
Had he replied in Gaelic, or spoken about the merits of the Bernoulli Equation, it would have had a similarly hollow tone. Those were the words of a beaten man, left to crinkle his nose at the stench of a rotting corpse of a side.
Everything about Daredevils is in shambles. Their campaign began with Pietersen - acquired for Rs 9 crore - miss the initial few games due to injury. The player to get a look-in, Ross Taylor, struggled to dominate with the bat. In the midst of a poor start, Daredevils lost fast bowler Nathan Coulter-Nile to injury early in the season. Then went Saurabh Tiwary with a shoulder injury. Around this time, Daredevils released three uncapped players, one of which was batsman Milind Kumar, the distant but only local connect the franchise had. Whatever changes were made, results were not forthcoming. They have been poor with the bat, ball, in the field and in their thinking.
Much has been written about the management holding back
Thursday's match in Ahmedabad against Rajasthan Royals cannot be termed a contest. It was an embarrassment. Pietersen's decision to field came a cropper as RR piled up their highest total this season, 201 for 6, to which Daredevils replied with 139 for 9, losing half their wickets inside ten overs. With qualification for the
What panned out was a yawn-inducing mismatch.
Daredevils' entire season has been a colossal waste of batting talent, with
Compare this to RR's success. Rahane has 316 runs this season, which is more than Pietersen, Taylor and Mayank Agarwal have managed. When you consider that Karun Nair, a rookie domestic batsman playing his first IPL, has scored significantly more than Pietersen, you get a sense of why Daredevils are languishing at the bottom of the table.
This is not to take away from how well Royals bowled. Dhawal Kulkarni was accurate and probing, Faulkner struck in the only over he bowled early on, Pravin Tambe dismissed the dangerous Duminy and Rajat Bhatia prised out two important wickets with his canny dibbly-dobblers. The sucker ball to get Taylor caught and bowled was a wicket Bhatia will cherish.
With seven wins from 11 matches, Rajasthan remain at third on the points table and look poised to make it to the play-offs, which leaves