Cometh the hour cometh the men ...

just to give you an idea of how quickly perceptions change in t20! last year the royal challengers were dubbed a test side, the captain was ridiculed, wholesale changes were sought to be made and when some were indeed made it was suggested that this was now a side that could compete against anyone in t20. well, they have but as always you need to look beyond perception and apparent consequence.

let's look at the new players who came in. kevin pietersen, jesse ryder, robin uthappa, dillon du preez, roelof van der merwe and, slipping completely under the radar since he had made fleeting appearances for mumbai indians as a necessary, but not always desired, under 19 player, manish pandey. it would be interesting to see how the first five, the "specialists" fared against the others, the "test players". the castrol index might be a good way to begin.

pietersen did very little other than opening the bowling and once taking a wicket, ryder had a moment or two, uthappa (who i still maintain can become a fine player) had one significant innings, du preez had two fine overs and only van der merwe has genuinely added to the side. so who is performing? jacques kallis, mark boucher, rahul dravid, virat kohli, ross taylor and a certain retired player called anil kumble. so was the second auction right and the first one wrong (remember zaheer was in the first one too!)? or was it the other way around? or did something else happen.

my belief is that as the conditions grew a little more demanding, the pedigreed players appeared on stage. it is always like that. when the going gets tough, remember, the tough.......also, these players had another year to assess themselves, to make corrections, to regard this new upstart as a friend.

and yes, when pietersen left the royal challengers they had won two out of six. they won the next six out of eight. and i believe the time has come to add a name to the best captains in this tournament; warne, gilchrist,dhoni and now, kumble. to be fair to pietersen maybe the side was still in turbulent flow when he was the captain and it needed some mistakes to be made to recognise the best line up. kumble’s team has played the last two weeks in laminar flow and that is always a good sign, irrespective of how far they eventually go.