Wednesday, May 23, 2012

IPL Playoff 2 - Mumbai Indians versus Chennai Super Kings

I'll go with the Chennai Super Kings because they have this amazing ability to sneak through. As long as they have Dhoni who protects their interests like some warrior god, CSK will always find unlikely wins, unlikely heroes and will make the opposition commit some amazingly stupid mistakes by merely being stoic and holding their belief. As a team they know what it is to win, they know how to hold their belief and they know that the 'power is with them' which in itself is huge. From Hussey to Vijay, Morkel to Dhoni, Raina to Bravo, this side has enough to take on the rather erratic and temperamental Mumbai side.

Mumbai will look to get some of their stars performing but my problem with Mumbai is that in the big games they look shaky - much like Delhi. Sachin goes cheap, Rohit finds new ways of getting out and they are constantly under pressure. Much of their success has been due to Malinga's heroics with the ball and this is one thing that the CSK team will look to counter. With CSK the match will never be over until it is truly over and this makes this contest interesting. I am not a great fan of Harbhajan's captaincy nor of the histrionics that Mumbai provides and to me CSK should win because they are a better side to play the next two games. CSK could well sneak past the other two teams as well.

I'd think this would be a 150-160 game and I'd put my bets on CSK to pull this off.

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