“Peaking too early” is a facet that is taken quite seriously in sports even though results from the past hand us contrasting views on the subject. Captains, commentators or pundits have thrown this phrase when a team falls short of getting across the finish line. The South African cricket teams over the last three decades may well epitomise this jargon.
The Australian teams of yore, though, give an alternate view on the subject. They, after all, went through two straight World Cup campaigns without losing a single game, and seldom changed their winning XI.
Chennai Super Kings, so often the yardstick to measure Indian Premier League success, also showed that a late surge in the tournament is the safest success formula. After getting off to a blistering start, Mumbai Indians, who have been the architects of digging a hole for themsleves before fashioning a spectacular comeback in the final stages, now find themseleves in a sticky wicket despite hardly putting a foot wrong for much of the tournament.
The initial run of form that they had built – winning nine in 11 games at one stage – had tapered off in the final leg of the round-robin stages. A statistic that may make for horror reading for Mumbai is that barring Rajasthan Royals in the first edition, none of the other teams who topped the table during the group stages went on to lift the title.
For every Kolkata Knight Riders, CSK and Mumbai, all of whom have two trophies each, the league also has Royal Challengers Bangalore and Delhi Daredevils, who seem to be stuck in a never-ending quest to get across finish line, adding further intrigue to “what is the right kind of momentum” debate.
The changes
While it is true that Harbhajan Singh took quite a beating during the 443-run humdinger against Kings XI Punjab at the Wankhede, dropping one of their vastly experienced bowlers for a game of such importance was baffling, considering the magnitude of the contest. In another encounter against Punjab, Mumbai made a mockery of a steep 199-run target.
The final run of league games also saw Mumbai test their bench strength, albeit with mixed results. Rohit Sharma and Co certainly did not wake up during their winning streak and realise that they have enormous strength in depth in their ranks, did they? The handling of the swashbuckling Nitish Rana once he got a couple of low scores under his belt was also in bad taste. Only two weeks ago, the southpaw earned unanimous praise for batting efforts. Batting legend Ricky Ponting even nominated him for a place in the Indian team.
Ambati Rayudu, clearly lacking match practice and thrown in at the deep end, failed to make an impact despite being one of his franchise’s trusted servants over the past decade.
Strategy
It is not that Mumbai haven’t prevailed from difficult situations during their run-in either. Not many teams recover from 7/4 to win a contest. Nor does every franchise have the nous or belief to even come close to chase down a 230-run target.
The Wankhede, which has by and large been a death-knell for bowlers, caught the Mumbai batsmen by surprise with its slow pace. The impressive Washington Sundar darting the ball off a good length area, along with Steve Smith’s attacking fields on the leg side, helped Pune grab the initiative.
Strangely enough, Pune, after a stuttering start, have managed to do the anti-Mumbai of sorts, “peaking at the right time” in Smith’s words. It was Rohit Sharma’s leg-before decision that changed the course of the game. The Mumbai skipper can be excused that in hindsight, his team could have very well been on course to get home had he not been incorrectly adjudged leg-before.
Mumbai may very well go on to win the eliminator and the tournament for a record third time too. Chasing for a place in the playoffs for the better part of the last three seasons, Mumbai tinkered with carefree abandon in their last few league games. They will only have their lackadaisical approach – taking winning for granted in the process – to blame if they fall short.