TODAY’S FINAL HYDERABAD VS ROYAL CHALLENGERS JOHANNESBURG

TEAM HYDERABAD
LAST YEAR’S RANKING: 8

CAPTAIN: Adam Gilchrist. The Aussie stalwart has provided a degree of stability and innovative thinking to a side desperately lacking in confidence after last year’ debacle.

COACH: Darren Lehmann. A thinker more than a talker, the former Aussie middleorder bat has quietly but effectively overseen his side’s transformation into a force to be reckoned with.
RECORD: M-14, W-7, L-7

TEAM FORM: Barring a few hiccups along the way, Hyderabad look the most improved team this season. With an army of big-hitters and agile fielders to support potent, incisive bowlers, they look like a team that could go all the way.

DRAWING BOARD: Bat first and unleash Gilchrist on the RC bowlers. Symonds and Rohit Sharma will have to play crucial knocks.

X-FACTOR: Ojha’s leftarm spin can be troublesome.

KEY STARS: Symonds, Gibbs, RP Singh, Gilchrist

PROBABLE TEAM: Adam Gilchrist, Herschelle Gibbs, Tirumalsetti Suman, Andrew Symonds, Rohit Sharma, Venugopal Rao, Ravi Teja, Ryan Harris, SM Shoaib, Pragyan Ojha, RP Singh.
ROYAL CHALLENGERS LAST YEAR’S RANKING: 7

CAPTAIN: Anil Kumble. By far the most inspirational skipper in the tournament, RC have lost just once under his leadership.

COACH: Ray Jennings. Took some time to get his plans into order. With his knowledge of South African conditions and wickets, he has played a great part in RC’s late charge.
RECORD: M-15, W-9, L-6

TEAM FORM: On a high after beating Team Hyderabad in their last match, RC will now have a psychological advantage over their rivals. The men in red have peaked at the right time.

DRAWING BOARD: Ensure one of their batsmen play a long innings. They will have to watch against complacency.

X-FACTOR: Manish Pandey. The youngster’s explosive hitting can derail their rivals.

KEY STARS: Dravid, Taylor, Praveen.

PROBABLE TEAM: Manish Pandey, Jacques Kallis, Ross Taylor, Rahul Dravid, Roelof van Der Merwe, Virat Kohli, Mark Boucher, Praveen Kumar, Balachandra Akhil, Anil Kumble, Vinay Kumar

KEY CLASHES

GILLY VS KUMBLE
This captain vs captain battle promises a mouthwatering feast. Adam Gilchrist exploded like a bomb in the semis against Team Delhi, and would surely be looking to do an encore in the final. Remember his blazing century in the 2007 World Cup summit clash against Sri Lanka? The only man who seems capable to stop Gilly is Kumble. The retired leggie is opening the bowling these days, and Gilly would surely look to go after him. How Kumble uses his variations and guile against a marauding Gilchrist should make for a fascinating contest. This clash may well decide the final. TAYLOR VS OJHA
Ross Taylor’s big-hitting at the crunch has been one of the highlights of this tournament. It is also one of the chief reasons why the Royal Challengers find themselves here. His unbeaten 81 off 33 balls against the Knight Riders was as good a knock as one gets to see in T20 cricket. Against the spinners, he has been ruthless, employing the slog sweep to deadly effect. Ojha, on the other hand, has been one of the more difficult spinners to hit. Can he deceive Taylor with his flight?
RP VS KALLIS RP Singh holds the Purple Cap for being the highest wicket-taker, and rightly so. The left-arm seamer has threatened to taker a wicket every time he comes on to bowl. The onus on providing the early breakthrough will be on this Uttar Pradesh youngster again. Kallis has looked the part both with the bat and the ball. His solidity will be tested by RP’s probing, away-going deliveries WHAT TO EXPECT FROM BULL RING
BAT SECOND
Teams batting second have thrived. Off the six matches played before the second semifinal, teams batting second have won four times.
WINNING SCORE: 160+
With the highest score recorded in this tournament being 163 by Team Chennai, any team which can get a total of 170 plus can fancy its chances of defending it. Lesser than 150 could spell trouble as defending a small total at this venue is not that easy. Only Kings XI managed to do it but that too with great difficulty.
SPINNERS HAVE A SAY
The pitch has provided help to both seamers as well as spinners. Initially, it is the seamers who have called the shots. However, spinners have had their fair share of the limelight as can be seen in the performances of Shadab Jakati (4-24), and Kings XI Punjab skipper Yuvraj Singh, who claimed a hat-trick.
MORE 4S FEW 6S
Things have not been easy for batsmen who love to slam sixes on this ground. With the boundaries a bit longer than normal in the tournament, most batsmen have preferred not taking on the fielders in the deep. In the six matches played thus far on this ground, only 47 sixes have been scored at a match average of eight

RC CUT CHENNAI TO SIZE

Johannesburg: Lalit Modi may have first conceived the idea of a grand Twenty20 spectacle that the Indian Premier League (IPL) is, but one still has to wonder who is writing the script.
Last year, the team that wasn’t even considered an underdog, criticised for poor player-selection, accused of spending the least among eight franchisees, won the trophy. This year, two teams that had ended up as 2008’s wooden-spooners have done the unthinkable. Royal Challengers and Hyderabad last year’s No. 7 and 8 will clash in the final of IPL 2009.
The two IT cities have surprised the bookmakers which make this T20 extravaganza so exciting and, for the second year in succession, have ensured that anything is possible in this extremely unpredictable format.
It is hard to project a player-versus-player contest here. Will it be Adam Gilchrist’s willow-power against Praveen Kumar and Jacques Kallis’ new ball attack? Rohit Sharma’s finesse or Andrew Symonds’ belligerent hitting against Anil Kumble’s precision? This could also be a battle for youngsters like Virat Kohli and Manish Pandey competing with T Suman and Azhar Bilakhia. On the face of it, this could be anyone’s trophy. The atmosphere at the Wanderers can get quite intimidating when close to 50,000 spectators will fill up the stands.
On paper, Hyderabad definitely look the better side. The loss to Royal Challengers at Centurion on Thursday notwithstanding, they have a top-order boasting of some of the biggest names this format can think of. Even if one of these players — Gilchrist and Gibbs or Symonds and Sharma bats to his full potential, it will be enough to wipe out any opposition. Gilchrist showed precisely that in the first semifinal, cracking one of the best T20 knocks ever.
For Royal Challengers too, the batsmen have been at the helm in the last few matches. In fact, it has been at least one of the top-order men in every game delivering the goods. Ross Taylor did it in a crunch match against the Knight Riders when he struck a 41-ball 81 to take the match away singlehandedly from the opposition. Kallis and Utthappa demolished Mumbai in a partnership that was absolutely dominating. Virat Kohli has been consistent and Manish Pandey, of course, became the first Indian to score a century in IPL the other day.
Scoring runs, as aggressively as possible, will be the key to the game on a track that hardly has anything for the bowlers.