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When a lot of things go into thinking about simple things, then basics are compromised and things get unnecessarily complicated. The innings of the Knight Riders resembled that of a ship which knew where it wanted to go but lost its way – with a captain who seems to have no idea how to read a compass.

The game of T20 is one which requires being constantly aggressive at one end while ensuring that hara-kiri is not committed on the other. This is not a game for solid, steady, sedate batting. This is not a game for puritans. This is a game where a defensive mindset almost invariably will ensure defeat. Ganguly’s emphasis on keeping wickets intact for the first half of the innings does have merit. But the underlying assumption on that would be that the team scores at a brisk pace during the middle overs finally leading to an insurmountable assault in the slog overs. Unfortunately, the fear of losing crucial batsmen has bogged down Ganguly so much that Chris Gayle played an innings which appeared to have been played by his shadow. Maybe, he left his ‘mongoose’ at Jamaica.

The Knights made two interesting changes which defied all logic and thought. They dropped Hodge and Tiwary and got in Mandeep Singh and Harpreet Singh. In a team, where there is a dearth of stroke-players, the exclusion of Tiwary is surprising, considering only him having shown some sort of ability to hit. With a start of 42 without loss after 6 overs, the expectation would be that someone would cut loose. Instead we were subjected to another round of absolutely torrid batting where fulltosses were hit straight to fielders and no innovation was seen in the batting.

The less said about the Riders’ bowling, the better. While Mumbai showed how to come up with yorkers and slower deliveries repeatedly, the Knights bowled short and wide and deserved every bit of the treatment meted out by Tendulkar and Co. It is time that Ishant Sharma understood that fast bowling is as much about brains as about brawns. Strangely, the bowling coach of KKR has been one of the best exponents of the art of fast bowling in world cricket. Maybe, Ganguly can place a request to Modi to allow Wasim to take the field in place of Ishant. The result would assuredly be many times better!

155 were never enough from the beginning. It needed two blitzy innings. And that was what happened. Tendulkar, possibly in the form of his life, ensured that Mumbai came within striking distance from where it would just be a matter of sensible batting. Sachin paced his innings to perfection. He slapped out Ishant whenever it was pitched short, which was about all the time, and one straight drive in the second over and three front-foot pulls thereafter showed why he is considered one of the greatest ever to stand with a willow in his hand. 

There was a time in the middle overs when Kartik and Mathews squeezed Mumbai and Kartik did have the chance of turning the match when the score read 70 for 1. He dropped the match – a simple caught and bowled of Sachin. With 80 still required off the last 10 overs, it could have gone down the wire. 

KKR is more or less out of the reckoning for a semi-final berth, if ever they had a chance. It’s a shame, that India’s most successful captain finally has fallen prey to the very thing he taught his team to denounce – the fear of defeat. Adios Sourav! IPL was never meant to be for you.