It is the Delhi Daredevils who have risen to the “Royal Challenge” to beat Bangalore at their home ground. Bangalore’s winning streak has finally come to an end from unexpected quarters as Delhi came in with 3 consecutive defeats. In the second game we saw Mumbai chase down a very good score courtesy a fantastic start provided by Shikhar Dhawan and a good sensible knock by none other than the little big man of Indian Cricket Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar.
Delhi batted first against Bangalore on a typical Chinnaswamy wicket with runs written all over it. David Warner looked in fantastic form again. The start provided by him really set the tone for the Daredevils. He went after everything that was bowled to him. What was interesting to see was that most of his shots were good natural cricket shots but not slogs. This shows that apart from the older guys there are some young guns who can play the game with class. The surprise package in the middle was Kedar Jadhav. He did well to come in and support De Villiers but once he was out he really took the risks to get Delhi valuable runs. The young lad from Maharashtra played good powerful shots and some cheeky ones to good effect. Getting a fifty on debut will do wonders to his confidence and I think Delhi will play him more to see what he holds. 183 was a good score but one may have wondered if it was enough as Bangalore had chased a higher score at the same ground a week ago. Bangalore started well but then just slowed down a touch. Kallis wasn’t at his fluent best today and Mishra did well to put the breaks on Bangalore and take his wicket. Pandey was good but fell playing one shot too many. Bangalore lost the game due to too many run outs. Firstly Rahul Dravid, I really did not expect him to go for the second run as it wasn’t really there. He has shown in the past that he can effectively hit the ball in this format and had he stayed longer he might have even anchored the chase. 4 runs later they lost Uthappa, I would say a tame dismissal. He went for the reverse sweep which he has used to good effect in the past but this time he fell for it. Eion Morgan was another run out victim. Although Virat Kohli was running to the danger end, the fielder did very well to throw it to the keeper as Morgan was blinded and couldn’t have seen the ball coming to his end. After this point it was always going to be Delhi’s game to loose. In the process we saw an actual “Karbonn Kamaal Katch.” A.B De Villiers, well hats off to him. What can one say about that catch? He took it full stretch, one handed turned around and still held it. The catch of the tournament till now.
Mumbai beat Chennai to top the table again. Chennai were boosted by the return of Dhoni but it was Mumbai who prevailed. I missed most of Chennai’s innings so I really can’t comment on that but Mumbai will be really happy to see Ryan McLaren bowl well. He was economical and also picked up a wicket. When I started following the match it could have gone either way but a cool head in the form of Sachin and a good cameo by Pollard saw it through for Mumbai.
Tomorrow we have he Deccan Chargers taking on the Rajasthan Royals at Ahmedabad. More than the game it will be interesting to see whether the measures taken to get rid of the moths re effective. The match begins at 8 PM.
Until tomorrow, its Good Bye.
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