Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals are going to face each other in the much awaited final of IPL 2008 within few hours. With tonight’s final match, the first tournament of Indian Premier League will come to an end. The match takes place at the DY Patil Sports Academy stadium in Mumbai. The match kicks off at Start time 20.00 (local), 14.30 (GMT). Both teams reached the final thanks to their convincing semi final victories. Rajasthan defeated Delhi Daredevils by 105 runs, while Chennai projected a 9-wicket victory over Kings XI Punjab. So, both the sides will be full of confidence. On either side has inspirational captain who are capable of leading from the front. Mahendra Singh Dhoni proved his skill and ability as a captain leading
Chennai finished third in the group stage with 16 points. However, Chennai’s performance was not consistent during group stage, despite having started the tournament with four consecutive victories. However, following the departure of their Australian players, Chennai lost the momentum significantly. That resulted in three consecutive defeats before Chennai came back to winning run against Delhi Daredevils. Since then, Chennai went through many ups and downs and could manage to a semi final birth despite six defeats against their eight wins.
For Rajasthan Royals, it was not a good start in IPL 2008. Rajasthan lost in the opener against Delhi Daredevils. However, it did not take much time for Rajasthan to begin their dream run as they got their first victory in the second match against Kings XI Punjab. Their winning streak stopped at five being defeated to Mumbai Indians, the second of third defeats so far in the tournament. Rajasthan was the first IPL team to confirm their semi final place. However, Rajasthan Royals finished the group stage with a defeat to Kings XI Punjab, but that did not create any problem for them to finish atop the league table.
Before the tournament kicked off, there were many who had written off Rajasthan having any chance in the tournament. The underdog status later proved as blessing for Rajasthan as they started dominating in IPL. Rajasthan, in fact, formed a balanced squad including some match winners. The man who contributed a lot to the success of Rajasthan with both bowl and bat is Shane Watson, who bagged 16 wickets as well as 444 runs so far in the tournament so far. No doubt, he is the best all rounder of IPL 2008 in terms of his performance. He remains in the top five of highest wicket takers as well as highest run scorers. The next person who played a big role for Rajasthan Royals is Yusuf Pathan who served a lot with his hard hitting batting. He has 379 runs until now in the tournament.
The bad news for Rajasthan Royals is that they will miss their star opening batsman Graeme Smith in the final as he has been left out of the match due to injury. Rajasthan is also getting a considerable service from Mohammad Kaif, as he is playing with enough responsibility. However, his performance is not that much successful. Ravinder Jadeja has also strength of their batting line up. For the bowlers, Shane Warne is leading their spin attack taking 19 wickets, second highest after his teammate Sohail Tanvir’s 21. Sohail Tanvir is currently the leading wicket takers of the tournament with 21 wickets. So, there could be a competition between Shane Warne and Sohail Tanvir, which the Rajasthan fans would appreciate. The wicket of DY Patil Sports Academy stadium is helpful to the pacers. So, Sohail Tanvir could play an important role forRajasthan Royals tonight.
For Chennai, they have a balanced bowling side along with a number of hard hitters in its batting line up. Chennai’s pace attack is spearheaded by Ntini, while Muralitharan leads the spin attack. With the presence of in form pacer Goni, Balaji and South African Morkel , I think, Chennai has a very strong bowling line up. Opener Parthiv Patel and middle order batsman Suresh Raina are now in impressive form. Their unbeaten second wicket stand confirmed a nine wicket victory for Chennai Super Kings in the semi final over Kings XI Punjab. In the middle order, Mahendra Singh Dhoni is playing his role successfully, scoring 385 runs so far in the tournament. Raina has 378 runs to his credit so far in IPL 2008. Morkel can also provide necessary support in the middle order of Chennai Super Kings batting line up. So, Chennai has enough weapons to stop the Rajasthan’s excellent form in IPL 2008.
If you can not watch the match live on television due any reason, you can get the online live score and updates of the match from different online live score websites. Here, I am giving some of the links of such websites:
After the two one-sided semi final matches, fans are now hoping to see a thrilling final tonight. The confidence two teams hold at this moment are enough to present with an excited, mind blowing match tonight. Now, let us see who are going to win the inaugural tournament of IPL.
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