Adam Gilchrist won the toss and put the Dare devils into bat, the Chargers left out Vaas and brought in Afridi, Delhi left out ABD and brought Asif in his place, the first innings is over the Daredevils have scored 194 in 20 overs, after losing Sehwag early for a duck the Chargers desperately needed runs from the duo of Gautam Gambhir and Dhawan, after a quite first three overs , Gambhir and Dawan took charge of the game, Gambhir struck too consecutive sixes off RP Singh who conceded 20 in that over, he also scored 18 off Afridi’s first over and forced him out of the attack, Gambo scored his fifth fifty and scored 79 off 48 balls with 7 fours and 3 sixes, Dhawan initially kept on rotating strike and hitting the occassional boundary but later on he too opened up and hit some beautiful reverse sweeps and some powerfull boundaries, he made sure he stays till end, he scored 68 off 52 balls with 8 boundaries, Mahroof and Dilshan also played brief cameos, scoring 19 and 16 respectively, RP singh gave away 50 runs in his 4 overs and was quite expensive, Afridi gave away 18 and Venugopal Rao gave away 23 in two overs.
The second Innings have started, the Chargers made a positive start, Afridi came in to open with Gilly, Gilchrist after scoring a quick 14 off 9 balls got out on the bowling of Mcgrath he was dropped by Karthik off the bowling off Asif, the chargers scored 60 from their first 5 overs thanks to a whirlwind 33 off 14 balls by Afridi who struck 3 boundaries and 2 sixes, he was batting sensibly not trying to hit every ball out of the park but taking a single after every boundary and rotating the strike. Sehwag was visibly under pressure he took off Asif and brought in Mishra who struck gold on his frist delivery, Afridi tried to hit him out of the park in the end misjudged the turn and sliced the ball up in the air and was out caught on 33.
Gibbs who had an extermely poor tournament so far was in a mood of scoring runs, he scored 22 off 22 balls with 2 huge sixes and 1 four, he misjudged the turn and became the second victim of Mishra, 12 overs are gone and the Chargers are 112 for 3, Rohit Sharma is going great guns he just scored 19 off Bhatia’s over.
Bowled him, Rohit Gone! Mahroof does the job for his skipper bowled him round the stumps. In comes Venu Gopal Rao who scored 71 n.o in the last match for Chargers, he can bat, the asking rate is 11.6 at the end of 13th over. 81 is required off 42 balls.
Mohammad Asif except for his first over has been again too expensive, he has been pitching the ball up and mostly bowling low full tosses in an attempt to bowl yorkers, his speed and line are too predictable, in his 4 overs he has given away 51 runs. I think he is only a test bowler and can’t bowl in the shorter format.
41 is required off 15 balls. Styris just got out on 29.
Mahroof bowls a slower one and Rao hits him for a straight huge six, again hits him for a four moved away on the leg and hit on wide midwicket, its another huge six, Rao is on fire, he scored 18 off Mahroof’s last over, now 24 is required of 11 balls.
McGrath coming in to bowl the his last over, if Rao can take 12 from this over his team can win this match.
Rao holes it out to Shoaib Malik who takes a well judged catch, he scored a quick 34.
There was a slight halt in play and that broke Rao’s concentration.
Teja hits a six, 15 required off 6 balls this one is going down to the wire.
Who will bowl the last over, Deja-vu all over for Sehwag, he again choses a spinner to bowl the last over Mishra who removed Afridi and Gibbs will bowl the last over, in the air and again Malik takes a fine catch. Teja goes, now its 15 required off 5 balls.
Another one gone, Dilshan takes the catch and Ohja goes. 4th wicket for Mishra.
Its a hatrick, Rp singh tries a wild swing and was stumped by Karthik.
Mishra did it for Daredevils, Sehwag is smiling, his team has lost a few close matches and this one was a big one for them.
The Chargers must now prepare for their fishing trip, they are out of the tournamnet.
A big match between KKR and MI is coming up, I think KKR will win the match because of their bowling although their batting is weak but if they got a good start they will prevail.
It will be interesting to watch Shoaib bowl against Jayasuriya and Sachin,it will be a clash of titans, Ishaant in the last few matches was not impressive, he will have to lift up his game.
My two cents are on KKR.
The Deccan chargers are no longer in the hunt of the title, they paid the price of picking up too many All rounders and three left handed fast bowlers which made their Pace attack single dimensional, their bowling was toothless and not suitable for this format,they were also let down by their Big guys Afridi and Symonds one failed with the ball and the other failed with the bat, Afridi’s bowling performance was also not impressive in this tournamnet, it seems whatever was left in him as a player has also expired, time for him to move on.
The chargers can play their remaining four matches just for fun and try to win the hearts of their fans, After the first season they have learned a lot about their team, they have some good players and In Sharma and Rao they have found two good players, they have Gilchrist, they know whats missing all they need is to add just two new players and they will be very hard to defeat, they need two quality fast bowlers,and a good solid batsman in the middle order,if they can replace Zoysa and Styris,it might fix their problems.
Sehwag got pelted with stones after scoring his consecutive duck,the hold up in the play disrupted the momentum of DC and Misra cleaned up the tail.
The DC should have won this match they came so close but I think Rohit Sharma and Afridi played horrendous shots.
Daredevils will have to fix their bowlng,Mahroof and Asif are leaking too many runs, Asif is only a new ball bowler so Sehwag should make him bowl all four at the trot.
I really doubt if he will play the next match.