Free Counter"
Dangerous game is about to begin". (Amitabh's Aankhen)
Both the team should consider themselves very lucky, happy, fortunate and satisfied for reaching the finale. Both the teams were at the rock bottom last year. Both the teams has went through a lot, but here they are competing for the top spot today.
If Deccan got the stars , Bangalore has the momentum. If Deccan's got Gilchrist, one of the top notch wicket-keeper, Bangalore got Mark Boucher who has the World Record in taking maximum number of catches behind the stumps.
If Deccan's got South African H.Gibbs, Bangalore got plenty of them starting with J.Kallis.
If Deccan's got Rohit Sharma, (Tomorrow's Sachin Tendulkar to be in Test Matches) then Bangalore got Manish Pandey(Tomorrow's Sachin Tendulkar in One-Dayers)
If Deccan got R.P.Singh, Bangalore got Praveen Kumar. (Both from UP, Swing Bowlers)
If Deccan got P.Ojha, Bangalore got World Class, Anil Kumble.
To Be Honest, There is very little which separates two teams. Both the team's got fighters. Both the team got stars. Both the team have Balance Team.
Bangalore however has a little winning streak going. In the first 5 games of IPL-2009, when Kevin Pietersen was leading Bangalore, they won only one game, and everyone thought that Bangalore is repeating their performance of last year and would be knock out of the competition.
While, Deccan during those early days had winning steak of 4 games. Winning 4 out of 4 games played was an unbelievable and awesome results for Deccan Chargers. However, they did not continue their performance throughout the competition. Actually they won only 4 games out of 10 and were barely reach the Semi-Final stage with the help of Net Run Rate.
Key Success of Deccan Chargers were due to Fidel Edwards in the beginning. Deccan had 2 good bowlers (R.P.Singh and P.Ojha) even last year but the difference was that Third Strike Bowler who could give them the edge and in came Edwards. Deccan has comparatively, better Batting Side then the Bowling Side. Gilchrist, Gibbs, Symonds, R.Sharma are four key performers. Its very difficult for opposition to take 4 wickets in 10 overs and highly unlikely that all four of them are going to fail. Out of those four , two of them are always going to score close to 40 runs and this will give them fighting score of 150. It is the emergence of T.Suman which helped them to reach those 170 which has helped them to reach Finals.
If Deccan came out with Suman, then Bangalore has Destiny's Child, Manish Pandey. Unlike everyone, I would not like to give all the credit to Anil Kumble. Surely he has helped the team to regroup, but it is the team which has performed throughout like they had nothing to loose. Even going in the Final, Bangalore would be underdog and Deccan would be favorite.
It would be very difficult for the likes of P.Kumar and V.Kumar to stop Gilchrist and Gibbs at the beginning and if they fail to take them out in the first 4 overs, The game would be over for them. Because from that point onwards, Deccan would be always looking to score beyond 160 and if the score is above 160, Bangalore would fell short by 10 runs or so. Bangalore's batting line up, includes, Kallis/R.Dravid/V.Kohli/Van Der Merve etc which are suited for the game which has score under 160. They would struggle if the score is beyond 160 and then would have to rely heavily on Ross Taylor and Manish Pandey/Uthappa.
While, Deccan Chargers, even if they are chasing 170, and loose either Gilchrist or Gibbs, have R.Sharma to fall back on and then Symonds.
All in all, We are up for one exciting final, and my money would be on Deccan Chargers.
