The champions of the IPL 2010, Chennai Super Kings, are all set to take their winning streak from the IPL to the next big thing; the Champions League T20. The venue South Africa, where each of these top-ranked teams from other cricketing nations will lock horns with each other to become the champions in the domestic T20 arena. The “Men in Yellow” looked in good form throughout the IPL. But, the important factor here would be to carry it in this event as well. Improvement in certain areas cannot be ignored in case of the Kings and has to be handled well. Bowling and fielding in particular, has to be taken care as they cannot manage to go on with the same mistakes that they did earlier in the league.
The squad chosen for the tour is balanced consisting of the right amount of bowlers and batsmen required. A major disappointment for the Super Kings is the absence of Andrew Flintoff. The England all-rounder had to pull out of the tournament following aggravation of the knee injury that has cut short his comeback into the side. Another thing to be noted is the absence of an additional wicket-keeper and batsman in Parthiv Patel and other players like Abhinav Mukund, Thissara Parera and Sudeep Tyagi too.
As mentioned, the team will miss the contributions of Freddie Flintoff, but players like Raina, Dhoni, Bollinger, and Muralitharan will prove to be very effective match winners. The 32-year old Flintoff, who was bought by the Chennai Super Kings for a record USD 1.5 Million at the 2009 player auction, played only three matches last year before flying home to tend to the torn meniscus in his right knee. The Super Kings are in Group A of the 10-team competition that will be played on a league-cum-knockout basis. They will take on the Central Stags (New Zealand) in their first encounter.
The squad chosen for the tour is balanced consisting of the right amount of bowlers and batsmen required. A major disappointment for the Super Kings is the absence of Andrew Flintoff. The England all-rounder had to pull out of the tournament following aggravation of the knee injury that has cut short his comeback into the side. Another thing to be noted is the absence of an additional wicket-keeper and batsman in Parthiv Patel and other players like Abhinav Mukund, Thissara Parera and Sudeep Tyagi too.
As mentioned, the team will miss the contributions of Freddie Flintoff, but players like Raina, Dhoni, Bollinger, and Muralitharan will prove to be very effective match winners. The 32-year old Flintoff, who was bought by the Chennai Super Kings for a record USD 1.5 Million at the 2009 player auction, played only three matches last year before flying home to tend to the torn meniscus in his right knee. The Super Kings are in Group A of the 10-team competition that will be played on a league-cum-knockout basis. They will take on the Central Stags (New Zealand) in their first encounter.
All in all, it looks to be very balanced team “on paper”. The plans and their execution have to be perfect for them to make it to the top. It is a wonderful team, and to be the champions they have players with the likes of Hussey, M.S. Dhoni, Suresh Raina and bowlers like Doug Bollinger, Shadab Jakati who did really well in the last edition of the IPL. The only aspect that has to be taken into consideration is the “consistency” factor. Talent is not the only thing required, but it is the work ethics required as well. If this part is taken care of, they would be a very strong contender for the championship this time around. Plans and strategies have all been made now. It is only to the execution part which would make a difference for the Super Kings, which I am sure, would work out in their favour. There have been flashes of great performances here and there, if those are converted into consistent ones, things will fall in place for them.
To conclude things in a nutshell, we can only keep our fingers crossed with the team that has been chosen. I do not say that the squad chosen is a bad one, but it has been proven since time immemorial that if a team has a good plan but fails in its execution, nothing seems to go their way in the matches they play. Let us be optimistic in this case and hope that it does not turn out that way and they put up a fantastic performance in the tournament.
The Chennai Super Kings team :
Mahendra Singh Dhoni (c & wk), Subramanian Badrinath, Murali Vijay, Suresh Raina, Ravichandran Ashwin, Shadab Jakati, Aniruddha Srikkanth, Lakshmipathy Balaji, Muttiah Muralitharan, Michael Hussey, Doug Bollinger, Thilan Thushara, Albie Morkel, Matthew Hayden, and Joginder Sharma.
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