For heaven's sake someone stop the "unstoppables" from losing

I am back to writing about cricket. With IPL going on, no one can escape the excitement and above all .....the discussions and analysis. Unlike most people, I do not have a favorite team in IPL. All the Indian cricket stars whom I like are scattered in different teams. I want Sachin to do well but have no attachment with the Mumbai team. I want Viru to do well but do not care about the Delhi team. But there is one team.....with whom I am bound to be a little attached. And that team is Hyderabad, aka Deccan Chargers!!!

When this team was picked, everyone (including yours truly) was of the opinion that it is one of the strongest teams. It has some great strokemakers, essential for the 20-20 format of the game. Deccan Chronicle spent crores for creating the team and a quick glance upon the squad suggested that we have a winner!!! And then the tournament started. Deccan Chargers have played three games till now and......hayeeelaaaa.....they have lost all three!!!!

The owners of the team probably did not realise that there is a cap on the number of foreign players playing in a game. There cannot be more than 4 foreign players in the playing eleven. That makes it very crucial that the remaining 7 Indian players are pretty good or atleast...up to the mark. That is where the Deccan Chargers are struggling. They have big names like Andrew Symonds, Adam Gilchrist, Shahid Afridi, Herschelle Gibbs, Chaminda Vaas, Scott Styris, Nowan Zoysa and Chamara Silva but they can play only four of them. Apart from these big guns, Chargers have players like Venugopal Rao, VVS Laxman....and some legendary unknown fellas!!! I like Laxman's batting but in test matches. He should not even step on a cricket ground in colored uniform. 20-20 is a game about power-hitting, slogging, keeping the momentum going.....there is no place for "class". I could not even believe my eyes when in the first encounter Venugopal Rao opened with Gilchrist and then Laxman came on number 3!!!! The game was lost there itself!!!! The strategy was wrong and thankfully they tweaked it in the third game by dropping Rao. But it was not sufficient as Laxman promoted himself to the opening slot. Chargers will do their campaign a world of good by promoting Shahid Afridi to the opening slot. Look at the Delhi team. In the two matches that they have played so far, the number four batsman has not batted. In a 20-20 game, you have got to start with your best players and there should not be a need for your number 5 or 6 batsman to come to the crease.

Apart from making errors in the selection of the playing eleven, Laxman has also been far from impressive as a captain. In the first game against Kolkata, Laxman did not try to stop the singles. In a low scoring match, Laxman should have attacked the opposition. In the end, Kolkata trotted home quite easily. Then in the third match against Jaipur, Laxman made a blunder by giving the last over to Symonds. The opposition requires 19 runs off the last over and you hand over the ball to a bowler who had been taken for 28 runs off 2 overs. Moreover, Symonds's bowling had contributed to it's loss against Kolkata and he gave 30 runs in an over (Viru Zindabad) against Delhi!!!! Such historical events will make anyone apprehensive but not Laxman. Laxman was riding on complacency and that gave the Chargers the third loss in a row.

There is still a lot of cricket to be played in the tournament but if the Chargers have to do something worthwhile, they will have to sort out several things. Hopefully, they will be able to turn things around in time.