A question of keeping the momentum intact

Chennai Super Kings were under tremendous pressure going into our last game, against the Rajasthan Royals. The mood, the atmosphere, while being tense was good. Everyone knew we were a bloody good team and were out to prove just that, Venkatesh Prasad writes on Chennai’s progress in IPL.

We were under tremendous pressure going into our last game, against the Rajasthan Royals. When we landed in South Africa we were one of the favourites. A few losses and suddenly the pressure has doubled.

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And here we were, lining up against the one team we hadn't beaten in as many as three encounters last season (the home and away games and the final). By now people were talking about how we needed to win six or seven games from here on in order to make the semifinals.

The mood, the atmosphere, while being tense was good. Everyone was confident of living up to the standards expected of us. Since we had done badly in some areas, we decided to the basics and use variations smartly.

That is exactly what our bowlers did. They backed their ability and we got in a couple of crucial overs to dangerman Yusuf Pathan. Bala was accurate to Yusuf and the pressure got to the batsman. Not just Balaji, even Sudeep Tyagi, who bowled with the new ball, did a very good job in his first outing. He is deceptive and the ball tends to skid in faster than the batsman expects it to.

We had sat down and talked about what this team was capable of. Everyone knew we were a bloody good team and were out to prove just that, starting with Suresh Raina. Now, it is a question of keeping the momentum intact.