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IPL 2018 | May 22-25 | Play-offs | Discussion Thread

Dhoni is the major reason for CSK's success. Next is Raina who is their gun player. Even Gujarat Lions which had Dhoni reached IPL finals. CSK's decline comes when Dhoni (& Raina) goes out of it (after 2 to 3 years probably)
 
Had a great team in 2013 CT. Shikar, Rohit, Kohli,etc

Every team will look great after winning the tournament.But you can't possibly say that we had great team on paper before that CT started.Our bowling was not great(on paper and Ishant was still there) and Batting was also quite inexperience after dropping of Sehwag,Gambhir and Yuvi.

Same goes for T20WC 2007.No Sensible Indian would have called India as favourite for that T20WC Before the start of tournament.
 
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Every team will look great after winning the tournament.But you can't possibly say that we had great team on paper before that CT started.Our bowling was not great(on paper and Ishant was still there) and Batting was also quite inexperience after dropping of Sehwag,Gambhir and Yuvi.

Same goes for T20WC 2007.No Sensible Indian would have called India as favourite for that T20WC Before the start of tournament.

Agree, we did not have high hopes in 2013. Actually no one thought we will do so well. Rohit was just starting to open and had a pretty poor couple of years, Dhawan was untested and the fans had already branded him as a FTB. The bowling led by Ishant wasn't considered good enough to win in England.

The 2007 T20 WC, no one expected India to do well. Dhoni somehow got the best out of the inexperienced bunch. The bowling attack was Sreesanth, RP Singh, Irfan Pathan, Harbajan singh. Except for Pathan and Bajji, the other two were not that experienced and no one knew what to expect. Even India did not take the tournament seriously until they reached the second stage. I saw the hunger when we beat SA. That was one of the best bowling performances in LO format by Indian bowlers.
 
RR needs to use K Gowtham as a pinch hitter. If it clicks, RR will have more runs to play with.
 
Kohli had Watson, ABDV, Gayle. Dhoni had Palani Amarnath, Balaji and the likes still went to 2007 final. You cannot discount under Dhoni average guys perform a level above their capacity. I still remember how Ntini was clocking 146k in the first IPL final. They raise their game under Dhoni. It is a fact. That is why his team is able to pull off magic.
Kohli is the dumbest captain I have seen. Dhoni is far better than him.

Yes I agree players raise their game under Dhoni. Thats a only thing I really like in his captaincy.
 
That's ridiculous, you can say that for all the captains who were victorious. Coaching staff cannot help you with the tactics in the middle. Dhoni is a fantastic captain in the shorter formats, anyone who played under him have said so. Having great players does not automatically translate to success for team. Having so many great players also shows that Dhoni was a great man manager as well. Having Sachin, Yuvi, Bajji, Sehwag, Zaheer et all who all were seniors to him, he still held his own and captained India to great heights. I understand that Dhoni isn't the toast of the nation right now but putting him down and calling all his achievements were lucky is pretty ridiculous. In 2007 T20 WC and 2008 CB series, he was still a young player in the team and was mostly working with young players in the team and was able to win the games with great tactics and good strategy. Coaches can draw whatever on the board and send the players in, but the captain makes the call in the middle. If everything worked as planned in the dressing room, you don't need captains on the cricket field, people can just carry out the plans given to them by their coach and everything will be hunky dory.
Great tactics and good strategy? No I disagree.

Having great team really helps. Ponting had a great team most of his career. He won most of the games while he had great players, once they retired and his form went down, he looked very average as a captain.

You can’t give complete credit to Dhoni for all IPL success of CSK. Fleming and Raina should get as much credit as Dhoni.

This IPL season Rahane is the best Captain for me. I wouldn’t put Dhoni anywhere in top 4. But his team is in finals already. So many times they won due to individual brilliance in this season. Bravo, billing, raidu, faf, he himself. That’s 5 games. One false shot of those players would have turned all those 5 wins into 5 losses.
 
Agree, we did not have high hopes in 2013. Actually no one thought we will do so well. Rohit was just starting to open and had a pretty poor couple of years, Dhawan was untested and the fans had already branded him as a FTB. The bowling led by Ishant wasn't considered good enough to win in England.

