Chennai wins Champions League
Chennai Super Kings kings led by Mahendra Singh Dhoni won the Champions League T 20 when they thrashed Warriors by eight wickets in the finals played at Johannesburg on 26th September 2010. By winning the Champions League T 20 M S Dhoni's Chennai Super Kings achieved the double by winning the Indian Premier League and Champions League T 20 in the same year.
If one were to take into consideration team India's success under M S Dhoni at the inaugural edition of T20 World Cup in 2007, M S Dhoni can proudly say that he has led his teams to success in all the three premier editions of T20 championship. In fact M S Dhoni holds yet another record and that is of having led to his teams in finals of all the three editions in his debut year as captain. While Dhoni met with success at the T20 world cup leading India to win over Pakistan in the finals he was not lucky in the inaugural edition of IPL losing to Shane Warnes Rajasthan Royals.
While M S Dhoni deserves every bit of praise for his extraordinary track record as skipper one must also admit that luck always favours the brave and has worked in his way yet again in this tournament. Chennai Super Kings did not have to sweat it out to qualify as their group had two of the weakest teams in Wayamba and Central Districts and even before the tournament started M S Dhonis team were 2-0 up and needed just a match of the remaining to to qualify for semis and that is exactly what happened. While Dhoni's men lost to Victoria they were on the verge of elimination having set a very modest 136 for Warriors to chase but thanks to a mediocre performance by Warriors Dhoni's men sailed to final and the rest is history.
However credit must be given to M S Dhoni and Chennai Super Kings for they were simply superb in knock out stages thrashing Royal Challengers Bangalore by 52 runs. A margin of 52 runs is very huge in a a 20 over format which when equated in a 50 over format works out to more than 150 runs. Dhoni must thank Warriors for being doubly generous to him because Warriors who were unbeaten till their last league encounter gave two mediocre performances and both against Chennai in crucial matches for CSK to emerge victorious. Warriors deserve to be blamed as much Chennai deserve to be praised because they made a mess of themselves in the finals after having won the toss and wisely choose to bat first and while Chennai picked up wickets and choke the flow of runs one must be honest enough to admit Chennai do not have the greatest of bowling attacks with the exception of Muralidharan and the entire cricketing world that Muralidharan becomes ineffective when batsmen take him on.
Looking at Champions League purely from an Indian point of view one must feel happy for the IPL teams for they were put up a good show in terms of results which went their way and which did not go their way. While Chennai Super Kings win was the icing of the cake, Royal Challengers Bangalore though unconvincing throughout the tounament , making into the semi finals was yet another positive. Mumbai Indians though did not make the semi finals batted spectacularly through out the tournament and were the most consistent batting unit in the tournament.
While Indians have got every reason to be happy for M S Dhoni yet again proving that he is the best captain in the world, a South African team yet again choked in a major tournament and that is not good news for South African cricket.
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