Deccan Chargers backs against the wall!

Our backs are well and truly against the wall now. It was a disastrous loss to the Knight Riders in a game we had spoken about as a ‘must win’ encounter. That’s the bad news.
The good news is that we are not finished yet. We must now win five in a row to have a chance of reaching the semi finals. Not many teams have ever won five in a row but Deccan were in a similar position in IPL2 and they went on to win it!

We haven’t lost faith in ourselves as individuals or as a team. It may seem odd to say it but I honestly believe we are one of the best teams in the tournament, it just hasn’t been our year this time – so far.

We have quality batsmen at the top of the order and guys who can clear the boundary in the lower order. We have genuine pace, good spinners and decent medium pacers, too. Seriously, we have all the bases covered.
Our wins have been extremely convincing and many of our losses have been close. I’m not saying we’ve been unlucky because we must accept responsibility for our fate and admit that we have made too many mistakes.

But if we aren’t able to win five in a row and reach the semis this years then, if we can stay together as a squad, I would be pretty bullish about our chances next season.
Maybe coming from behind with a late surge towards the finish line is the ‘Deccan way.’ One thing is for certain, we will play our next game as though it’s our last without holding anything back. In many ways we might feel less pressure – there is no more room for errors or defeats. And if we win, then we’ll carry the same attitude into the next game, and the next one… A desperate team can be a dangerous one!

It was great to play against Jacques in the last game, although a little bit strange, too, as we had dinner together the night before and there I was trying to kill him less than 24 hours later!

There is no greater fan of Jacques Henry Kallis than me. In my opinion he is the greatest cricketer of all time and my respect for him has no limits. He has excelled in all three disciplines of the game, in three formats, for almost two decades. Nobody has ever come close to doing that – ever.

For his sake I wish KKR all the best. But I’ll still try and knock his head off if we meet in the semis.