IPL 2016: Rising Super Giants (RSG) vs Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH)

What a victory for RSG and sir M. S. Dhoni importantly. Excellent bowling performance by RSG bowling unit especially Dinda who gave a flying start by picking up the key-man of SRH David Warner. In a pre-match session Murali Kartik said that R. Ashwin has not performed well because Dhoni as a captain failed to make him feel important. I want to ask Murali Kartik one question, if R. Ashwin is the wife of M. S. Dhoni? I mean why does Dhoni has to make him feel important? Isn’t it best enough that R. Ashwin is a member of best 11? Did Dhoni gave any partial treatment to him compared to others? R. Ashwin failed to bowl to the satisfaction of Dhoni as a captain and it is good enough reason for a captain not to give complete quota of overs to R. Ashwin. In the post match session Mr. Murali Kartik said RSG needed illusive victory. I think Murali Kartik meant to say convincing or snatching or decisive victory. I wonder why Harsha Bhogale is not part of the team making presentation.

Well it was certainly the best performance by M. S. Dhoni’s unit so far in this IPL.  And most important, their performance was good enough to satisfy Duckworth-Lewis equation!!! Of course RSG tried best from the beginning of the game to stay on the top of the run rate.

I think Dinda could have done little better in his last over had he tried to attack Bhuvaneshwar Kumar in his ribs as Bhuvaneshwar Kumar looked quite comfortable with the full pitched deliveries since the time he had walked in.

Steve Smith, such a pleasant sight to see Steve finally performing at his ease.

Faf du Plessis, what a reliable performance one more time from you for RSG.  Cheers!

I think may be RSG could do better by dropping R. Ashwin especially when opponents don’t have many left handed batsmen in the squad.

Sir Dhoni, you certainly made my evening pleasant and cheerful! All the best!

IPL 2016: Sir M. S. Dhoni (RSG)

I am kind of compelled to write today due to my faith in Sir M. S. Dhoni and the phase through which he has gone through in the ongoing IPL so far. It was not pleasant sight to see Dhoni during the presentation ceremony after that match with Gujarat Lions. One thing all Dhoni followers and India must understand that his team of Chennai Super Kings (CSK) which had consistently performed well in the prior IPL tournaments does not exist and has been split. Thus he has been left with new squad which would be expected to take its time to perform. Thus two teams are quite young in this IPL tournament viz. Gujarat Lions and Rising Super Giants. Looking at Gujarat Lions the side looks to be quite balanced especially due to McCullum, Finch, Bravo, Raina, Jadeja all are performing quite good and well supported by the rest of the squad. In the case of RSG I felt that they have got the right combination now that after KP got injured and got replaced by Albie Morkel. Despite this RSG failed to perform to bring victory home in its match against KKR. The reasons I felt was Ashwin looked helpless with his two overs. M. Ashwin and the other left arm spinner could have tried to bowl round the wicket, maintaining stump attack while ball was spinning well and the wicket was also quite dry. It is always difficult for the right handed batsman to hit the ball pitching on the left corner or sometimes outside the peripheral vision. ***Also Albie Morkel could have kept batsmen surprising by changing the length rather trying to bowl full pitch to get wicket, especially considering that conditions were not in favor of swing bowling***. RSG could have tried to build the pressure on the KKR with the increasing required run rate. Still I would like to give RSG a credit for the first match with the new UNIT/ TEAM. Only message I have for Sir M S Dhoni is that we would like to see his team making strong come back from this moment in this IPL. My best wishes to RSG.