Thursday IPL Thriller

The DLF Indian Premier League fans on Thursday evening entertained with two of the best matches so far in the Twenty20 tourney at a very crucial juncture of the points tally. In the first one, the Chennai Super Kings defeated Delhi Dare Devils while the other nail biting match ended in the victory of Kolkata Knight Riders over the Bangalore Royal Challengers.

Chennai Super Kings chasing a target of 188 to victory started of in all its clinical fashion as both the openers Vidyut Sivaramakrishnan (40) and Stephen Fleming (44) came of well to contribute 62 for the first wicket.

Two quick wickets first Fleming and then Suresh Raina in two end-to-end over did added pressure to Super Kings. Dhoni’s run-a-ball 33 and some tight bowling by Delhi made a belief that the match is not going to be easy for Chennai.

Super Kings’ were at 138/4 in the start of 14th over when Albie Morkel departed scoring a quickfire of 30 in just 15 balls. Morkel after hitting three consecutive sixes in one over of Sehwag got run out by the later putting the match into a tight spot though a silly calculation by the Delhi skipper bared him from another victory.

With just 15 runs to get from the last over, Sehwag preferred to use the Pakistani off spinner Shoaib Malik which went in favour of Chennai as paceman MS Gony (13) made a couple of vigorous hitting to get over his team from the clutches of defeat.

Earlier, batting first Delhi though lost the destructive Sehwag’s (23 of 18) wicket but Gautam Gambhir yet again played a classy 48-ball innings of 80 did set the platform for a good total.

AB de Villiers and Shoaib Malik though dismissed easily but it was Shikhar Dhawan whose intelligent knock of 59 of 46, which came with six boundaries and two lofty sixes carried the game forward.

Laxmipati Balaji and Morkel chipped in with two wickets each in their allotted four-over spell each.

Finally it was Super Kings who gained their winning momentum back after facing three consecutive defeats. Both the teams had lost their last match but are still amongst the top four teams.

Luck dismay the Challengers

In another game Bangalore Royal Challengers again failed to capitalise despite a good effort in bowling and lost its match against Kolkata Knight Riders by just 5-runs.

Due to rain, the match was limited to 16-overs. The Knight Riders after winning toss decided to bowl first and only managed to put 129 on the board.

After losing two quick wickets Akash Chopra (2) and B. Hodge (10), David Hussey (26), Sourav Ganguly (20) did try to move the scoreboard but both of them got run out. T. Taibu (15), Murli Karthik (17) and wicketkeeper Prasanta Saha (17) were the other top contributors.

From Royal Challengers Dale Steyn got 3 wickets, Zaheer Khan and Preveen Kumar got one wicket each.

Though the target was of only 130 the Challengers could not manage to hold on their nerves and only made 124/4 completing their quota of overs. The valiant effort of Arun Kumar (22 of 17), Mark Boucher (50 of 40), and C. White (30 of 16) went into vain as they fell short of just 5 runs. Sourav Ganguly was declared Man of the Match for his all-round effort.

Both matches offered complete entertainment to cricket lovers with the fluctuating uncertainty in winning margin. Though the day further reduce the possibility of Bangalore’s position on the top but on the other side it again brought back Kolkata Knight Riders into the race of IPL trophy.