As I was rolling cluelessly on my bed after watching a grand chase by my favourite Chennai Super Kings in the third league match of the CLt20, I got an idea to write this piece out.  We all know how test matches should be played and how One dayers should have to be played. While the tests require steady and a solid approach, ODIs requires brain games with powerplays and death overs involved in it. We all knew it very clearly already. But how does the t20′s should have to be played and it’s just the slogging abilities you would require to be a top t20 team?

Well, many of us do think like this.

If you say that a team who can slog the ball well can only be a top t20 team, then Royal Challengers Bangalore should have won atleast three IPL tournaments with Gayle, AB Devilliers and Kohli in their ranks. So if you say tactics and some planning would do good in this shortest format of the game, then Rahul Dravid‘s Rajasthan Royals should have won atleast a couple of trophies. Or if you say a team with clever bowling unit can win t20s, then look at the case of Sunrisers Hyderabad.

Now I can clearly explain this with two top t20 teams. Let us look at Otago Volts at first. Well, many of you would curse me for stating Otago Volts as a top t20 team but before that we should have to remember that we have’nt seen any other team from New Zealand other than Volts even from the day when Champions League was inaugrated.  They were unable to justify their talent in the Champions league in the previous editions but, we should have to notice a significant change in their approach in this edition. They have won three games in a row to get qualified where all three were comfortable wins.

By watching them closely during the qualifiers and having watched the great Chennai Super Kings as a crazy fan over the years, I have some how managed to find the winning formula or we should say, the way to play t20s.  Both of the teams have many in common. A mixture of classic stroke makers like Rutherford and Hussey, a combination of deadly hitters of the ball like Dhoni, Brendon McCullum and Suresh Raina along with the street smart all rounders like Bravo, Neesham, Jadeja, Ten Doeschate who do play an integral part in t20s.

When you bat first in a t20 game, those classic batsmen at the top will always build a solid platform above which you can post a grand total with the help of natural sloggers and all rounders down the order. And if you want to chase down a big total, we can take a clear cut example of what happened in today’s league game between Super kings and Titans. And if you are chasing a small target in tricky conditions against healthy bowling unit, that is the scenario where batsmen who are all rounders would become handy in case of a batting collapse. Many of us would have seen Bravo or Jadeja saved CSK in some of the chases. Not only in small chases but also in chasing a big total.

And it’s not Gurunath Meyyapan or Srinivasan behind CSK’s wins, but it’s the quality of all rounders they have. All rounders form the nucleus of a bowling unit. There are only few games in t20s where a team won by a five wicket haul of a bowler or by an individual bowler’s brilliance. Spinners do get spanked most of the times except some special cases like Narine. In the powerplay overs and in the death overs, batsmen would go bang without any doubt. The middle overs are the ones which comes into play. You need street smart bowlers in these scenarios.

For Otago Volts, Jimmy Neesham and Ryan Ten Doeschate do that perfectly. They bowl very tight lines which would always result in a wicket if it gets a harsh treatment. Bravo, Morkel, Morris are doing it for the CSK. This always do the trick in the t20s. You can note down many t20 games and winning sides would have atleast a bit of this formula. Well, there are exceptions too where mostly this West Indians win the game single handedly. But to be a consistent winning side, your team must have atleast glimpses of this formulae.