Sachin & Dravid start IPL-2 with a bang…

Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, the two Indian stalwarts, made a great beginning to their IPL season-2 by scoring quick fire half centuries to take their respective sides Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers of Bangalore to victories in their opening matches against Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals respectively yesterday.

The 2 legends of Indian cricket had not made any serious impact in the IPL inaugural season; but they both looked quite determined yesterday; and started with a resolve to show their caliber in this form of the game too.

Dravid must have been feeling quite relieved after offloading the burden of captaincy to Kevin Peterson; and the freeness also showed on the ground as he smartly stroked a quick fire 66 odd runs in around 55 balls to help Royal Challengers post a challenging total after they were setback initially with he loss of Jesse Ryder’s & Ross Taylor’s wicket, who both went on consecutive bowls scoring ducks. Dravid along with Kevin Peterson slowly buildup the innings and finally managed to add some respectability to the total, which seemed good enough for them to post their first win in the first encounter.

Mumbai Indians ship on the other hand was anchored well at one end by the little master Sachin Tendulkar, who stayed till the end to guide his team to a fighting total. Later, It was Zaheer Khan’s great penultimate over in which he conceded only 5 runs, put the final icing on the cake for Mumbai Indians, with Chennai Super Kings falling short by nearly 16 odd runs in the end. Although the Chennai Super King’s Captain M. S. Dhoni was there till the very last over, but even he had no answer to the brilliant last 2 overs bowled by Zaheer & Lasith Malinga.