The IPL Athletic Supporter's Note - IX

When you have a team that can afford to let Glenn McGrath take it easy and still win, you are probably looking at one of the finalists for this year's edition of IPL.

I was stuck in a meeting for the entire DC innings and for some part of the DD reply. But speaking to people who were watching, it was apparent that the DD attack isn't just about choking off runs, but pretty incisive, even without the Surgeon of Seam, McGrath.

I picked up the match when Dilshan and Karthik were together. It was a surprise to see Karthik play with his head, using his natural aggression to play the boundary shots. Dilshan was in another gear altogether. There seems to be a sense of calm in his aggression, which is always dangerous, as Fidel Edwards found out towards the end. He took DD ashore safely, in the company of Manhas.

The interest factor here is whether DC will be able to bounce back, now that they are an Edwards short. Do they have anyone as incisive as him? Will RP sSingh step up as he did when Zaheer Khan broke down in Australia? Should be fun to watch.

The second match was always going to be loaded against the RR. CSK supporter that I am, I always support RR when they play.

True to form, RR put the feline amongst the birds, removing Patel (which I must confess can also be done by Pitambar Garg, part-time cricketer playing with the Patel Nagar Cricket Club) and Hayden.
Thankfully, Dhoni sent in Badrinath to stay with Raina as the latter hammered the CSK innings to recovery.

Raina never gets written about for anything other than cricket, and therefore is not a real favourite of our news channels, but this lad is a curious combination of big-hitting and run-scrounging. There were many big hits from Raina, but none of them were brutal slogs.

Each one of his shots was a cricket shot, with just that little bit of extra bottom-hand to get elevation and distance. It was an awesome innings. Time Raina got a place in the Test squad. He is a genuinely good player, and please let him not be pigeon-holed into a limiting role.

A little gloat here. Badrinath played exactly as I had predicted he would, working the ball around, and putting the loose ball away. But again, the 'Rhythm Break' struck, removing Badrinath, and for a couple of overs, putting Raina out of groove.

In the end, Dhoni and Raina pushed up the scoring to reach 160+, which was always going to be a tough ask for RR.

And when Smith went early, I was still hopeful that Quiney would play an innings of sorts. But he seems to stay on the back foot a bit too much. The rest of the RR innings desperately looked for inspiration which sadly was not there.

Balaji got in with a good spell and picked up wickets and that was that.