Agony and Ecstasy !

These would be the contrasting emotions fans would have experienced in the coastal cities of Mumbai and Chennai yesterday ! Mumbai showed the fighting spirit needed to win, Chennai were outclassed and thrashed as Robin here lucidly puts it. Mumbai, despite being able to put up only a moderate total rallied under captain Pollock to pull of the win. Chennai on the other hand had to face the ignominy of coming up with the second-lowest total in the tournament in what can only be termed as the most abysmal of performances.

Where do the teams go from here ?
Mumbai with that win, have made a leap from the bottom of the table to No. 5 while Chennai drops 2 spots to No. 4. Of course, Chennai still has a 4 point lead over Mumbai which will take some work to erase. But Mumbai can only go from strength to strength from here. If (and that's a big if) Sachin Tendulkar finally takes the field and decides to put one past Warne, his old foe, that would just blow the competition wide open as Warne's Rajasthan Royals are the undisputed leaders at the moment. Chennai, meanwhile, have a lot of introspection to do. First they need to ensure they don't slip up against bottom-placed Hyderabad at home. This is potentially dangerously slippery encounter. Hyderabad may have lost almost everything under the sun, but a lot of their games were very tight and as their one win shows, if Adam Gilchrist fires at the top of the order they can look a completely different team.

A word for the other two teams that were in action yesterday. What can you say about Warne except "hats off" ? He has managed to better 7 Indian captains, present and former to go right up to the top of the table. He has proved what a great loss World cricket and Australian cricket suffered by not appointing him as captain. Sohail Tanvir was an absolute sensation ! 6-14 in a 20 over game ? At one point his figures read 5-2 !!

Delhi I think were a bit complacent. I worry that their middle order is undercooked and not strong enough to back their fabulous top order and superb bowling lineup.