Saturday, April 17, 2010

Bulls barge into top bracket

Deccan Chargers took a giant leap towards the IPL-3 semifinals in scenic Dharamshala as a Rohit Sharma special (68 not out, 38b, 6x4, 3x6) guided the Bulls to a thrilling five-wicket win over Kings XI Punjab at the HPCA Stadium here on Friday.

Chasing 175, Sharma’s skilful knock and useful contributions by Tirumalasetti Suman and Aussie rookie Mitchell Marsh got the Chargers home in the final over of the match with five wickets in hand and lifted them to fourth in the IPL points table.

Deccan Chargers skipper Adam Gilchrist got the chase off on the right note with a four off the very first ball of Vikramjeet Malik. However, the trailblazer fell in the very next over as he skied Irfan Pathan to Juan Theron. Monish Mishra continued his fine form and struck four boundaries in his 20 before falling leg-before to Malik.

Sharma almost lost Suman early. Going down the track to Piyush Chawla, the 26-year-old was beaten for flight. However, the KXIP skipper failed to grab the ball and an important chance fell by the wayside.

Suman (43, 31b, 3x4, 3x6) made the most of his reprieve before a Chawla top-spinner saw Suman trying to cut the ball, but he could only find the toe of the bat and Sangakkara made no mistake this time around and held a fine catch.

Andrew Symonds failed to get the task done and was dismissed by Theron for four.

Earlier, Deccan Chargers’ Ryan Harris set the hosts back in the first over itself dismissing compatriot Shaun Marsh for a first-ball duck. Mahela Jayawardene got into his groove and alongside skipper Sangakkara went about rebuilding the innings, cautiously at first, before unleashing some exquisite strokeplay.

Scoreboard

Kings XI Punjab
Mahela Jayawardene not out 93, Shaun Marsh c Adam Gilchrist b Ryan Harris 0, Kumar Sangakkara c Pragyan Ojha b Rahul Sharma 52, Yuvraj Singh c Andrew Symonds b R.P. Singh 20, Irfan Pathan not out 1.
Extras (lb-3, w-4, nb-1) 8
Total (in 20 overs) 174/3
FoW: 1-1, 2-87, 3-173.
Bowling: Ryan Harris 4-0-27-1, R.P. Singh 4-0-51-1, Mitchell Marsh 4-0-32-0, Andrew Symonds 2-0-16-0, Rohit Sharma 1-0-8-0, Pragyan Ojha 2-0-19-0, Rahul Sharma 3-0-18-1.

Deccan chargers
Adam Gilchrist c Juan Theron b Irfan Pathan 9, Monish Mishra lbw Vikramjeet Malik 20, Tirumalasetti Suman c Kumar Sangakkara b Piyush Chawla 43, Rohit Sharma not out 68, Andrew Symonds b Juan Theron 4, Mitchell Marsh c Mahela Jayawardene b Yuvraj Singh 15, Bodapati Sumanth not out 6.
Extras (lb-6, w-7) 13
Total (in 19.1 overs) 178/5
FoW: 1-13, 2-54, 3-120, 4-126, 5-154.
Bowling: Vikramjeet Malik 2.1-0-23-1, Irfan Pathan 3-0-35-1, Shalabh Srivastava 4-0-36-0, Juan Theron 4-0-32-1, Piyush Chawla 4-0-24-1, Yuvraj Singh 2-0-22-1.

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