Jai Ho ! It's the year of the underdogs

The wooden spooners are now title contenders. In a dramatic turnaround of fortunes in the IPL, last year’s bottom-placed teams Royal Challengers and Team Hyderabad will vie for the title in the grand finale of the second edition of the tournament in Johannesburg this evening. Hyderabad, who finished rock bottom in 2008, have been enforcers from the start in IPL-2, looking a reformed outfit with Adam Gilchrist leading from the front. They seemed a little lost midway but their power-packed signings have won them the crucial moments. The Royal Challengers, seventh last year with their much-derided ‘Test team’, benefited from a change of guard midway. With more or less the same team as last year, they have snubbed critics this time by rallying around Anil Kumble and scripting a remarkable tunraround in the late stages. They have relied less on individual heroics and instead found juniors and Test stalwarts rising equally to the occasion. While Gilchrist single-handedly blew away Team Delhi on Friday to take Hyderabad to the final, the Challengers’ skillful run chase took them past MS Dhoni’s Team Chennai in the second semifinal on Saturday night.