Pressure. It does funny things to the best. When Sunrisers Hyderabad batted first in the IPL final on Sunday, the pressure of scoring quick runs got to opener Shreevats Goswami who decided to take on MS Dhoni while attempting a second and was found well short of the crease.
Thereafter, the Sunrisers got stuck at 133 for four with four overs to go. The match was quickly slipping away from Hyderabad before 35-year-old Yusuf Pathan came up with his most important innings of the tournament, smashing 45 not out off 25 balls to take the total to a challenging 178 for six.
Then in the chase, Chennai Super Kings got off to as slow a start as you can possibly imagine. After the first four overs, the Super Kings were crawling at 16 for one with Shane Watson taking 11 balls to get off the mark.
But when you have played competitive cricket for 18 years – like Watson has – there are a few things you pick along the way. The foremost among them being not getting bogged down by the pressure of scoreboard. Top batsmen know if they get their eye in, any run-rate can be achieved.
Shane Watson - the only man to twice be IPL man of the tournament, and now a centurion in an IPL final - is one of the greatest T20 cricketers of all time
— Tim (@timwig) May 27, 2018
So from being on nought for his first ten balls, Watson produced a match-winning innings of 117 not out to hand the Super Kings their third IPL title.
Watson has been in incredible form in the IPL, scoring 555 runs from 15 games. At 36, Watson is batting with freedom and he had earlier thanked captain MS Dhoni for allowing him to play with an open mind.
“I’m very fortunate to have an opportunity at CSK like I have, to be able to open the batting throughout the tournament, to be able to bowl certain overs whenever MS (Dhoni) needs me,” Watson had said last week.
“To be there for MS but also for my selfish point of view to be able to see how his mind works and how incredibly he reads the game, to be able to ask those questions has been great as well.”
Which brings us to the most experienced cricketer in the world at the moment – Dhoni.
The Chennai Super Kings captain has taken the Indian team to the top of the Test rankings, won the World Cup, World T20, Champions Trophy, IPL titles and the Champions League T20.
MS Dhoni adds another trophy:
— Broken Cricket (@BrokenCricket) May 27, 2018
2007: WT20
2010: IPL
2010: CLT20
2011: IPL
2011: WC
2013: CT
2014: CLT20
2018: IPL
If there is anything called a winning touch in sport, Dhoni has it.
The Super Kings entered the tournament after a two-year suspension. They were full of cricketers well over 30 with Dhoni himself 36. Then they lost their home base Chennai following crowd trouble. And to top it all, Dhoni scored his 455 runs while battling severe back pain.
That’s enough to unsettle most teams. But not Dhoni or the Super Kings.
It was the seventh IPL final of the Super Kings and eighth for Dhoni. The entire Chennai set-up has seen it all – the highs of successive title in 2010 and 2011 followed by the lows of a two-year suspension.
That long-standing love affair with the tournament meant Chennai had faith in their leader and their personnel. This IPL was always going to be about Chennai and their emotional return to the tournament. They decided to go with tried and tested players which resulted in them getting the tag of ‘dad’s army’. But a 36-year-old Watson, helped by a 31-year-old Suresh Raina (32 runs in the final) and captained by a 36-year-old Dhoni, showed that when the pressure is on, you can always bank on experience.
