Harsha Bhogle about Pune and dada

Before this year's IPL started, when the squads were more or less finalised but before replacements had been announced, I was part of a television programme where we had to analyse each of the 10 teams. My first reaction was that five teams had the capability to distance themselves from the rest and that one of those would probably miss out somewhere close to the final qualification. It is interesting now to look at that analysis in retrospect, and I can tell you that I got it completely wrong with one and have been pleasantly surprised by another.

My shortlist was Mumbai Indians, Chennai Super Kings and Kolkata Knight Riders as the top three, (not necessarily in that order) followed by Royal Challengers Bangalore and the Pune Warriors. But there is a difference between the players in a squad and the team that takes the field, and no analysis can that factor in. My prediction for Pune fell through there.

In their game against Mumbai on Wednesday, they had a very good top seven in Jesse Ryder, Graeme Smith, Robin Uthappa, Yuvraj Singh, Manish Pandey, Mithun Manhas and Abhishek Jhunjhunwala. And their bowling, with the consistent Alfonso Thomas, Jerome Taylor, Yuvraj, and two very impressive young Indian players, Shrikant Wagh and Rahul Sharma, was better than many in the tournament. Indeed I will be surprised if both Wagh and Sharma aren't already on the selectors' radar.

And yet Pune came apart. They didn't look like they were competing. They had the players to take them far but I'm not sure they had the team.

And much as I am a fan of Sourav Ganguly it baffled me that they went for him so late in the tournament. When you pick a player of the stature of Ganguly, you have to play him. If you wait for him to get into rhythm there may not be enough time left. Or else you've picked him to increase your fan base, give the team and the supporters something to cheer about. Instead, Ganguly hit a few balls and sat by himself in the players' dugout for a while.

Now it is too late for him to make an impact, though Pune could aspire to be the team whom others don't want to play for fear of an upset.

The Rajasthan Royals, on the other hand, beset with problems before the tournament began, have been refreshingly positive. No team has made more out of the available resources than they have. They have two match-winners in the squad in Ross Taylor and Shane Watson, two senior legends in support in Rahul Dravid and Shane Warne, and an astoundingly expensive Johan Botha. The rest are youngsters with promise - some pedigree but largely unproven at a level above which they are currently playing.

But Warne has managed to turn Ashok Menaria, Amit Singh and Siddharth Trivedi into decent performers. Even the stylish Ajinkya Rahane played a role in one of the games. Warne used either Dishant Yagnik or Amit Paunikar to keep wickets and got Botha to bat in the top order. Here is a side where everyone needs to play at his best if they are to have a chance to win. But win they do, certainly more often than anyone expected them to. And once again they have enriched the IPL.

While the players often rise to the occasion, a major part of the credit must go to an extraordinary man, who fills a side with self-belief. There is no more fascinating character in the IPL than Warne. The mind is still ticking and competitive, most days the fingers wrap themselves around the ball as they are intended to, and there isn't a moment when he lets the game drift. He is like the head of a guerrilla organisation that constantly surprises larger armies with skill and cunning.

I must confess, I feared for him in this year's IPL. I didn't want to see him hit around the park; you don't want to see legends reduced to that. Instead, he is high on the wicket-takers' list and has impressed Rahul Dravid with the fields he sets and the thought he puts into it. There is a chance Rajasthan will be in the top four.

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