RCB wins a close contest

     Royal Challengers Bangalore got back to winning ways and a step closer to a place in the Pepsi Indian Premier League 2013 Play-Offs with a thrilling four run victory over the Delhi Daredevils at the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium in New Delhi on 10^th May, 2013.

Virat Kohli plays a pull shot

        RCB were led by their captain, Virat Kohli, who scored a brilliant 58-ball 99before Jaidev Unadkat’s five-wicket haul sealed the match for visitors. Chasing 184, Mahela Jayawardene hit consecutive boundaries off Moises Henriques in the second over, before he hit two more off Ravi Rampaul. Unadkat got the initial breakthrough as Jayawardene (19) dragged him back onto his stumps. Virender Sehwag, who scored 18, dispatched Vinay Kumar for three successive boundaries before Unadkat deceived him with a slower delivery and had him caught by Cheteshwar Pujara at mid-on.

        Unmukt Chand pulled Henriques for a six before David Warner (4) smashed him for a boundary. However the bowler came back strongly to breach through Warner’s defense to castle him. Syed Mohammad’s first over went for 20 runs as Chand and Ben Rohrer picked up four boundaries. At the halfway stage, DD were 88 for 3, still needing 96 runs.

        Vinay Kumar sent back Rohrer (32) bowled off an inside edge leaving DD four down in the 15^th over. Needing 61 from 30 balls, Unadkar struck twice to have Chand (41) and Kedar Jadhav (8) caught in the deep. Delhi came back strongly as Vinay Kumar’s 18^th over went for 17 runs as Irfan Pathan and Morne Morkel picked up three boundaries from it. Pathan then hit two sixes off Rampaul leaving DD needing 19 from 6 balls. Despite a couple of blows from Morkel (19) and Irfan (23*), DD fell four runs short.

        Earlier, DD won the toss and elected to field. DD struck early as Pathan had the dangerous Chris Gayle (4) play onto his stumps. Morkel then had Kohli caught behind but much to his dismay, it was off a no-ball. Siddharth Kaul was hit for two boundaries, before he struck timber to send back Pujara (17). Kohli was given another chance when he was dropped on 14 by Sehwag off Kaul.

        Shahbaz Nadeem got DD their third wicket as he caught Henriques (26) off his own bowling. AB de Villiers launched Morkel into the crowd before Kohli smashed two boundaries in the 17^th over. RCB then took apart Umesh Yadav for 24 runs, with three massive sixes. de Villiers (32*) at his improvising best swept Kaul for two boundaries before Kohli (99) slammed a couple of sixes and boundaries, taking 23 from the last over. The RCB skipper unfortunately was run out off the final delivery to become the first man to be run out on 99 in IPL. RCB finished their 20 overs at 183 for four. Jaidev Unadkat was adjudged the Man of the Match.

Delhi Daredevils register their 2^nd win

            Delhi Daredevils won the ‘Battle of Minnows’ as they defeated Pune Warriors India by 15 runs in a Pepsi Indian Premier League match on 29^th April, 2013 at Shahid Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium in Raipur, which is the second home ground for DD. This was Daredevils’ second win in nine matches and they climbed a place higher from their last spot to be placed eighth in the nine-team table. The win also technically kept them in the hunt for a place in the knock-outs. The Warriors, who have had an equally disastrous campaign, now languish at the bottom after their seventh defeat.

            Winning the toss, Pune decided to chase and put Delhi into bat first. DD put up a good total of 164 for the loss of 5 wickets in 20 overs with David Warner assaulting the Pune Warriors’ bowlers in a brutal fashion as he scored an unbeaten 51 in just 25 balls. Warner along with Kedar Jadhav (25 from 19 balls) added 63 runs for the fifth wicket. Warner hit 4 fours and 4 huge sixes with 21 runs coming off the penultimate over bowled by Kane Richardson.  In fact, three of his four sixes were hit off Richardson. The last five overs yielded 63 runs. Warner, who is Daredevils’ highest scorer in the league scored his third half century despite coming in to bat at number four.

