“Once upon a time a war was called between eight kingdoms. All the kingdoms had to build their armies with very less time in their hands, an army that could stand the test of put up by others with their strength and the test of time with their endurance.
One of the kingdoms which lie in a desert had all odds in front of it and was counted out by all means and by all people. They were searching for a General when a senior man with golden hair volunteered. Everybody doubted him, not his abilities but because he had not entered the battle field for a long time now.
The people of the kingdom silently prayed for the success of this brave man. He went about preparing his army for the battles ahead and tried to find out the special abilities of his men.
The underdogs, Rajasthan Royals clinched the first IPL Final and emerged as the winner after a memorable run throughout the tournament under the most able Captainship of Shane Warne in an exciting finish on Sunday at Mumbai. After two dull and one-sided semifinals this was a great match with the luck swinging from one side to the other in equal measures.
The Indian Premier League dropped the curtain today after 44 days of cricket extravaganza. The Final started after some extra ordinary entertainment dished out by the organizers in the form of Indian Movie Stars, Music, Laser Shows and to end with para-gliders descending on the Stadium with individual team flags. And just before the finals began the entire crowd was held breathless by an awesome performance by Cirque du Soleil.
Indian Premier League (IPL) Match Preview – The Grand Finale
The Armies – Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings
Rajasthan Royals made brief work of it with an emphatic 105 run win over the Delhi Daredevils on Friday. Chennai Super Kings, the firm non-favorites beat Kings XI Punjab by 9
wickets with overs to spare.
The Battleground – DY Patil Cricket Stadium, Navi Mumbai, Mumbai
While the pitch at Wankhede had help for spinners, the pitch at this ground has more pace and bounce. Rajasthan bowlers have bowled well on most pitches. Chennai with Ntini, Morkel and Gony will be happier to play on this sort of pitch and absence of Graeme Smith on this sort of pitch will be a factor. Rajasthan have played a match at this ground. Although they were shot out here by Mumbai but Warne would surely have picked a point or two.
South African batsman Graeme Smith, opener for Rajasthan Royals has been ruled out of the Final on Sunday due to a hamstring injury. Smith who was quite fit on the field was injured during the semi-finals with Delhi Daredevils yesterday.
Shane Warne is considering either Yunus Khan or Kamran Akmal to open in the finals with Swapnil Asnodkar. However, Khan with only one IPL match in which he scored three runs and Akmal with five matches (avg 30) is no match to Smith but everyone is aware how Warney handles his players and install confidence in them.
Shane also acknowledged Smith’s role in shaping up the teams success. Smith has scored a total of 441 runs (11 matches) with an average close to 49 and is considered as one of the strongest opening pair along with Swapnil.
Rajasthan Royals is a team which was virtually written off by all Cricket Guru’s in the initial stages of the Indian Premier League (IPL) just after the auction . Even Lalit Modi was not too happy with the amounts spend for acquiring Crickets in the auction as his expectations were high given the financial clout of Lalchan Murdock - an heir of the billion dollar star TV / Fox Tv empire and son of Media Moghul Rupert Murdoch. Rajastnan Royals remained a passive observer of the ignorant hype of bollywood kings and badshah’s and million dollar splash from the Ambanis and the Mallaya’s.
