Their title defense in danger of coming unhinged after three straight losses, holders Deccan Chargers need to quickly rediscover their momentum against table toppers Mumbai Indians in the teams' second leg clash of the Indian Premier League here tomorrow.
The Adam Gilchrist-led Deccan were flying high after they recovered from their loss to Kolkata Knight Riders at the DY
Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai in the tournament opener on March 12. They won three matches in a row and zoomed to the top of
the table.
But a loss to the Shane Warne-led Rajasthan Royals at Ahmedabad on March 26 brought them back to the ground with a thump and also started their steep slump.
Losses to Mumbai Indians in their 'home' tie at the DY Patil Stadium two days later and to the Knight Riders last night at the Eden Gardens have pushed the holders down to seventh in the league table going into their eighth round encounter against the Sachin Tendulkar-led Mumbai.
It won't be easy to pick themselves up from the floor after this losing sequence, besides the physical exertion of traveling from Kolkata to Mumbai today after finishing their match past 11 p m last night.
But that's the hard task facing Deccan, whose batting and bowling collectively failed against Kolkata.
Their main worry is the total loss of form of their dashing skipper Adam Gilchrist who has tallied just 10 runs in these defeats. It's imperative that the former Australia stumper rediscovers his magical form with the bat against Mumbai.
The previous encounter between the two teams was taken away from the Chargers by Harbhajan Singh who first smashed his way to 49 not out in 18 balls to give Mumbai a fighting score to defend and then dismissed Gilchrist for a blob off the second ball of their innings.
Harbhajan seems to find something extra within when he faces the duo of Gilchrist and Andrew Symonds on the opposite side for reasons that go back to India-Australia Test rubbers in the past.
Apart from Gilchrist's poor form, the Chargers have also been let down by Herschelle Gibbs who has been unable to convert his starts into something more meaningful either as opener or at one-down.
This duo's failure to fire in unison at the top has resulted in extra burden falling on Symonds and Rohit Sharma in the middle. Despite their best efforts the Chargers have fallen short in their last three ties.
