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  Versus

The Knight riders recieved another setback yesterday when Chennai beat them by three runs by D/L method.

Dhoni won the toss and put KKR into bat knowing their batting problems he put them under pressure from the beginning.

The KKR innings was rocked by a hatrick by Ntini. Salman Butt scored 73 off 54 balls with 10 boundaries and a six, the wicket was slow and the ball was not coming on the bat, Ganguly , Hafeez and Hussey failed yet again, Butt recieved some support from Das and was able to restore the innings by scoring 86 runs off 11.1 overs in partnership with Das, in the end the KKR posted a score of 149 in 20 overs. It was not a winning total but given the bowling strength of Kolkata there was still hope. But Ishaant Sharma has been struggling in the last few matches and Shoaib was seen limping again with an ankle injury, the guy needs to shorten his run up and loose some weight otherwise he will keep on breaking down, after 8 over Chennai were 55/0 Fleming for the first time batted with confidence he scored 32 off 20 balls with 6 boundaries, after 8 overs the rain gods interrupted again and the match was stopped. Chennai got a lucky break and they won by just three runs and now they have 14 points after 11 matches they still have still have three more matches to play against Banglore, Deccan and Rajasthan. If they win 2 out of three they will have 18 points and will qualify for the semis. The race for semis is still wide open if they lose against Deccan and Banglore they will be out and Delhi and Kolkata will have a chance.

 Versus

The second match yesterday was between MI and DC, the chargers are already out of the race for semis and are only playing for the pride,  MI scored 178 they got to a roaring start with Jayasuriya scoring 36 0ff just 15 balls but  Gilchrist made a clever bowling change and brought in Vengopal Rao who took the wicket of the dangerous Jayasuriya in his first over, then Shahid Afridi took two quick wickets to give his team a chance, but Bravo and Nayyar batted sensibly and kept on scoring runs at a decent pace, Bravo scored 30 off 17 with 2 fours and two sixes he played the last match of IPL and Mumbai will be getting Dwayne Smith in his place they are also getting Andre Nel who has been released early from his county, Nel is a fiesty character and will be a good addition to the already strong MI team. The score of 178 was a bit too much for the chargers, I fail to understand why they are not playing Vaas is he injured? Zoysa didn’t impressed me at all he bowled straight with out any movement or venom, RP Singh also has been a major disappointment for the Chargers next year they have to make some changes in their pace department.

The Chargers again took their chance with Afridi as an opener who got out on the first ball although he was a bit unlucky as Thornly took an amazing catch to dismiss him, Nehra almost had Gilchrist twice in his first over but on both occassions the catch was dropped, Nehra has gained some pace since the last time I saw him, his run up is just like Wasim Akram, and he mixes up his deliveries cleverly after bowling two deliveries to Gilly which moved away from him he brought one back into him from the same length hence creating doubt in the batsman’s mind, he is bowling good so far in the tournament although Zaheer Khan, Rp Singh are ahead in wickets but they have been too expensive. Bravo  bowled beautifully in the absence of Pollock, who is reportedly injured, and took 3/24 and was declared the man of the match. A late resistance from Venu Gopal Rao gave the chargers a little hope but in the end they fell short, If Sharma had scored a few runs like he did in previous matches the Chargers might have won this match. Veenu Gopal Rao showed a lot of character so far but he has been unlucky he always falls short of the target.

Afridi has been a major disappointment in the tournament so far, being the ace T20 player for Pakistan and one of the hardest hitting batsman in the world got the most chances in this tournament he failed in the lower order as an enforcer with plenty of overs to follow, he failed at the top as a pinch hitter failed to clear the field, I think he opened the innings three times his highest score is 33, he has played 9 matches the most by a Pakistani in IPL so far, and is averaging 11.42 with the bat scoring a mere 80 runs in 9 matches, his bowling has been ok but not by his standards his Econ rate which is usually around 5 has gone upto 7.62 and has taken only 9 wickets, he got the player of the tournament award in the last T20 WC where his bowling figures were the best he took the most wickets and his Econ rate was also around 5, his batting was not impressive in that tournament either, I think he has gained some weight in the last year and is not as fit as he was last year, since his batting is on a permanent decline he should not be classified as an Allrounder any more and should only be regarded as a specialist bowler, in fact his batting is a bit of liability for his team, it decieves the coaches and the captains they are always under pressure where to bat him, failing as an all rounder also disrupts the balance or the combination of the team, he needs to work hard on his batting, especially the shot selection.

 Versus

The Royal Challengers batted first and scored 154 in 20 overs, Kallis opened with Chipli, Glenn bowled a perfect opening spell and gave away only 9 runs in his first three overs and removed Chipli, Mahroof replaced McGrath and removed Kallis on his first ball, the Challengers were on the verge of a collapse that Goswami who was playing his first match came onto the crease, he played a brave innings of 52 off 42 balls, the 100 came in the 15th over and Goswami got out just after completing his fifty, Misbah after the departure of Goswami decided to take charge he was in no mood of giving strike to any other batsman as he kept on refusing singles, Cameron White and Akhil got run out because Misbah refused to give them the strike, he scored an aggressive 47 off just 25 balls his innings included 4 sixes and 2 fours and took his team to a score of 154.

The Score of 154 was not a big challenge for the in form batting line up of Delhi Daredevils, but Delhi had to score the runs quickly to improve their run rate, Sehwag and Gambhir treated Steyn and Zaheer with no respect and the ball was flying all over the park, Zaheer was all over the place he struggled with his line and length and got punished, Zaheer has taken 13 wickets in the tournament so far but his Econ rate has been 8.5 which is on the higher side he didn’t mixed up the speed, he never got any movement and bowled up and down the track and was too wayward, I think Delhi should thank Zaheer and Praveen Kumar for gifting them the match, after 7 overs the score was 91 and the match almost slipped away from the hands of Dravid, when Gambhir got run out ABD was promoted up the order, all of a sudden the RR dropped , after Gambhir’s dismissal in 8 overs Delhi scored only 38 runs and lost three more wickets, if the opening duo of Zaheer and Kumar had bowled a better spell, Banglore could have won the match. Delhi also lost an opportunity to improve their RR by a bigger margin by getting defensive after the Gambhir’s dismisal they should have sent Dhawan at #3 instead of ABD. Delhi has earned two more points and have moved to the fifth place on the points table but they have only two matches left while Mumbai has four matches left and KKR has 3 matches left, its going to be a race between Mumbai and Delhi for the final place.