you've see so far?
It's not what, it's how
Deccan Chargers will be hugely upset, not for their loss, but to use that cliched expression, "from where they threw it away." Oh, how about another cliche since we love flogging dead horses - "Snatch defeat from the jaws of victory."
The architects
To be fair to Gilly and Symonds, they did not commit great errors in their own dismissals. Only those they were allowed after hoisting the team on their shoulders.
Chargers, now charge back and learn from those mistakes.
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