If Adam Gilchrist had packed his bags and left for Perth midway through the tournament , not many would have blamed him.

The Deccan Chargers were on the brink of elimination, languishing near the bottom of the points table after five consecutive losses, the last of those being a 63-run hiding to the Mumbai Indians a fortnight ago.

Since then though, they have won everything and now, unbelievably, the defending champions find themselves contesting an IPL semifinal for the second season in a row.

Given the unpredictability of the format and the fact that the Chargers are still struggling with a misfiring top and middle order, the turnaround seems miraculous, but coach Darren Lehmann said that every bit of their last five wins had been crafted on paper.

“The realisation that we could be out of IPL-3 hit us on the night we lost to Mumbai. Instead of going to the hotel after the match, the players stayed back at the stadium and brainstormed on what needed to be done to stay afloat in the competition,” Lehmann told this newspaper on Monday.

“T20 is a lottery, but we couldn’t use that excuse anymore, so we planned every tiny aspect of the game right from what kind of shots to play after losing a wicket to how wide or slow to bowl to a batsman in the slog overs.”

Lehmann said he had asked the batsman to stop planning for big innings and focus on playing just 12 balls. “The batting aspect was less complicated. It was important for batsmen to play without pressure. I told every guy in the eleven to try to focus on playing 12 balls, and score 20 runs. That’s it,” he said.

“Playing a long inning is in built into the psyche of everyone, so once they were settled they more often than not went to score big. The plan was that Gilly would just play the first powerplay and get the maximum runs he could in those few overs. After that period, the rest of the batting would chip in to lead the side to a big total.”

Gilchrist was off colour in all five wins, but still ensured that the side didn’t take time charging up. Just few hits to the fence were enough to set up the platform for the batsmen to follow, a move that worked quite well in Chargers’ 11-run over the Delhi Daredevils here on Sunday.

Two fours from Gilly got the the team off to a good start, before the broad blade of Andrew Symonds came in to play to lead the side to 145/7 in 20 overs, an imminently defendable score on the notoriously slow Kotla pitch. “At the toss I thought 150 would be a fighting score. It gave our bowlers a total they could defend,” said Gilchrist after the match.

Lehmann said getting the bowling up to to scratch involved a lot of work at the nets. “We analysed that we were conceding a lot of runs in the death overs, so we recreated those conditions in the nets,” Lehmann said.

The rules of the game have changed now that Gilly’s men are in the semis — the Chargers for once won’t be the underdogs when they take on Chennai Super Kings on Thursday.

Lehmann, however, warned against complacency. “We are still not clinching the key moment of the game, so it would be foolish to consider us downright favourites against a very strong side.”