Page 118 - IPL1

W

hen news started filtering out of the IPL auction that
Mahendra Singh Dhoni had sold to Chennai for $1.5million, there
was a moment of shock around the cricket world. Of course,
everybody expected the competition to produce big money -
but this was something else. A few days later, the IPL’s chairman,
Lalit Modi, pointed out that Dhoni’s weekly pay packet would be
comparable to Cristiano Ronaldo’s at Manchester United. It was
to Dhoni’s eternal credit that he lived up to his billing, guiding
the Super Kings all the way to the final, where they were pipped
off the last ball by Shane Warne’s Rajasthan Royals. But no one
would have begrudged them victory.

If ever there was a player who embodied the marketing potential
of 20-over cricket, it was surely Dhoni. With his flowing locks

and liquid eyes, he looks like a Bollywood film star, and inspires
hero-worship wherever he goes. Crucially, though, the sheen of
his highly polished image is matched by supreme achievements
on the cricket field, and by the end of the competition Dhoni
was among the top 10 leading run-scorers, averaging 41 with the
bat with the equally impressive strike-rate of 133.

Watched over by the hard-working presence of the coach
Kepler Wessels, a disciplined former South Africa and Australia
batsman, Dhoni’s relaxed air and regal assurance played a big
part in the success of a team that blended Australian top-order
hitting with the precocious skills of Suresh Raina in the middle
order and the wickets of Manpreet Gony, who ended up catching
the eye of the Indian selectors, and South Africa’s lively seamer
Albie Morkel. And that’s before you get to Muttiah Muralitharan,
the wizard-like Sri Lankan off-spinner, and the tireless South
African opening bowler Makhaya Ntini.

Chennai Super Kings immediately marked themselves out as
one of the IPL’s likelier winners when they racked up 240 for
five - the tournament’s largest total - in their first game en route
to a 33-run win over Kings XI Punjab in Mohali. That included
a staggering innings of 114 not out from only 54 balls by Mike
Hussey, who peppered the Chandigarh crowd to the tune of
nine sixes and immediately made a mockery of his auction price
of just $350,000. Several more expensive players would fail to
get even close to his feat in the weeks ahead.

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