|
|
Super Kings halt Mumbai Indians' winning streak...
[
2010-04-06 23:38:50 ] |
|
|
A revamped Chennai Super Kings halted the winning streak of Mumbai Indians with a 24-run victory in the Indian Premier League (IPL) Tuesday.
It was their fifth win in 10 matches for the Super Kings while the Mumbai Indians crashed to their second defeat in nine outings after a shocking batting display that saw them collapse to 141 for nine chasing the home team's total of 165 for four.
Only skipper Sachin Tendulkar held his end up despite suffering from dehydration to top score for Mumbai with 45, but the rest of the batsmen collapsed due to questionable shot selection as also |
|
some wicket-to-wicket bowling by the Super Kings.
Tendulkar, in fact, retired after making 38 off 28 balls as his discomfort was very apparent. But then he had return to the field after the Mumbai Indians lost six wickets in as many overs.
He lasted just seven deliveries before holing out in the deep and with his departure, the last of Mumbai Indians' hope went up in smoke.
The Super Kings, who had made three changes from the team that had beaten Rajasthan Royals last week, bowled and fielded with intensity to emerge deserving winners.
For the home team, left-arm seamer Thilan Thushara (2 for 16) and off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin (2 for 22), both coming in as a replacement for Tuesday's game, were outstanding, though the former had to be taken off midway through his third over after being no-balled twice.
However, the hosts had to work for their runs after deciding to bat first on winning the toss as they huffed and puffed their way to 165 for four in 20 overs against a highly efficient Mumbai Indians.
For Mumbai, off-spinner Harbhajan Singh was the pick of the bowlers with a two-wicket haul, but it was seamer Kieron Pollard whose two wickets in one over applied brakes on the Super Kings.
None of the Super Kings batsmen, including Murali Vijay, a centurion in the previous game here, was able to raise a gallop by T20 standards with the Mumbai bowlers keeping it tight, backed by precise field placements.
Opener Matthew Hayden top scored with 35, but was never able to dominate while the rest got good starts only to depart at regular intervals.
The big moment for the Mumbai Indians came in the 14th over when Kieron Pollard dismissed Hayden and skipper M.S. Dhoni off consecutive deliveries to leave the Super Kings tottering on 119 for four.
In fact, the Super Kings went without a boundary for five overs in the mid-phase of the innings. However, towards close, Subramaniam Badrinath came up with some innovative shots to socre 31 not out and provided some respectability to the total.
On their part, the Mumbai Indians began well enough with openers Tendulkar and Shikhar Dhawan (16) putting on 46 in six overs before the Super Kings made deep inroads.
Left-arm seamer Thushara dismissed Dhawan with his very first delivery in the seventh over and then followed a dramatic collapse after Tendulkar left the field during the timeout.
The Mumbai middle-order batsmen virtually gifted their wickets away even as the Super Kings came up with some amazing catches besides some inspired fielding to apply more pressure on their opponents.
Towards the end, Harbhajan Singh gave some hopes to Mumbai with three sixes off Doug Bollinger, but it was all too little too late. |
| **News Powred by
Daily Mirror |
|
| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
|
Jayawardene ton guides Kings XI to second IPL win ...
[
2010-04-05 00:55:55 ] |
|
|
Sri Lankan Mahela Jayawardene cracked an unconquered 59-ball 110 to lead Kings XI Punjab to an emphatic eight-wicket win over Kolkata Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League (IPL) in Kolkata on Sunday.
Jayawardene, who returned to the team in place of an injured Shaun Marsh, hit 14 boundaries and three sixes and capitalised on one 'life' to script a 98-run second wicket stand with skipper Kumara Sangakkara (38) to set the stage for the bottom placed side's second victory in the tournament after four consecutive defeats.
Replying to the Knight Riders' challenging total of 200 |
|
for three, the visitors cantered to 204 for two with ten balls to spare, as Yuvraj Singh played a cameo (33 not out of 16 balls; 2x4, 3x6) towards the end to hasten the hosts' fifth defeat in nine games.
Jayawardene then completed the game in style, picking up two consecutive fours off medium pacer Jaidev Unadkat to disappoint a packed Eden Gardens crowd.
Jayawardene became the second Sri Lankan after Sanath Jayasurya to get a Twenty20 hundred, and third batsman in this edition of the IPL, when he took a couple of Shane Bond to reach the three-figure mark off 56 balls.
Murali Kartik must be cursing himself for having dropped the Sri Lankan when he was on 51. Jayawardene tried to steer compatriot Angelo Mathews and virtually spooned it to Kartik, who failed to hold on to the offering.
Earlier, opener Chris Gayle blasted a 42-ball 88 as the Knight Riders piled up an imposing total.
