One Last chance

Mon, May 12 12:35 AM

MOHALI'S WINNING streak had begun to look too good to last. Finally, the spectacular run, wherein they won five matches on the trot, came to a grinding halt on Saturday.

However, it wouldn't have caused much concern in the Mohali camp, for, one, it came after a long string of victories and, two, they might have started sensing the strong possibilities of embarking on yet another winning run. Reason: they face Bangalore next, the most hapless and helpless looking side, in their own backyard, and it would be tough for any side not to fancy their chances against Dravid's men.

Nevertheless, Mohali would do well to address certain gray areas, which had been camouflaged by the long winning streak, but laid bare by the loss to Chennai. The Mohali bowling resources in general has a pretty good look about it, but have often struggled with the fifth bowler, especially when batsmen really turned the heat on.

Fortunately, Pathan and Sreesanth had been giving them really good start, with Piyush Chawala also coming good more often than not, making up for the occasional slip in the middle overs. However, the other bowlers would come under a lot of pressure if these two have a bad day, and it would be interesting to see how they cope up in that situation.

Then, the forced absence of Kumar Sangakkara due to side strain too could hurt them, as it did in the game against Chennai. The prolific Sri Lankan has been the top run-getter for Mohali and his presence gives batting a pretty solid look.

Ramnaresh Sarwan, his replacement, hasn't been as fluent as the Sri Lankan had been and he looked quite out of sorts in the last match. The team management would surely be praying fervently that Sangakkara gets over his side strain as early as possible.

Besides, skipper Yuvraj Singh, too, is due for some big runs; the dashing left-hander is yet to play any of his trademark blistering knocks, though he has looked in good touch more often than not. So there are obviously some chinks in Mohali's armour, but the million-dollar question is, can Bangalore rise out of the mess it's in and exploit them? They lost to Mohali only about a week back in their own backyard in a one-sided contest, followed by another defeat, though pretty close, at the hands of Kolkata.

So after the defeats and the controversy that threatened to rip the team apart, for Bangalore it's now more a case of being mentally ready to fight it out than worry about their batting or bowling. Does this team have enough grit and guts left in it to put behind all bad memories and make a last ditch effort to salvage some pride? The odds look highly stacked against them, but then one never knows.

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