Srikkanth, in his column with the official IPL website, mentioned Shane Warne and Yuvraj Singh as the better captains of the competition, but that for him M S Dhoni was the best. In his opinion the best batsman is also in the Chennai team, that is Matthew Hayden whereas among the bowlers he is unable decide between R P Singh and Lasith Malinga among the faster bowlers and rates Muralitharan the best among the slower bowlers.

While Chennai performed extremely well in IPL 2008 and have been favourites to fare well in the DLF IPL 2009 as well, the Bangalore Royal Challengers finished last but one last year and also made a fairly poor showing this year to begin with, before they made a resurgence under Anil Kumble’s canny leadership. So in this sense RCB are the more unpredictable side and it becomes difficult to forecast how well or badly their players will play on a given day.

In terms of player statistics Chennai players have the edge over Bangalore in that the highest run getters of the tournament, both Matthew Hayden and Suresh Raina are part of the Chennai team. What is a worry for the Bangalore team is the fact that Jacques Kallis, who has now hit good form is troubled by a hamstring injury. However among the bowlers perhaps the guile of Muralitharan finds an equal and able echo in Anil Kumble’s abilities.

As of now it does appear that Chennai are favourites to win and this feels good according to Dhoni who said that his team needs to be careful not to make the same mistakes that they had made before. Aware that now the semis are upon them, the players cannot afford to make mistakes which can cost a match and therefore a shot at the title as well.

"From now on, it will be more of a lottery system. If one batsman has a good day, then he can take the team through. One can say that till now, one had to play as a team consistently, but now onwards, it will be about three hours. If somebody like Matt Hayden or a Suresh Raina or a bowler like Muttiah Muralitharan has a good day, then he can see our team through," said Dhoni.

Kumble on the other hand is of the view that his team reaching the semis is an achievement in itself. "It's a great thing for us considering what happened last year. Even the start, we started well this year and then slumped to four losses in a row and then came back again. I'm happy to get into the semis. From here anybody can win on their day. So we back ourselves with the way we played in the last four games. It's been brilliant and will take this confidence going into the semifinal," said Kumble.

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

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