The 2007 T20 WC, no one expected India to do well. Dhoni somehow got the best out of the inexperienced bunch. The bowling attack was Sreesanth, RP Singh, Irfan Pathan, Harbajan singh. Except for Pathan and Bajji, the other two were not that experienced and no one knew what to expect. Even India did not take the tournament seriously until they reached the second stage. I saw the hunger when we beat SA. That was one of the best bowling performances in LO format by Indian bowlers.

Yep and not to forget Joginder Sharma who bowled match-winning last over in the final and semifinal of that WC.

At the end of the day,Being great in getting the best out of the players is what seperates good captains from the rest.
 
KKR chocking big time! SRH has better chance against RR... RR winning the trophy will be a huge achievement (total underdogs!) Anyhow the match is not over as yet. Chasing is going to be equally tough and KKR bat deep like CSK
 
Still the danger man Gopal has not arrived... 2 quality spinners is a must it looks in the IPL... RR seems best at that (they have 3) most others have 1 or 2 maximum. RR understood the ploy!
 
We can have a proper RCB team:

Rahul
Gayle
Uthappa
ABD
K.Nair
Pandey
Binny
K.Gowtham
S.Gopal
M.Starc
T.Southee
 
The momentum is with KKR now... That's because probably DK led his team from the front compared to Rahane... Rahane cannot chase 160+ target even in his dreams!
 
What a selfish performance, no excuse being 4 down and not able to Chase and missing the mark by 25 runs.
 
How did RR make it this far? Such a weak batting line up.

Rahane, Klaasen and Binny were poor.
 
KKR win. A vital contribution by the MVP of franchise cricket.

Think KKR will beat SRH.
 
1)Looks like another match losing knock from the greatest match loser in the history of Limited overs cricket.I still can't believe that Rahane has been part of our LOI team since 2014.He played in 2014 T20 WC,2015 WC and then 2016 T20 WC and was also part of 2017 CT squad.Probably he is one of the major reason why our ODI Batting standard has declined ever since his inclusion in the squad

I hope one day he will become as good as Azhar ali.To put things in perspective,Both Azhar and Rahane have consistently been part of Pakistan and India batting lineup in ODIs.And Azhar is considered as dud ODI batsmen for Pakistan but still he has done better than Rahane in ODIs.The Same Pakistan batting lineup which Indians make fun of.

2)Unadkat is leading contender for the worst Player of this year IPL.He is poor man's Mustafizur rehman.

He played all matches for RR and his best performance was with bat where he scored 20 odd runs.

Unadkat is without doubt the worst buy of this year IPL.(almost 2 mil for this guy)

Next worst buys are Maxwell and Stokes.
 
KKR won the toss, SRH batting first. Lots of changes from both sides.
 
SRH playing like a minnow today... They have declined consistently... Only their bowling can save for one last time...
 
One good over , and Required rate is down to 8 , now Kolkata need sensible batting from here onwards.
 
Rashid four overs will be critical , Kolkata must make sure he does not pick wickets , and try and get 20 runs.
 
TBH that was poor last over by Karlos Brathwait (?).. Giving length ball at ideal pace..
 
TBH that was poor last over by Karlos Brathwait (?).. Giving length ball at ideal pace..

He was lucky that batsmen facing him were relatively young and inexperienced.
Any other guy would have smacked those dollies into the stands.
 
And what a game Rashid Khan had.. 30 odd runs, 3 wickets, 1 run-out and 2 important catch in the last over.. One of the best all-round performance you ever see..
 
This game is only because of Rashid Khan kudos rashid khan great job buddy. Waiting to see him in Afghanistan test match.
 
This game is only because of Rashid Khan kudos rashid khan great job buddy. Waiting to see him in Afghanistan test match.

But nothing more known about Afghanistan batting (and also pacers). If he was playing for a top team, he would surely have ended up as a legend! You need a potent batting line up, team victories to boost a personal career & the interest to perform... Even West Indies players perform only in IPL and look pretty weak in international cricket (barring the WC T20 triumph). I hope Afghanistan gets talent in all departments and they are good at administration.
 
He was lucky that batsmen facing him were relatively young and inexperienced.
Any other guy would have smacked those dollies into the stands.

Well Shubman Gill did try, and see what happened to him.

But I agree. It was suicidal to give the last over to Braithwaite when Shakib still had one over left.

KW's guardian angel must have been working overtime.
 
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