Chappell leapfrogs to second place

At the end of day three, Sambit Bal takes the lead again, and Sanjay Manjrekar slips to third position. But the big mover of the day is Ian Chappell, who racked up more than 250 points to jump into second place.

After admitting he had made some crucial strategy errors, Chappell rung in the changes, and his trump for Monday's game - Matthew Hayden - got him a whopping 248 points. And what would have helped was that all the other participants - Bal, Manjrekar and David Lloyd - had as trump Jesse Ryder, who did not play. Ian reckons he got lucky yesterday, and says, "it was a toss-up between Hayden and Ryder for trump player and I guessed right."

Meanwhile Bal, who leads Chappell by 23 points, continues to wage war against his "conspirators". "You can never take the opposition lightly, and certainly not when it includes Ian Chappell," Bal said. "But there seem to some dark forces working against me. First, it rains on the day all my big guns were out there. And now the Royal Challengers don't even pick Jesse Ryder, who was my trump player. Mr Mallya has some explaining to do."

For now, Bal had better watch out for Chappell, who is high on confidence. "I did warn Sambit I was after him - now I'm in his rear-view mirror. I've got another coin-toss choice tonight; I'm hoping my luck stays strong."