Two sportsmen with aims beyond the IPL V trophy

The ongoing DLF-IPL-V is an enormous battlefield. The ultimate match for the coveted trophy will be fought at Chennai's Chidambaram Stadium on May 27. Who will win the fifth edition?

After the league phase, the competition will enter the knockout phase where play-offs will decide who among the top four league leaders will vie for top honours.

Despite the enormity of the task in hand for the contenders to the coveted title, there are many, equally interesting, battles fought on daily basis.

The most interesting and perhaps the most intensive war is raging where at least four Indian players are in contention. This for the popular Orange Cap, given to the player who has scored most runs to date in the league phase.

Yet, the Orange Cap cannot be the only motivation to at least two of the four Indians figure in the top five. Virender Sehwag of Delhi Daredevils and Gautam Gambhir of Kolkata Knight Riders, have other priorities.

What is the real issue on the minds of the two Delhi stalwarts? The two want to prove themselves as batsmen par excellence and equally adept in leading their teams.

Sehwag, known for his attacking style of batting, seemed to have curbed his natural instinct, to play a longer innings with the sole idea of getting runs at the top. His five consecutive half-centuries, in fact, placed Delhi on the path to a good position in the league phase. He even wore the Orange Cap for a day!

Most of the Knight Riders' victories are owing to captain Gambhir's contribution at the top of the order. The stylist left-hander, as the skipper and a batsman, led with courage and imagination.

What triggered the two to prove a point? The older Sehwag and younger Gambhir, not only came from Delhi, both led India successfully on different occasions and were vice-captains of the National team.

The National selectors picked Delhi teammate and junior World Cup winning captain, Virat Kohli, as Mahendra Singh Dhoni's deputy on India's last tour of Bangladesh. This move overlooked the claims of Sehwag, who was the team's deputy on the tour of England and Australia, and Gambhir who, too, captained India against the visiting New Zealand to a 5-0 rout at home a few years back when Dhoni was laid low by an injury.

The failure of the two seniors in England and Australia and relatively high success rate of Kohli in Down Under ought to have influenced the National selectors to prefer the 23-year-old lad over the two seniors for the Indian team vice-captaincy.

Just before KKR opened its IPL campaign, former Pakistan captain, Wasim Akram, ridiculed the National selectors for dropping Gambhir from the vice-captaincy.

He fuelled the debate further with the statement on April 3. “This is the first time I saw the vice-captain was dropped after the team's loss… I don't know what he (Gambhir) feels about it but if I was him then definitely my goal would have been to win this IPL and prove a point','' Akram was quoted as saying.

Despite Delhi and Kolkata losing the 13th round matches on Saturday, it is clear from the body language of Sehwag and Gambhir displayed from the start of the tournament that they are indeed out to prove something to the world. Maybe they are eyeing the National team captaincy!

Add to it Kohli's dreadful form with the bat though he came out with flying colours as the stand-in captain of the Royal Challengers Bangalore.

An interesting situation awaits the National selectors when they assemble to pick the Indian team for the ICC World Twenty20 championship in September!

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