LORD OF THE MINDS

And its not to the tune of music. I mean I do dance to music. Whenever I have been to discos, I have not been on the sidelines watching the pretty babes dancing but actually been shaking a leg or two with them (although I must say I am a pretty bad dancer, though better than Sreesanth). But I just couldn't fathom a better, more fitting name than this. The Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) had won their second consecutive match in the Indian Premier League Season 2. They had defeated the Rajasthan Royals (which the Fake IPL Player calls Big Sister's team) ensuring that the defending champions bow out of the competition before the semi-finals. And this time too, the match went down to the wire.
And this time around the unlikely hero was Laxmi Ratan Shukla. And guess who was at the other end to provide support? Ajit Agarkar. Who would have imagined that? Especially after the departure of Hussey. It was a complete transformation. KKR had won this match without the batting prowess of McCullum, Hodge and Hussey. Wow! In one innings of 48 not out from 46 balls made under a pressure situation when KKR were down 5 wickets for just 37 runs, Shukla had shown what he was capable of.
But the victory also belonged to two other knights - Ajit Agarkar and Charl Langeveldt. Agarkar had scored an unbeaten 13 off 17 balls establishing a partnership with Shukla to see KKR through. He also clocked a bowling figures of 4-0-15-2 which means he bowled 4 overs taking 2 wickets for 15 runs giving 3.75 runs per over. Did he actually do that? I mean I will have to think hard to remember the last T20 match when Agarkar had conceded less than 6 runs per over and also taken wickets. And the other star was Langeveldt. Where had you hidden him Buchanan? He was outstanding in the match taking 3 wickets for 15 runs in his 4 overs. If only KKR had played him before!
But if you had to single out a comeback match, it had to be the previous one against Chennai Super Kings. CSK batsmen had again put up a fine performance piling up 188 runs off their 20 overs on the back of a superb knock by Suresh Raina and a cameo by Captain MS Dhoni and Morkel. Raina was particularly good smashing 3 sixes. And all that was done without Hayden (the orange cap owner) playing. KKR had started off poorly. Dada again departed early having been bowled by Murali for a mere 4 runs off 14 balls. From there McCullum took over. He smashed 81 off 24 balls studded with 11 fours and 3 sixes. He spared no bowler in his pursuit of showing everyone exactly what he and KKR batsmen were capable of. On the other side was Brad Hodge giving able company to his captain. When McCullum fell in the 13th over with the score at 124 having been bowled by Jakati, it looked like match over again for KKR. But Hodge had other ideas. He lost Hussey to a totally foolish run out but found a partner in Saha. Together they went on to put up a match winning partnership of 56 runs of 28 balls.
What struck me in both the victories was the never-say-die attitude of the KKR team. An attitude which I and all other KKR fans had been looking for from the very start of the tournament. An attitude which we thought they had forgotten having lost so many close and not so close matches. Both the above matches were chases. The first one was a big one and the second a small one. In both the cases, while chasing they were in dire straits at a point. A point where it looked as if we were going to see the now-very-familiar KKR debacle. But they had come out of the predicament. First match via Hodge and Saha and the second one via Shukla and Agarkar. Too good! This is what I had been dying to see. When KKR won the match against CSK, I was in my hotel room in Ooty with my brother. We both danced and shouted at the top of our voices. So much so that all the other boarders understood that there were KKR fans in room 101. But when they won against Rajasthan Royals, I was at home dancing alone. I had said that if Kolkata Knight Riders would go on to win the tournament, I would dance on the streets of Chowringhee with Shah Rukh Khan and the other fans to the tune of করব লরব জীতব ের (Korbo Lorbo Jeetbo Re - the theme song of Kolkata Knight Riders). Well, that didn't happen. But after both the victories, somehow I could hear করব লরব জীতব ের playing in the background and I did dance to it.


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Yesterday, while watching the Indian Premier League (IPL) coverage on television, I couldn't help but ponder on the fact that how brittle the Kolkata Knight Riders' team looked in totality. Kolkata Knight Riders had just won their match against the 'injured' King's XI Punjab via the Duckworth-Lewis method and they were showing Mandira bedi's interview of Shah Rukh Khan (SRK), the owner of the Kolkata Knight Riders team. One loss and one win from two matches. According to SRK, it wasn't bad. The team started slow on the first day against Deccan Chargers. Deccan Chargers looked the hungrier side. He defended his team beautifully setting the multiple captaincy saga, Gavaskar lash behind. He can be excused for that. After all, I can imagine what amount of hate mail he must have got when Sourav Ganguly a.k.a. Dada was removed from captaincy. But when he said that his dream was to bring the IPL trophy home to Kolkata, was he really serious?
Don't get me wrong! I have my loyalties set correctly. My heart is for the KKR team. I have the KKR wallpaper on my laptop wallpaper. I have the KKR theme on my orkut profile. I listen to the 'Korbo Lorbo Jeetbo' song on television atleast once a day with much pride. I follow KKR on twitter. I plan to buy the official t-shirt too. When any discussion comes up over the team, I defend it religiously. But then the mind does not believe in the team. It would definitely bet upon Delhi, Mumbai or Chennai for that matter for the IPL '09 trophy.
And why wouldn't it do so? Okay they won their match against the Punjab team. Veer's team had defeated Zaara's team. And Zaara would surely not be kissing or hugging Yuvi last night. But was the manner convincing? I mean just look at the stats. It was a 2-man show for Kolkata. While bowling, it was a beauty of an over from Dada that got us 2 wickets in quick succession and stemmed the start. If he had not done that, then Punjab would have scored above 180 and the match would have slipped. And while batting, it was Gayle. His whirlwhind 44 which included 4 sixes and the rate at which he hit made sure we were ahead on RR and thus put us through when the D/L method came into effect. Now look closely into the bowling statistics and you would find a lot of mistakes. When you have a specialist spinner in Murali Karthik why bowl him for only one over and Shukla for 2 overs? Was Karthik picked up as a bowler or an all-rounder? I don't have much knowledge about the stats but I certainly can say that Karthik's batting is not something you would bet upon to win you matches.
Now lets come to the batting. It has always been said that to succeed in IPL, you need the local lads to fire. Depending totally on foreign imports is like playing with fire. Most of them don't stay up for the entire tournament and then you have the cap of playing only 4 per match. KKR's batting totally depends on the foreigners. If Gayle and McCullum both don't fire on the night, the brittle middle order gets exposed badly. And we don't have any tried-and-tested consistent performer in there. Sure we have Dada. But let's be realistic. Can you really depend that much on him now that he does not play for Team India anymore? And this fact was heavily exposed in the match against Deccan Chargers. You have a Brad Hodge there to bail you out at times but then again he is a foreign import and you have the max 4 foreigners playing criteria. So can you be totally confident with this team?
Having said all this, last night's victory also told us a few things. Firstly, you don't need to have a team effort to win matches. How many of the T20 matches have actually been team effort victories? Secondly, you need just one or two members in the team to fire and that's it. You are done. Unfortunately, the Kolkata Knight Riders seem to be heavily banking on this. I too share the dream with SRK to see the IPL trophy come to Kolkata. I too would like to dance 'Korbo Lorbo Jeetbo' on the streets of Chowringhee when we have the victory lap. But its a dream which needs to be heavily worked upon and a dream which does not look to be fulfilled in this edition of the Indian Premier League.

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