Gayle plundered eight sixes and six boundaries and also put on 101 for the second wicket with Manoj Tiwary (35). Skipper Sourav Ganguly scored 36 as the hosts set Kings XI Punjab a tough asking rate of 10.05 runs per over.
Opening with Gayle, Ganguly started off in style with two boundaries in the first over, as the star duo picked up boundaries in every over to bring up the 50 in 5.2 overs. Ganguly, however, departed a little later, giving a return catch to Ravi Bopara.
Gayle and Tiwary then played cleverly, picking up singles and twos, with Gayle hitting the occasional fours and a six off Ramesh Powar as Knight Riders reached 89 for one in the 12th over.
What followed for the next few minutes was a gale from Gayle's bat. The West Indies batsman carried out a murderous assault on Bopara, hitting him four consecutive sixes as the 13th over produced 33 runs.
Gayle dispatched pacer Irfan Pathan for two boundaries in the next over, before lifting leg spinner Piyush Chowla out of the ground twice as he moved from 30 to 80 in only ten deliveries.
Young South African pacer Juan Theron finally ended Gayle's run deluge with a low full toss, a ball after the West Indies player sent him out of the ground. Gayle tried to again hit the bowler out of the ground, but ended up giving a catch to the deep.
|
| **News Powred by
Daily Mirror |
|
| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
|
Tendulkar powers Mumbai to the top...
[
2010-03-25 15:39:52 ] |
|
|
Sachin Tendulkar was the rudder, Shikhar Dhawan provided propulsion, and they combined for a 92-run opening partnership which charted Mumbai Indians' course for success at the Brabourne Stadium. The victory helped the hosts steam past Royal Challengers Bangalore and take top spot in the league with a game in hand. The absence of major setbacks during the pursuit of a formidable target, on a day their usually efficient bowling attack failed, emphasised Mumbai's status as one of the tournament favourites.
Chennai Super Kings also had several things going for them as they sought to nip |
|
their budding losing streak: MS Dhoni had returned, Matthew Hayden bludgeoned Zaheer Khan to seize the initiative, and Suresh Raina and S Badrinath forged a partnership of 142, the second-best of all IPLs. However, their bowling attack is perhaps the competition's weakest and Dhoni had too many chinks to find cover for against a ruthless batting line-up. Muttiah Muralitharan apart, none of the others caused a flutter, and Mumbai cruised home with an over to spare. The defeat was Chennai's third in a row and their fourth in six games.
Mumbai's start wasn't fluent. There were few boundaries in the early overs, and a healthy helping of extras were needed to stay abreast of the asking-rate. Tendulkar's timing wasn't there, though that had little to do against the bowling of Albie Morkel and L Balaji. Then Dhoni gave the fifth over to Joginder Sharma, who did not play the previous game, and Dhawan cut loose, peppering the leg-side boundary with two pulls and a flick. The 50 was up in the fifth over and Dhawan accelerated further in the next by pulling Balaji for consecutive sixes.
Dhoni tried left-arm spinner Shadab Jakati after the fielding restrictions were lifted, but Dhawan greeted him with a reverse-swat to the boundary. In Jakati's second over, Dhawan charged and lofted him straight to reach a 31-ball fifty with a six. He holed out three balls later, but had already caused serious damage. Morkel had been satisfactory but the rest, especially the unthreatening medium-pace of Balaji and Joginder, had leaked runs.
Murali, who had come on in the eighth over, trapped Saurabh Tiwary lbw in the tenth during the only phase when Chennai reined Mumbai in. They scored 94 off nine overs and only 12 off the next three. Mumbai needed 75 off 48 balls and it was now that Tendulkar decided to hit his first six of the season, stepping out to Murali and lofting him over long-on. He didn't demolish the bowling during this half-century, brought up off 40 balls, but stayed in long enough to ensure there would be no hiccups during the chase.
The introduction of Thissara Perera sealed Chennai's fate. The debutant started with a full toss - on offer aplenty from Balaji and Joginder too - that Tendulkar put away to fine leg for four. He then bowled two more, and Tendulkar glanced them both off his pads effortlessly. While Tendulkar was being steady, Pollard muscled 20 off 9 balls to hack away at the asking-rate, and Dwayne Bravo ended it with Caribbean flair, flicking and pulling Balaji for boundaries.
Mumbai's batsmen rose to the challenge on a day their bowlers under-performed. Only Ryan McLaren, who took the new ball for the first time, and Harbhajan Singh exerted control over Chennai's scoring-rate, while Zaheer, Bravo and Lasith Malinga, who was first used only in the 11th, went for over ten an over.
