After finishing at the bottom last year, the secret behind Deccan Chargers’ dramatic early success in the 2009 edition of the IPL has been hard-nosed planning and near-perfect execution of those plans, team officials revealed after their fourth straight win on Monday.

Coach Darren Lehmann and his think-tank have provided an in-depth analysis of every opposition, listing their strengths and weaknesses. Deccan’s comprehensive six-wicket victory on Monday, for example, was the execution of a detailed plan. According to an internal Hyderabad memo, a copy of which is with The Indian Express, on the Chennai Super Kings prepared ahead of the match, Manpreet Gony “hits the deck, bowls straightish, tries to swing it out, and is predictable — bowling the same length all the time”, while L Balaji “bowls straight, is predictable with a good slower ball from the back of the hand”.

“Morkel is a skiddy type of bowler, bowls quite full and can give you plenty to hit. Got an off-spinner slower one,” the memo says, and asks opener Herschelle Gibbs to chip in more information about his fellow South Africans in the team meeting. Similarly, Scott Styris was asked to fill in information about New Zealand team mate Jacob Oram.

The Chargers identified Muttiah Muralitharan as the “key to their (Chennai’s) bowling, a lot of doosras like Harbhajan coming around the wicket for right-handers looking for lbw.” Murali was carefully seen off with just 17 runs in his four overs, but he did dismiss Dwayne Smith coming around the stumps.

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