“Halla Bol” is back and Rajasthan Royals would be hoping to maintain their winning streak in this edition of IPL.

By Rohit Sakunia

Champions are made up of different material and this material is not necessarily exceptional knowledge of the fundamentals. Rajasthan Royals proved this right during the inaugural edition of the IPL. A team which was fined for using less than the minimum amount of money to sign players eventually became the champions of the glitzy event.

The content of the side made them the underdogs. In fact some critics said that calling them underdogs was also overestimating their prowess. A team made up of talent hunt winners like Swapnil Asnodkar and Australia discard Shane Watson did not fascinate the bookers but what most of the calculators failed to calculate were the two things that teams need to produce wins.

The first is the value of the infusion of new blood and the second is a positive frame of mind. Rajasthan Royals might not have had the best of the players. They might have lacked in buying the Sanath Jayasuriya's and the Andrew Symonds but what they had was a culmination of the two most important things discussed above and to gel them they had a brain which can be considered the best in the game ‘ever'.

Their bowling seemed equally fragile where apart from a Sohail Tanvir and skipper Shane Warne none looked impressive on paper. Munaf Patel was then a team India discard who was known more for his injuries than his abilities to bowl match winning-deliveries.

Shane Watson wasn't fascinating nor was a little known Sidharth Dwivedi. They also had a cut-to-made bowler for the ultra-short version known as Yusuf Pathan but even his credentials were doubtful till IPL ended.

But what this team had, none other did. They had bowlers, who could bat, batsman who could bowl their allotted overs with minimum damage. The list of such players was huge in the side. From Yusuf to Watson and Ravindra Jadeja to Sohail Tanvir, not discounting their skipper Shane Warne who scored more than 15 runs in a Symonds over to win against Deccan Chargers.

It were unknown players and discards like Yusuf Pathan and Shane Watson who made the tournament their own and made other franchisee owners look for answers from stalwarts in their respective sides.

The final was a totally Yusuf-Watson affair where first Yusuf Pathan picked up three wickets and thwarted any threat of a big total from Chennai Super Kings. Then he and Watson made sure that the tail did not have an impossible job at their hands. Yusuf in fact hit Muttiah Muralitharan for three sixes in the finals and that for many was the defining moment of the championship decider.

Since then a lot of things have happened. Sohail Tanvir and Kamran Akmal would definitely be missed by this side. Tanvir especially since he is the only bowler in the shortest format to have hit a sixer with the leather in his hands.

But then they still have the confidence. They still have the aura and the ruthless attitude. More than anything Shane Warne will be there and with him at the helm even the weakest team can surprise the best one.

Yes, they surprised the cricketing fraternity by winning the multi-million dollar tournament's first edition and surprises are not everyday happenings in sports but then performance wise they cannot be discounted.

The summer slam of 2009 is a month away and Rajasthan Royals would be fighting it out to defend the championship title. This time the fight's going to get even tougher but as the famous saying goes, "when the going gets tough, the tough get going".