Hayden wielded his bat like a club from the start. He missed the first ball, a wide from Zaheer, and hit the second to mid-on. The next four, all length deliveries with width, disappeared to different parts of the off-side boundary, each placed straighter than the previous one and dispatched with immense power off the front foot. Those hits were with a regular bat but Hayden called for the little one when Harbhajan came on in the third over. He lasted two balls before a slider caught him in front, leaving Chennai on 32 for 1.
Parthiv Patel followed soon after, bowled off his pads by a McLaren yorker, which brought together Raina and Badrinath. Raina was severe on Bravo, hitting his first two balls for a six and a four, chipping him over the slips before dealing him another six and four a few deliveries later. He brought up his half-century off 32 balls, Badrinath lofted Zaheer over his head to reach 50 off 41. They added 142, but towards the end were unable to find the fifth gear. Chennai had plenty of wickets in hand and looked set for 200-plus, but Malinga returned and conceded only seven off the final over to keep them to well below that. In the end, 180 wasn't enough. |
| **News Powred by
www.cricinfo.com |
|
| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
|
Rajasthan seal valuable victory...
[
2010-03-24 23:35:01 ] |
|
|
Rajasthan Royals backed up a strong batting performance from Adam Voges and Faiz Fazal with a disciplined bowling effort that choked Kings XI Punjab after their top order had delivered a promising start. The 31-run win meant Rajasthan climbed to a joint-fourth position on the points table, leaving Punjab, who have lost four out of five games, at the bottom. A blistering cameo by Manvinder Bisla had raised Punjab's hopes of scaling down a large target, but a combination of crafty bowling, agile fielding and some irresponsible batting crushed any possibility of a successful chase. |
|
Though the margin of defeat indicates a dominating show by Rajasthan, Punjab had their chances. Their bowlers managed to fight back after a strong start by the Rajasthan openers but faltered at the death in the wake of an assault from Voges and Fazal. Kumar Sangakkara and Bisla blazed away in their reply, racing to 76 in the first six overs, the highest score of the tournament after the Powerplay. But clever variations from seamers Siddharth Trivedi and Munaf Patel, and some uninspiring batting from the rest of the line-up, cut short what was gearing up to be a more exciting fixture.
The conditions at the PCA Stadium in Mohali were conducive for fast bowling with the Punjab opening bowlers beating the outside edge on more than one occasion, and Shaun Tait doing the same during the chase. Tait, who had a poor start to the IPL, bowled a couple of excellent outswingers at Ravi Bopara but suffered an onslaught from Sangakkara, whose frequent hits to the boundary were as much a consequence of good fortune as the batsman's conviction.
A smattering of fours through cover was followed by an inside edge to fine leg before Tait, dropping one short, led the Punjab captain to upper-cut a catch straight to third man; but not before 41 had been scored in the first four overs.
Bisla's brazen aggression threatened to set Punjab on course, but also contributed to his downfall, a result of a well-executed strategy from Shane Warne. Bisla, who shot to limelight with a blazing 75 against Bangalore, tore into Munaf off just his second ball. Given the restrictions, he had figured out his scoring areas, and proceeded to take 18 off the fifth over, including two fours and six through the leg side. Warne, too, suffered a similar fate, smashed for 10 in two balls but Bisla's ploy to strike against the turn cost him. Anticipating a slog, Warne had a deep midwicket in place, flighted the ball, Bisla obliged and holed out.
Yuvraj Singh had returned to form in a thrilling chase against Chennai, and looked to continue that when he smacked a straight six off Warne. But his ill-executed shot off Trivedi, having been dropped two balls earlier, marked the beginning of a dismal collapse that squandered a healthy position of 107 for 2 in the 11th over.
Both Munaf and Trivedi frequently took the pace off the ball which the Punjab batsmen, including Yuvraj and Bopara, failed to read. When Irfan Pathan was run-out brilliantly by Abhishek Jhunjhunwala in the 13th over, and Mohammad Kaif trapped in front by Yusuf Pathan 11 balls later, Punjab had lost four batsmen for 19 runs in 23 balls. Rajasthan had virtually sealed the game, and were met with little resistance when running through the rest of the batting.
Just as in their batting, Punjab had slipped up with the ball when the game had been on even terms. They had the better of the conditions after choosing to field, but Sreesanth, Shalabh Srivastava and Irfan struggled for control with the ball moving around. Short balls were dispatched through point by the openers Michael Lumb and Naman Ojha, while full deliveries were picked up with ease over the leg-side field.
Lumb had a woeful start to the tournament, but played with confidence, matching his aggressive partner Ojha stroke for stroke. However, Punjab struck to remove the openers within the first eight overs and earned the big scalp of Yusuf Pathan, caught off a slower one with seven overs still to go.
