Team unity gives CSK a near-invincible look

It would be an understatement to call the Chennai Super Kings the most consistent side of the IPL thus far. Three finals in four tournaments with one IPL win means that there aren't too many sides which can hold a candle to the side's performances in the IPL thus far.

Their results make you wonder whether the game is as simple as the Super Kings make it out to be. The difference, to me, comes in the crunch moments which the side seems to win, more often than not. It is not as if they do not lose games - they were probably lucky to qualify for the first Qualifier and not in the Eliminator, but once there they turned out a game that they were most definitely going out in with consummate ease.

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There is a sense of inevitability in the win and that comes from knowing how to react at such moments in the game and then, seizing them. Another facet of the team is their selection policy. We all know about their decision to retain all four

of the players allowed, but they did not stop at that. At the auction, they tried to get in as many from the previous seasons as possible and to top that, they have some excellent local players as well.

Most teams have a good set of international but struggle to fill in their quota of local players in their playing eleven. With Chennai, that is not the case. The selectors or whoever their scouts are, have done a good job in getting in some of the best local players and that is where the side has scored over some of the others.

On paper, they cannot be called the best batting or bowling line-up but as a unit they are much greater than the sum of their parts.

In this edition of the tournament, the Super Kings hasn't been in the best of nicks but S Badrinath has compensated for that by playing a few gems. The presence of two all-rounders in the middle-order -- and the management and captain's consistent backing of the two -- seems to have done the team good, while the bowling looks well-balanced as well. With a fielding line-up that keeps things honest for the opponents, the side bears a near-invincible look about them.

IPL ki jai ho!

We now know that it is the Royal Challengers Bangalore who would take on the Super Kings in this year's final, but CSK's experience of being there and having done that would give them an edge. To add to that, they will be playing at home, an advantage that accentuates manifold when one looks at their record of seven successive wins in the seven games that they have played there this season.

A lot has been made of the Gautam Gambhir issue but we need to understand that all of us, cricketers, have had to play through pain at each levels of the game. In the end, it needs to be the call of the individual to decide whether he can bite the bullet and continue playing or when he is doing a great disservice to himself and his side with his injury.

Professional Management Group