Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper Anil Kumble walked into the post-match press briefing looking like an ominous thundercloud ready to burst.
Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper Anil Kumble walked into the post-match press briefing looking like an ominous thundercloud ready to burst. Some rather indifferent bowling followed by even more pathetic batting had left his side adrift of the Delhi Daredevils total by 37 runs. He also wasn't particularly impressed by the Ferozshah Kotla pitch. "We gave away 20-25 runs too many," he said. "On a pitch like this, 150-160 is chaseable but 185 are just too many."
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Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper Anil Kumble fails to stop the ball off his own bowling against Delhi Daredevils at the Ferozshah Kotla last night. PIC: IPL/Getty Images |
It seems that the old nemesis of teams batting second on most Indian tracks, more so in Delhi, is returning to haunt them. "The toss becomes crucial on a track like this," said Kumble. "This is not really an ideal Twenty20 pitch."
It was always going to be tough chasing 184 on this pitch, given that once Delhi skipper Gautam Gambhir had called correctly, again. Delhi seems to be blessed with a plethora of batters, who seem to take turns to make the opposition pay. Sometimes it is Gambhir himself, at other times David Warner takes up the cudgels. This time around it was the turn of Paul Collingwood.
"Collingwood is a great asset to the side," said his captain Gambhir, appearing before the media for the first time in Delhi. "He can graft when he wants to, while he can also play as aggressively as he did today. Also, he adds a dimension to the bowling. If one of your five bowlers is having an off day, he can always be utilised."
But it wasn't Collingwood's bowling that was on display last evening. After Warner and Virender Sehwag had clunked a few around the park, Delhi seemed to be losing steam a bit. But Collingwood wasn't one to let things roll on mundanely. His terrific innings of 75 with seven sixes, most of them the short-arm pull flying over mid-wicket, made bowling to him a near impossible job.
The Bangalore bowlers weren't sensational but they were not as bad as the score made them out to be. Collingwood's ability to change the length of the ball by stepping out was something they couldn't really adapt to and all of them got the stick at some time or the other.
Bowling bump"We didn't bowl too well," Kumble however said. "Also, a couple of catches fell short of fielders. But we could have made a better fist of it."
It is the batting that was Bangalore's stronger weapon, as it has been over the entire tournament. But the utilisation of Cameron White up the order did not really work out and the lack of bounce and pace off the pitch made the rest of the attempts more of a hit and miss kind of effort.
Kumble had issues about the batting and it may well be that Rahul Dravid, possibly technically the most perfect of the batters in the side, may well come up the order in future. "We used White up the order and Ross Taylor also did a good job. But we have to rethink about using Rahul up the order. We can't have a Robin (Uthappa) or a Taylor bailing you out all the time."
Gambhir's secret weapon is to "win the toss, I guess", as the skipper put it. "Winning the toss always helps. We know that if we put up 180-185, we have the kind of bowling that can make chasing the total extremely difficult. Rajat (Bhatia) bowled a brilliant spell today. We played some very good cricket," he said.
