The Challengers lost the final to the Deccan Chargers by a heart-wrenching 6 runs, but that hardly matters now as everybody applauds Kumble’s performance as player and captain. Arun Kumar, a member of the team, who didn’t make it to the final 15, told the Hindu: “the turn-around in the team’s fortunes was great and full credit to Anil for pulling the team in one direction. In the final, the Deccan Chargers’ total was a modest one but somehow we fell short.”

“The critical difference was man-management and Anil led from the front. In almost all the matches, at least one player put his hand up and we should give due credit to players like Manish Pandey, Vinay Kumar and even B. Akhil, who performed in patches. Losing the final was disappointing but if you see the overall picture, we did well,” added Sunil Joshi, another team member.

Looking back on their loss to Deccan Chargers, Former India player Vijay Bharadwaj said, “Among our batsmen if at least one guy had put his hand up we would have won and that perhaps hurt Anil because he knew that we did well to restrict a formidable batting line-up like that of the Deccan Chargers to 143.”

Spin-legend EAS Prasanna too complemented Bharadwaj saying, “While bowling we had Anil opening the attack and his dismissal of Adam Gilchrist was praise-worthy but we should have shown the same flexibility in batting too.”

Meanwhile, Kumble too is heartbroken by the loss, but he believes in taking such things in his stride, learning his lessons and moving on: He wrote in the Hindu: “Two weeks ago, no one gave us a chance and that wasn’t unjustified at that time. After the loss to Mumbai on May 10, we had put ourselves in a position from where we had to win all our remaining matches in order to qualify.

And, the team rallied around wonderfully and the fact that, with the exception of Kolkata, all the teams we beat were ranked above us, tells a story.” He also whole heartedly praised the effort his boys put into the game.

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

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