IPL 2009 Final - Can Bangalore Rise to the Challenge?

Royal Challengers Bangalore have done the unthinkable and made their way into the final of this year’s Indian Premier League final against the Deccan Chargers throwing bookmakers a googly in IPL betting.
 
Bangalore and Deccan both snuck into the top four and were considered by some as just making up the numbers against their more highly fancied opponents of Delhi and Chennai.
 
However the outsiders have given punters plenty to crow about with comprehensive wins in their semis and providing an interesting final to say the least.
 
To Bangalore’s credit, they are the form team heading into the final winning their last five matches, four of which against fellow semi-finalists, and winning eight of the last 10 games in the season.
 
The Anil Kumble-led team has gelled well in the later part of the tournament and he seems to have garnered the respect of his players better than Englishman Kevin Pietersen managed at the start of the tournament.
 
The win now sets up the team’s second clash of the tournament, the first match went to Deccan by 24 runs thanks to a blistering 71 by Adam Gilchrist and 3/32 off four overs by Scott Styris.
 
In the return match, Bangalore exacted revenge, beating their highly fancied opponents by 12 runs with an amazing maiden century to Manish Pandey (114 not out) and tight bowling by the likes of Anil Kumble (2/23 off four overs) and Balachandra Akhil (2/18 off four overs).
 
If Bangalore are to finish this tournament off in the best way possible, they will need to break through the top order early and get rid of the likes of Herschelle Gibbs, Gilchrist then contain Rohit Sharma and Tirumalsetti Suman.
 
But they have the bowlers to do that and gee whiz hasn’t their batting line up fired in the best possible way with Kiwi Ross Taylor, Rahul Dravid and Virat Kohli all doing damage.
 
Then there is the wunderkind, Pandey who again starred with the bat in the semi final against Chennai scoring a blistering 48 off 35 balls.
 
The trump card for Bangalore is the South African pairing of Jacques Kallis and Roelof Erasmus van der Merwe.
 
Kallis’ annoying medium pace routinely snares big wickets while van der Merwe has been one of the finds of the tournament as all round potential goes.
Van der Merwe has scored 88 runs at a strike rate of over 120 and taken eight wickets at an economy rate of 7.57 while taking four catches and one run out.
 
The affect of head coach Ray Jennings, another South African, should not be understated also as Bangalore take a very Protea approach to their games – clinical, simple and effective.