The first contests pits the favorites, the Shane Warne led Rajasthan Royals, against the underdogs, the Virender Sehwag led Delhi Daredevils, who living up to their name, reached the semifinals, living dangerously, and on the verge of elimination, several times in the tournament. 

This game will see the old firm (with a combined age of nearly eighty years) of McGrath and Warne playing for opposite teams, providing one of many interesting mini-battles of the match.  On paper, despite the difference in their records, with Rajasthan winning 11 games versus only 7 won by Delhi, the teams are quite evenly matched.  The structure of the tournament, with its one-off semifinals and finals means that Delhi if it has a good day, could eliminate the best team in the tournament, and who knows even win The Cup. 

Similarly in the other semifinal on Saturday, the match up between Mahendra Singh Dhoni led Chennai Superkings and the Punjab Kings XI is also likely to be a battle royale, with the difference being that there is no clear favorite in this match up, though the Kings have a better record than the streaky Superkings.  With all the games being played in Mumbai, no team has any home field advantage, and this will tend to further even things up.

This type of format, while not ideal, is nonetheless fair enough, as all teams were well aware of the rules going into the contest, which is more than can be said about the contest for the Democratic nominee in the Presidential elections of  the United States, which are liable to end up in front of a judge in a courtroom. 

Thus any bellyaching about the format is just that, a lot of whining about a tournament that, compared to the disasterous 2007 World Cup that the ICC mismanaged to its sorry end, has been a roaring triumph of organization. This tournament should once and for all put an end to the spurious myth that Indian administrators are not as capable as their Western counterparts.  The snide remarks in the press, particularly the English and Australian press about the supposed dangers to World Cricket if both the President and de facto CEO of the ICC are from India can now be consigned to the dustbin, where they belonged in the first place.

Come what may, despite deep skepticism, including from this writer, the tournament has been an unqualified success.  Sure there have been a few hiccups, but at least nobody died in mysterious circumstances.  The fact that the boards of Australia, England (with help from one Mr. Stanford) and even Pakistan are talking about similar tournaments is proof positive of the success of this venture.  After all imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  Now if only the IPL would recognize the same principle and give some credit to the ICL... Oh well…

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