Page 107 - IPL 2

Ojha & fidel edwards would clean up what
was left after RP had wreaked havoc.

They may have had lesser big names on their
rolls, but what won them the tournament
was how consistently the players performed.

When each of your players has 3 to 5 good

performances in the tournament you know
your team is in with a good chance of going all
the way.

And crack it they did. On their way to claiming

the IPL trophy they dented many a reputation,
destroyed many a bowler’s morale and humbled

many champions. They also raised many
questions, questions for which no team had

any answers. How does one stop a rampaging
Gilchrist? How do you score runs of a miserly

Ohja? Where do you place the field to Symonds?
How do you keep Rohit out of the game? Just

when a team thought they had the answer to one
such question another Chargers player would
step up to the plate and pose yet another. At the

end, the questions outnumbered the answers.

When they walked up to collect the trophy,
the country cheered. No one had given them

a chance. Twelve months ago they had been
a laughing stock, but they had used defeat as

motivation for victory. And what a sweet victory
it was. There was no vindication, no proving of a

point. The journey had been internal, and it had
been completed successfully. They were walking

on clouds, or as Mr. Shankar says, “Walking from
the shadows into the spotlight.”

96 DECCAN CHARGERS DECCAN CHARGERS 97