It was a thrilling Tuesday evening at the
Barabati Stadium for the
Deccan Chargers as they registered their second win of the season and both time it was the
Pune team that had to end on the losing side.
Deccan Chargers were batting first and Pune opened the bowling with
Marlon Samuels. Samuels struck on the first ball when
Parthiv Patel chopped one on to the stumps.
Shikhar Dhawan was again looking in good nick but his innings was cut short on 13 and
Deccan Chargers were reduced on 23/2. Skipper
Sangakkara and
Cameron White were at the crease and they needed to turn the tide in their teams favour as far as the
Deccan Chargers were concerned. They began their innings cautiously and were looking to bat through the innings to give the
Chargers a respectable total.
Chargers were
130/2 at the end of 17 overs and both
Sangakkara and
White were well set.
Ganguly took a starnge decision and decided to bring himself on for the 18th over. White put the foot on the accelerator and took Dada apart, scoring 25 of the 18th over, which included 3 mammoth sixes and a four.
Sangakkara didn't want to be left behind and he took a special liking to
Ashish Nehra, smashing him for 25 also.
Nehra was hit for 2 fours and 2 sixes before he bowled
Sanga on 82.
White was also dismissed on 74 in last over and
Deccan Chargers finally finished on
186/4.
Sangakkara and
White put on a record 157 runs for the 3rd wicket and left the Pune bowlers scratching their heads.
Michael Clarke was making his
IPL debut and opened the batting with
Manish Pandey. History repeated itself as
Pandey was also out on the first ball of the innings, caught by
Sangakkara off
Ankit Sharma. Ganguly arrived at the crease and was finding it tough to hit the ball early in his innings.
Clarke and
Ganguly kept on looking better and better as the innings progressed and they gathered 17 of
Steyn in the sixth over, which provided the innings the much needed momentum. But just when the two of them tried to up the ante they were dismissed in quick successions.
Clarke was out on 41 and
Ganguly on 45.
Steve Smith was promoted to no. 4 in the batting order and he played a few big shots but the target was a real big one. Finally,
Pune Warriors fell short by 13 runs with
Smith finishing on 47 not out of 27 balls.
Pune have certainly lost the plot in the last few games and have to pull up their socks to go to the play offs.
Deccan Chargers will hope that they continue this form for a longer time. Here are the scores in brief:
No comments:
Post a Comment