            The skipper Mahela Jayawardene (12) failed yet again but Virender Sehwag was watchful during the Powerplay overs before he opened up. Sehwag hit 2 fours and 2 sixes and just when it looked that the opener is getting into the groove for a big score, he failed to read a slower bouncer from Dinda as he committed early to a pull shot to be caught by Robin Uthappa behind the stumps. Sehwag made 28 from 26 balls. Unmukt Chand, drafted in place of Manpreet Juneja could add only 17 to the total after facing 19 deliveries before Rahul Sharma got him caught behind. Ben Rohrer (13) was caught by Uthappa to complete his third catch of the match off Abhishek Nayar’s bowling. Irfan Pathan struck a four off the only ball that he got to play.

            Needing 165 to win, Warriors could manage only 149 for four despite a 76-run opening partnership between Aaron Finch (37) and Uthappa (37). At the halfway stage, Warriors had knocked off 75 runs before Irfan provided with twin strikes in the 11^th over. Pathan got Uthappa caught at deep backward square leg with Chand taking a fine catch and four deliveries later, made Finch to get a faint edge down the leg-side which was collected by Jadhav. Yuvraj Singh and Luke Wright added 50 runs in 6 overs before both got out in quick seccession to change the course of the match. Umesh Yadav bowled a brilliant 18^th over in which he dismissed Yuvraj for 31 and Wright for 19, giving away just 2 runs. DD won by 15 runs and David Warner was declared the Man of the Match.

If Sachin is God, Gayle is Godzilla

        Chris Gayle smashed all the way to reach a milestone of scoring the fastest century in any form of Cricket in just 30 balls in the Pepsi Indian Premier League (IPL) match against Pune Warriors India on Tuesday in Bangalore. Gayle scored an unbeaten 175 in just 66 balls with 17 massive sixes and 13 fours and helped Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) to reach 263 in 20 overs.

            Of the 30 balls that Gayle faced, 7 were dot balls. 4 singles, 8 fours and 11 sixes. By the time he reached his century, 98 of Gayle’s runs had come in boundaries (8 boundaries and 11 sixes). For the record, he consumed 23 balls to reach 150 from 100, which was the slowest of the three fifties, giving a fair indication of what he actually did to the clueless bowlers. Barring Bhuvaneshwar Kumar and Luke Wright, none of the bowlers were spared by Gayle, with Ali Murtaza and Mitchell Marsh going for 45 and 56 runs in two and three overs respectively. Aaron Finch was smashed 29 runs in the only over that he bowled. Gayle’s strike rate at the end of the innings was a staggering 265.15. Earlier, the record for the fastest century in IPL was held by Yusuf Pathan off 37 balls. Pakistan’s explosive batsman Shahid Afridi holds the record of fastest international century in the 50-over format (37 balls) and South African Richard Levi (45 balls) has made the quickest international T20 hundred. Gayle reached the milestone by hitting Dinda for a six on the fifth ball of the ninth over. Gayle and Tillakaratne Dilshan (33 from 36 balls) added 167 runs for the opening partnership in which 127 were contributed by Gayle. Even as there was no stopping the Gayle-storm, AB de Villiers made 31 off just 8 balls.

            Gayle’s 30-ball century eclipsed the 34-ball hundred scored by Australian Andrew Symonds for Kent against Middlesex in 2004. The left-hander also posted the highest individual score in a Twenty20 game, going past New Zealander Brendon McCullum’s 158.

            It was an unbelievable innings played by one-man demolition army Chris Gayle that smashed a whole lot of T20 records.

·         Highest individual score in T20: Chris Gayle, 175 not out

·         Highest team total: Royal Challengers Bangalore, 263

·         Most number of sixes hit by an individual: Chris Gayle, 17

·         Fastest 100 in T20 (also in any format of Cricket): Chris Gayle, 30 balls

·         Highest opening wicket stand in T20: Chris Gayle (127) and Tillakartne Dilkshan (33), 167 runs

·         First batsman to hit 150 sixes in IPL: Chris Gayle

·         Longest six in IPL: Chris Gayle, 119 meters