Sunday 20 May 2012

Gayle- Spoiling the RCB

Royal Challengers Bangalore, possibly one of the strongest teams on paper with the biggest superstars have crashed out of the tournament even before the play offs. Mahendra Singh Dhoni's Luck Wheel continues to run as he managed to make the playoffs at the last moment. Royal Challengers Bangalore were on 17 points from 15 games and needed to win the last one to reach the play offs. Their last game was against the bottom placed team Deccan Chargers and RCB were obviously expected to stream roll their opposition. But what eventually happened was a shocker. RCB despite restricting the other team for 132 runs only managed 123 runs.

In this match incidentally Chris Gayle failed with the bat and the rest of the batsmen could n't chase down the small target. And Gayle failed to fire after a long time. And certainly it now seems that RCB were overtly dependent on Gayle. Gayle was the one who won them their second last game against the table toppers Delhi Daredevils and now again when he failed the rest of the team failed with him and were not able to take the team to the last 4. Yes Dale Steyn was exceptional, yes it was a tough pitch but a strong team like RCB should have pulled it off.

Chris Gayle in this tournament scored a whopping 733 runs which is a new record in IPL history. But even these many runs did not help the team to make the IPL 2012 Play offs. Last year too Gayle was the top run getter. He got runs almost in every match and helped RCB reach the finals. But in the final against CSK he failed with the bat and the team lost the final.

Chris Gayle without doubt has been the best batsman in IPL. He might well now be called the T20 Legend the way we have legendary batsmen like Tendulkar, Lara, Kallis, Dravid etc in test and one day cricket we can add Gayle's name for T20 cricket. But Gayle's staggering performances have made RCB over dependent on him and expect Gayle to win almost every important game for RCB. It is hard to find a game where RCB won without Gayle or De villiers firing. There would only be very few, very very few.

Gayle has done to RCB what extremely rich parents do to their children. These kind of parents provide their child everything they ask for, even demands that are unreasonable. And then these kids become spoiled brats who are nothing actually without their parents' money and backing. Similarly Gayle's exceptional performances are providing that kind of a comfort to RCB. Whenever RCB need a win even if they are in dire straits, Gayle delivers it for them. But just sometimes at the final hurdle Gayle fails and the "spoiled Brat" RCB too look meek without his performances.

Well to have a player like Gayle is definitely a bonus but RCB have to remember that in the end its the 7 Indians that make a difference more than the 4 foreigners. RCB were banking very heavily on the 4 foreigners and without strong performances from the Indian players, RCB would not be able to get the title.

And by the way messing with Dhoni's luck is not good for a team.

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