Indian Premier League 2 : IPL 2 : IPL 2009

MUMBAI: It’s rare that Sachin Tendulkar loses his cool. But on Wednesday after the loss against Team Mohali, the batting maestro was livid. It’s just that only those in the dressing room felt the heat of his anger. Tendulkar wasn’t just dismayed by his teammates who messed up a super chance to inch closer to the IPL semifinal spot but was also cheesed off by the decisions of the third umpire Suresh Shastri, who according to the Mumbai Indians “goofed-up big time”.

“There seems to be something fishy, how can he be targeting us all the time. Most of his run-out calls were
ridiculous”, said a member of the team management.

On his part, Tendulkar himself chose to be diplomatic. “ICC regulations do not allow us to comment but yes, everyone has seen how the decisions (third umpire’s) went. Obviously, it does hurt when such things happen but the whole world has seen the decisions and the whole world has watched which way they went. I’m not trying to indicate anything to anyone but had the run-outs not happened we would’ve got those extra runs and won,” said Tendulkar after the game.

When asked if he will take up the matter with the authorities, he said, “We’ll leave it to the team management if they want to do anything about it.”

According to team sources, Mumbai Indians felt that they had been done-in in three of the four run-outs including the one where Luke Pomersbach was given the benefit of doubt when a throw from the deep directly hit the stumps.

The second big error, according to the team, was when Piyush Chawla apparently missed to rip the bails off in first attempt when trying to run out Dwayne Smith. “We were shocked to see the screen flashing ‘Run Out’. In fact, we initially thought it was a mistake,” said the source.

In fact, there was more anger directed against Shastri. “It was the same umpire who refused to call a bouncer even when a bowler bowled four consecutive one against us in our game against Delhi Daredevils,” recalled a team management member.

Delhi Daredevils will look to take revenge as well as alive their chances of making it to the last four when they will take on Kolkata Knight Riders at Feroz Shah Kotla stadium in the 47^th match of IPL twenty20.

So far only two teams has cemented their place in the last four and the battle for third and fourth place is now open after the loss of Chennai Super Kings against Royal Challengers Bangalore and Mumbai Indians loss against Kings XI Punjab.

Kolkata Knight Riders chances of making into the semi finals is difficult but not impossible, if they were able to win their remaining matches and if others team lost their remaining matches then they will still go through. However first they must win their matches to give them outside chance to making it to the Semi Finals.

Delhi Daredevils have two dashing openers and they are in prime form so once again all depends on how V. Sehwag and G. Gambhir will play. Since we have seen whenever these two failed to deliver Delhi Daredevils have lost the match. On the other hand Kolkata Knight Riders has big problem at their top orders and they didn’t get the start they were looking for and in the end they fall short by 15-20 runs from setting a winning target.

The game is a do or die encounter for both the Daredevils and the Knight Riders. But the frustrated things is both teams may have to share points due to rain around in Delhi. In the case of a washout Delhi will have to share a point with Kolkata and that will adversely effect their chances in the tournament. Then Delhi will have to win their last game against Mumbai Indians but even so their fate will depend on the other results in the tournament.

So they must get solid start in the today’s crucial match if they would like to challenge the fire power of Delhi batting lineups.

Player to Watch

G. Gambhir and Virendra Sehwag: Both openers are in prime form and if they able to stay for 7-10 overs at the crease then they can able to easily achieve the win for his team which we have already seen in the last match against Royal Challengers Bangalore.

Shoaib Akhtar: Last time when these two teams mate Shoaib was on fire, he bowled a match winning spell to shatter the Delhi Daredevils batting lineups. So we can expect something like that from him in today’s crunch encounter.

Pitch Report

So far at Feroz Shah Kotla we have seen high scoring game in every match played here, so it will be no surprise if we see another 180 plus score for today’s game. Any team batting first would like to post 180 plus score to challenge the opposition.

Team News

Delhi Daredevils will most likely bring A.Mishra for today’s game in place of P.Sangwan since he has taken hat-trick against Deccan Chargers in the same ground. On the other hand Kolkata Knight Riders will also likely to make few changes by bringing S.Akhtar in place of A.Agarkar and C.Pujara in place of Md. Hafeez.

Delhi Daredevils (probables): Virender Sehwag (capt), Gautam Gambhir, Shikhar Dhawan, Shoaib Malik, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Tillakaratne Dilshan, Farveez Maharoof, Rajat Bhatia, Amit Mishra, Yo Mahesh, Glenn McGrath

Kolkata Knight Riders (probables): Salman Butt, Debabrata Das, Sourav Ganguly (capt), David Hussey, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Wriddhiman Saha, Ajit Agarkar, Ajantha Mendis, Ishant Sharma, Siddarth Kaul, Umar Gul

MUMBAI: Suresh Shastri, third umpire of last night’s thrilling IPL tie between Mumbai Indians and Kings XI Punjab, on Thursday said he simply went by the law book in the match where the hosts appeared to be at the receiving end of a few contentious run-out decisions.

“I don’t want to make any comments. I can only say I went by law 28.1 (The wicket is down),” Shastri said when his comments were sought in response to Mumbai Indians’ skipper Sachin Tendulkar’s veiled criticism of two decisions that were referred to him by the on-field officials.

Law 28.1 deals with what constitutes a wicket put down. According to the law, the wicket is put down if a bail is completely removed from top of the stump, or a stump is struck out of the ground by either the ball, striker’s bat, part of his clothing or equipment, by a fielder with his hand/arm providing the ball is held in the hand.

“The whole world has watched what it was all about. So I would leave it at that. I will leave it to the team management to see if they want to do anything about it,” Tendulkar said at the post-match media conference.

“Everyone has seen what happened and in whose favour the decisions eventually went. Had we got those two run out decisions our way, we would have added two more runs to the tally and won the match,” Tendulkar said after the team’s six-match winning streak came to a halt in the nail-biting finish.

The two decisions, which went against Mumbai Indians in the match which the visitors won by one run, related to run-out appeals against Punjab XI batsman Luke Pomersbach and the hosts’ Dwayne Smith.

Pomersbach, who made 79 not out and put on a century stand with Australian compatriot Shaun Marsh, was given the benefit of the doubt earlier in his innings by Shastri.

The TV umpire ruled in the batsman’s favour when on-field umpire Billy Bowden referred a run-out appeal following a superb throw from the deep by Shaun Pollock that hit the stumps directly at the non-striker’s end.

Other sources said the umpire felt that bowler Smith’s leg had disturbed the bails before the ball hit the stumps which led him to rule in the batsman’s favour.

Later Shastri upheld Punjab XI’s run-out appeal, again referred to him by the on-field umpire, against Smith following a touch-and-go situation when the bowler with the ball in hand was Piyush Chawla who, replays indicated, did not take off the bails in the first attempt.