Humdinger (or how I lost the battle but won the war)

Thursday was election day in Karnataka. Well, not in all constituencies, but in 17 of the maximum 28. I voted sometime around noon, after having returned home from a ceremony of a close family friend. A heavy lunch lulled me into a steady slumber, broken only by another invitation. This time, from a friend who wanted to go shopping for his bro's wedding, due next week. 

So, I proceeded to his house around 4:15 PM, by which time, the match between Delhi and Chennai was already underway. I was a bit stunned to discover Delhi's rampaging opening pair Sehwag and Gambhir had fallen cheaply, though, Dilshan and de Villiers were slowly and surely going about the repair job. AB unleashed the pyrotechnics to become the first centurion of IPL 2009 and in the process, made Freddie Flintoff look like a league bowler (4-0-50-0 is rather flat, even for a domestic player). While it may be worth gushing over his fine technique of masterly destruction (as per this article), I don't think it as a real revelation. For one, AB has been in fine form, starting from the time he scored that priceless 106 not out in Perth last December, helping South Africa to a stunning victory. Secondly, Dhoni's bowling selections seemed a bit erratic, preferring the quicker Flintoff when a recourse to a slower option would have been more sensible, given the effectiveness provided by spinners and slow medium-pacers in this edition. 

In any case, Chennai tore off the blocks in their reply and the match appeared to be heading towards them, with Hayden reeling one booming hit after another. After he fell for an uncharacteristic loose shot, I thought Delhi regrouped themselves exceedingly well and held their nerves in a very tight finish. Despite the early scare for their bowlers, Delhi will feel mighty proud of this performance, as their middle order was tested for the first time (and came out with flying colors) and they demonstrated enough steel behind the silk to prevail.

I didn't see the second match completely as I had to run for shopping with my friends. But, when I returned home close to midnight, I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't over yet. Ganguly and Agarkar were batting, KKR had 5 to get in as many balls, and Ganguly had looked to sewn it in the bag when he took two of a jab towards short midwicket to leave KKR with an easy target of 2-in-2 deliveries. I was therefore taken aback when he tried to go for that wild hoick over covers only to edge behind, when common sense would have told to go for a quick tap-and-run to tie the match. And the drama only increased when KKR contrived to indeed tie the match, thus enforcing a result through the Super Over.

Now, as far as I could understand, this is how the result is decided through a Super Over:

1. Each team will nominate one bowler and three batsmen for the Super Over stage. Each team will have an inning lasting only one over. 
   
2. The team which batted second in the regulation time will bat first in the Super Over stage. 
   
3. The Super Over team is akin to a mini-knockout round, where the team batting first in this stage will try to score maximum possible runs in 6 legal deliveries and set a target for the team batting second. 
   
4. If the team batting first manages to get the team batting second within the target, then team batting first wins. If the team batting second overhauls the target, then the team batting second wins. 
   

Yusuf ensured that there would be no more hiccups to Rajasthan and smote Mendis to long-off, deep midwicket and backward square leg to bag the match for them. Truly, a fine comeback and yet another instance of the team batting second failing to win the match.

Despite all this, I don't quite understand the overbearing need to find a winner in the event of a tie. If I recall, some years ago, there was this rule that in the event of a tie in a proper ODI (lasting 50 overs), the team that lost fewer wickets in posting the total would be the winning team. This made good sense, as it not only showed up the relative batting strength of the winning team, but also the relative bowling strength as well. Why we can't implement this rule for T20, is beyond my comprehension.

And now, a short preview for Friday's match between Bangalore and Punjab. Both teams are clearly struggling, with Punjab yet to get off the mark, the only team in the competition with that "honor". Bangalore's batting problems are obvious, and as Punjab's bowling is limp with the absences of Sreesanth, Brett Lee and James Hopes, a possible batting powerhouse performance from Bangalore should not be taken too seriously. Punjab would look at batting first (despite having lost both their opening matches doing that) and look to set a strong total to put Bangalore's misfiring batters under pressure. Bangalore, on the other hand, would do well to heed their captain's advice: exploit the fielding restrictions more in the first 6 overs.