Date : 4/12/10
Bangalore/Calcutta : The talking point on Sunday wasn’t the Kings XI Punjab’s upset win over the Delhi DareDevils, but Sourav Ganguly’s blast after the Kolkata Knight Riders got slain in Bangalore.
The Bofors-like treatment may either spur the Knights on to produce their best cricket, against the Chennai SuperKings, on Tuesday, or send morale crashing further.
It’s rare for top guns to give their players such a tongue lashing in public, but one can appreciate Sourav’s frustration. To be beaten black-and-blue after 100 for one in the 11th over would be difficult for most captains to accept.
Certainly not one whose passion is never concealed.
“We suffered a big loss (by seven wickets, with almost three overs to spare)... Some emotions were shown, which is perfectly understandable,” the Knights’ coach, Dav Whatmore, told The Telegraph.
Speaking before leaving for Chennai, he added: “It’s not a blame game (situation)... The way forward is to improve in the areas we didn’t do well against the Royal Challengers Bangalore...
“We should definitely have got more than 160 for nine... We ought to have bowled much better and, yes, been far better in the field, too. Having said all that, Bangalore played very well.”
Whatmore emphasised that his bowlers needed to bowl “enough good balls.” As he put it: “Good balls may get hit, that has to be understood... The point, really, is bowling a high percentage of good balls... We just didn’t do that...”
Ashok Dinda was again impressive, but everybody else got clobbered. Ishant Sharma and Ajantha Mendis were the biggest culprits.
Clearly, their profligacy left Sourav incensed, prompting him to declare: “I can talk, lift them up, but they need to lift themselves.”
That bit was rather restrained. What wasn’t went as follows: “We played good cricket for the first 10 overs, but for the next 30 (actually 27.1), were absolutely rubbish... If we continue this way, then we don’t deserve to be in the semi-finals...”
To entertain hopes of making that stage in IPL III, the Knights have to win all the three matches which remain. “Well, yes, it has got tougher,” Whatmore acknowledged.
What’s perplexing is that a place isn’t there for Shane Bond in every match. Having invested so much — $750,000 being the publicised amount — the franchise should, ideally, be looking to squeeze every cent out of him.
Also, the quality of the domestic players is being questioned for the umpteenth time.
The role of Wasim Akram, the bowling coach-cum-mentor, too, is under the scanner in some quarters. It wasn’t many days ago that the bowlers failed to defend even 200 and, on Saturday, came the appalling show in Bangalore.
To be fair to Akram, he can’t bowl for the Ishants.
Bought for $950,000 in the first auction, in 2008, Ishant is yet to script a match-winning performance. Indeed, in 31 appearances over three seasons, the quick has managed no more than 25 wickets.
Once the hottest property among new-ball bowlers, Ishant is today sans all confidence.
The Royal Challengers, by the way, were relieved they didn’t have to chase, say, 181. A senior pro explained: “Twenty more may not look that many, but it changes the mood in the dressing room... Believe me, it’s a significant jump in a T20 match.”
While on the Royal Challengers, Ranganath Vinay Kumar walked away with the MoM award and Robin Uthappa truly sizzled, but no less a hero was the utterly classy Rahul Dravid.
No surprise, then, that Dravid was besieged for autographs and photographs during a very late meal, with a couple of friends from Calcutta, at the ITC Royal Gardenia’s Cubbon Pavilion.
“T20 is to be enjoyed,” Dravid pointed out, tucking into an Indonesian preparation. A packed house at the Chinnaswamy certainly did.
Dravid, incidentally, clarified that he isn’t on Twitter. Somebody, therefore, is misusing his name.
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