One thing Adam Gilchrist and co of the Deccan Chargers, Hyderbad can be happy of is that the DLF IPL (Inconsolable Premier League) is over. Very Very Special Laxman may have faced only the initial part of the drubbing, but the captain nor his deputy could give anything special. So much so that they couldn't register a win at home and skipper Gilchrist had to apologise for his undefined crime to the home crowd, which was spirited enough to attend their last match in search of some last repsite. Gilly accepted the harsh truth that their skills needed to be polished ( and it doesn't take a genius to realise that he meant the play during the final overs of batting). Many a time, 3 or 4 matches to my knowledge, they have squandered good starts to end up only in the region of 140-150.
It all seems as a season destined to go wrong, when after getting into a fighting chance in their opener against kolkata, they had to make a return after lights went out. Even though getting an eye back in is more difficult for batsmen, the bowlers lost some momentum too as Ojha pushed a couple of wides. Then came traumatic ends, with andrew symonds being plundered by Virender Sehwag for 30 runs, and Shane Warne and Mohammed Kaif for 15 runs to bring about more losses. Then for a change Mumbai were drubbed by Gilly's 42 ball 100 as they lost by10 wickets in the fallout of Harbhajan's slapgate. Thier next and final victory came against Chennai where too Gilly's 50 set it up. Expected to improve from thereon, everything other than that happened.
It can be seen how bad its gone as the then bottom-sitters Bangalore managed a double on them.
Everyone knows that the bowling was the weak link. Chaminda Vaas couldn't produce the same effect as Shaun Pollock for Mumbai. The same comparison can be made of Scott Styris (who had played 45 t20's prior to IPL) and Dwayne Bravo, and also Herschelle Gibbs and Sanath Jayasuriya as far as batting is concerned. But despite the claims of bowling falling short RP Singh was always in the hunt for the purple cap and Ojha has 11 wickets in 13 games and has been quite impressive. Paidakalva Vijaykumar along with RP Singh has been Gilly's death overs man in the past couple of games. It was still nice to see Gilly encouraging him after Vijay completed a 8 run 19th over despite 3 wides. The experience will be very valuable for Vijay.
The other star for them in the IPL was Rohit Sharma. Hailed as the heir to Sachin Tendulkar, Sharma lived up to it with the kind of clean striking and sensible control of aggression. He is their leading run scorer and donned the orange cap once. VVS Laxman compiled a couple of 50's after he promoted himself to opening to give time for himself and gave great pleasure with the flowing strokeplay he is attributed with. Venugopal Rao flunked at the opening slot, but played some near-match-winning innings against kolkata, and also the following games. He has proved to be able to switch on perfectly. Possibly he'll find himself back in the indian squad after just one series in 2005 against Sri Lanka. But the big blow package, Shahid Afridi, blew up big time. Save 2 innings against Chennai and Mumbai of 20 n.o. and 33, others seemed very immature and turned into losses which could've been victory had he made more thought. He is the biggest culprit for me, but as all know thats the way Boom-Boom plays.
But the agony is over and as Gilly once again said, the most difficult time could be from now if they have to stand any chance of avoiding this again. Plenty of work to do before the next edition. Every detail of their play need to restudied, lot of skill honing to be done. But the biggest challenge will be to recover from this holocaust, especially for Gilly who's never experienced this kind of defeat streak in his career. But after all, he is Gilly, who is well known to rise to challenges and perform when least expected. And VVS, Gibbs etc are pro's and they should be able to correct things around. Hopefully VVS and Gilly, will ensure that VVS stays as ' very very special'
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