The Bangalore team having had a few days to rest tired limbs and minds will be just that bit fresher than the Hyderabad boys who will have travelled on the day before the finals and so would be not just battle weary but travel tired too. It will be thus incumbent on Tom Moody to lift his team for one final tilt that will be the one that they will remember all their lives.
David Warner, their skipper needs no such lifting as he has played well beyond the call of duty in shepherding his team into the finals.
The way he has marshalled his troops, the manner in which he has kept his cool even when some of his players have made errors that even school kids wouldn’t, has been remarkable indeed. His batting has been exceptional too and but for the fact that his counterpart in the finals Virat Kohli has had an even better season of the IPL with the bat, Warner would have been the batsman of the tournament.
What Warner and Moody would dearly love is for his two Indian superstars Shikhar Dhawan and Yuvraj Singh to play that one innings that will help them score more than Kohli and his team.
Both Dhawan and Yuvraj have been in indifferent form but all that will be forgotten if they get big runs in the finals and ease the load on Warner. Trent Boult coming in for the injured Mustafizur got the early wickets with his swing but that natural length of his to get the ball to swing was exactly what the batsmen want in the final overs and he went for plenty then.
It will also help if all the young Indians who walk around airports and hotel lobbies with a swagger during the IPL actually live up to that and show that their style is not restricted only to wearing fancy sunglasses, huge headphones and tints in their hair but also with bat and ball.
Kohli failed in the last game getting a rare duck so the law of averages suggest that he will score big and become the first batsman to get a 1000 runs in one season of the IPL.
Chris Gayle has not clicked in most of the finals that he played for West Indies or any of franchisees, but this could be the one that changes that and AB also is keen on ensuring that their third attempt at the title doesn’t go in vain.
On paper the RCB look as if they have got all angles covered. Their batting is in prime form with Rahul and Watson also chipping in usefully, their bowling with Chahal and Watson in the death overs has been terrific and they have taken some memorable catches this time around.
Sure they have slipped down in the fair play award points but they won’t mind that as long as they get their hands on the trophy.
The teams are led by two players who only know how to give it everything and who do not take a backward step and who have led by example. It could be confrontational, it could even be ugly at times but this final promises to be the best that the IPL has seen so far.
Source: PMG
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