But the stage was set for yet another turn in the game, as the Punjab bowlers failed to measure up to improvisations from Voges. He found the boundary with ease, piercing the gaps, following a well laid-out plan. Joining Fazal, Voges had marked his scoring areas. The spaces on either side, between long-on and deep midwicket and long-off and deep extra cover, were exploited, as Yuvraj, Piyush Chawla and Irfan were taken for two fours and a six in consecutive overs.
Fazal, too, began fluently but ceded the floor to Yusuf and then Voges before opening up. He seized on length deliveries to dispatch four boundaries in successive overs off Irfan and Rusty Theron in the death overs; his 60-run stand with Voges, off 37 balls, gave Rajasthan a formidable total, one that thwarted Sangakkara's plans at the toss to limit them to under 150 and handed their team another morale-boosting win. |
| **News Powred by
www.cricinfo.com |
|
| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
|
Robin Uthappa's blitz floors Chennai...
[
2010-03-23 23:10:26 ] |
|
|
"I'm just an ordinary cricketer who is working hard," said Robin Uthappa during the mid-innings break. His 38-ball 68 that rescued Royal Challengers Bangalore's innings, however, was anything but ordinary. Uthappa's eleventh-hour blitz helped his team recover from a shaky start and sluggish middle overs, after which Bangalore's bowlers throttled Chennai Super Kings to move to the top of the points table.
Chennai took wickets during the early and middle overs but it was the final 19 deliveries of Bangalore's innings, |
|
where Uthappa blazed away, that made the difference. Dropped on 5 and 25, Uthappa helped Bangalore take 52 runs off them, lifting his team from 119 after 17 overs to 171 for 5, when at one stage 150 looked difficult.
It was the speed and power with which Uthappa collected his runs that was dazzling: his last 39 came off ten balls. The over that swung the momentum Bangalore's way was the penultimate one, in which Uthappa - whose improvisation makes him the ideal Twenty20 batsman - struck three successive sixes off L Balaji to ransack 24 from six balls.
Until that explosion, Bangalore had struggled. From the time their talisman opener Jacques Kallis was bowled for 19 in 4.4 overs, ending a splendid run of four unbeaten innings, the home side failed to overcome Chennai's bowlers. On a juiced-up surface, an eagerly-awaited contest began with Chennai's new-ball duo wondering just what was needed to make a breakthrough. They thought they had success in the first over, when a peach of a delivery from Albie Morkel appeared to shave the outer edge of Kallis' bat, but it was not to be.
Manish Pandey rode his luck, following up an inside-edged four to fine leg with a top edge that dropped between two fielders, and then Kallis charged Morkel, slashing a thick outside edge that was lost in the lights by L Balaji at third man. Off the very next delivery, Kallis edged Morkel wide of a diving slip for four more.
Once Kallis went for 19, missing a straight one from Balaji, Bangalore's innings lost direction. Pandey continued to live dangerously without imposing himself. Then for the second time a wicket immediately followed a boundary. Rahul Dravid rocked back and dispatched Muttiah Muralitharan's fifth delivery for four; the sixth was a topspinner that pitched on middle and leg and beat the bat to crash into the stumps.
When the strategic time-out rolled around - that's the pace at which the innings panned out - Chennai had restricted Bangalore to their poorest start yet, 61 for 2. That soon became 63 for 3 when Pandey slogged Murali and was held by Suresh Raina at mid-on. However, Chennai proceeded to reprieve Uthappa and conceded substantial ground.
Confident after Uthappa's heroics, Bangalore began snuffing out the chase. Praveen Kumar has a knack of getting early wickets and troubling left-hand batsman, and he got Parthiv Patel to edge one in the first over. Chennai struggled during the Powerplay, finishing the six-over block on 29 for 1. Matthew Hayden called for the Mongoose immediately after and hit Kallis for three consecutive fours, but he and George Bailey were unable to get Anil Kumble away. Mixing flippers and googlies exceptionally, Kumble kept a check on runs and the pressure resulted in Hayden being run out by Rahul Dravid's underarm hit.
That breakthrough brought another, and R Vinay Kumar's perfect seam position dismissed Bailey for a woeful 18 from 27 balls. Vinay struck a bigger blow in his next over when he got Suresh Raina to slash to Kallis at third man, and then Kumble sent back M Vijay. The innings never recovered after four wickets had fallen for 17 runs. Vinay went for a few runs but finished with a four-wicket haul to help Bangalore surge ahead of Mumbai Indians in the points table. |
| **News Powred by
www.cricinfo.com |
|
| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
|
|
