Monday, 2 May 2016

Gujarat Lions vs Delhi Daredevils, 31st Match

Series: Indian Premier League, 2016 Venue: Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Rajkot Date & Time: May 03, 08:00 PM LOCAL

Daredevils hope to continue good show

Delhi Daredevils would like to see its frontline batsman Shreyas Iyer, who is in poor form, get his act together against Gujarat Lions at Rajkot on Tuesday.

Gujarat Lions sitting pretty on top of the table

There is a glaring anomaly in the Delhi Daredevils run-getters’ list in the ongoing Vivi-IPL-9, and that’s Shreyas Iyer’s very low aggregate in five of the six outings he has had so far. He’s collected a meagre 22 runs from 33 balls with a high of 19 against the Mumbai Indians.

In three matches he was dismissed for zero and in against Kings XI Punjab, he made 3. Clearly the Daredevils have suffered heavily because of Shreyas’s inability to put bat to ball. He is one among the three Indian batsmen in the Daredevil’s top and middle order line-up, the other two being Sanju Samson and Karun Nair and the odd man out in the top four is the South African opener Quinton de Kock.

Thankfully for the Daredevils which will complete its first round of seven league matches against Gujarat Lions here on Tuesday, the other home-grown batsmen such as Karun and Sanju have risen to the occasion and played their part in four good wins.

It could have been five wins, only if Chris Morris lashing (82 off 32 balls) of the Lions attack in the home match at the Feroz Shah Koltla five days ago had turned the riveting anecdote in his team’s favour. The Lions eked out a one-run win and, despite two defeats are sitting pretty on top of the points table.

With the tournament at the half-way mark for the Daredevils, mentor Rahul Dravid and Zaheer Khan would obviously like Shreyas to thrash out the malfunctioning aspects of his game, technique, temperament, approach or attitude and get cracking. His early departure has brought immense pressure upon the daring South African left-hander de Kock who was instrumental in turning the match on its head against the Bangalore side with a 51-ball 108.

After the blazing knock against Virat Kohli’s side, the Johnannesburg-born left-hander has been rather quiet to give any sort of comfort for his side, making 9, 5 and 1 in his next three innings.

Good investment

The Daredevils made a great investment in Shreyas following his deeds for Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy season in 2014-15 and the right-hander turned out to be the find making 439 runs in 14 matches in his first IPL season last year.

Shreyas’s drop in form is most unexpected because he was in terrific form for Mumbai in this season’s Ranji Trophy. He has a refreshing attacking bent of mind and likes to hit the new ball to all parts; but this season’s IPL has been so cruel to him. It’s time he picked up the pieces for the Daredevils.

While Shreyas has struggled, Karnataka’s Karun has now drawn the attention of the National selectors with his remarkable show of poise and ambition with two half-century knocks; a 42-ball unbeaten 54 against RCB that took the load off de Kock and also a splendid 50-ball 68 against Kolkata Knight Riders.

Sanju has made his presence felt on occasions, and the Daredevils think-tank would have been happy to see Morris wield his bat with power and some finesse against the Lions, Carlos Brathwaite strike it rich with bat and ball against KKR and also Sam Billings make a rousing 54 against KKR.

The Daredevils bowlers have taken 30 wickets with leg-spinner Amit Mishra leading the tally with eight. The match will be played on the same pitch that gave purchase to the Lions (Shivil Kaushik) and KXIP (Axar Patel) spinners and sure enough the Daredevils will think hard before picking its XI. It’s now known if all-rounder Jean-Paul Duminy is healthy enough to make himself available for selection.

The Daredevils have shown some spunk this season and would like to conclude the first half on a positive note.

Russell, Pathan power KKR's successful chase

Russell and Yusuf waylay Royal Challengers

Yusuf Pathan blazed his way to a 29-ball 60 to guide Kolkata Knight Riders home with five deliveries to spare.

The duo hammers 96 in 7.2 overs to heap misery on the beleaguered home team bowlers

Andre Russell and Yusuf Pathan mounted a stunning assault on Royal Challengers Bangalore’s beleaguered bowlers to help Kolkata Knight Riders to a five-wicket victory here on Monday.

The pair added 96 runs in 7.2 overs as KKR, chasing 186 for victory, sailed home with five balls to spare at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium.

The result helped the visitors climb to second spot on the IPL table while RCB, condemned to a fifth loss, remained in seventh place.

When Russell and Pathan were united at the crease, KKR was in some trouble, needing 117 runs off 59 balls. But these are small boundaries. Defending a total here is hard enough at the best of times.

When Russell and Pathan, two immensely powerful strikers of the ball, get going, there is little hope for a fielding captain.

Stumping chance

The Jamaican offered a stumping chance on 13, but K.L. Rahul, who earlier had entertained the crowd with his third straight half-century, spurned it.

Tabraiz Shamsi, Varun Aaron and Shane Watson bled a total of 58 runs in the space of three overs as the contest effectively drew to a close.

Russell fell for 39 (24b, 1x4, 4x6) but Pathan remained unbeaten on 60 (29b, 6x4, 3x6). RCB’s bowlers will wonder what they can do now, their 19 extras a bleak contrast to KKR’s four.

Earlier, Rahul helped RCB regain ground after a ponderous start. Chris Gayle lasted all of seven balls on his comeback.

He played the first five patiently, swung the sixth — from Morne Morkel — over the sight-screen, and perished off the seventh, top-edging a short delivery from the South African. Morkel and Andre Russell bowled with control in the opening stages, limiting RCB to 30 in the first five overs.

Things improved as Rahul swung into action. Sunil Narine went for 10 in his first over and Piyush Chawla 15 in his second, Rahul clobbering the leg-spinner for a towering six.

The Karnataka batsman tucked into Narine again, sweeping him over the fine-leg boundary and next ball raising his fifty, off 29 balls, with a reverse-sweep for four. The West Indian had a bad day by his own standards, leaking 45 from his four overs.

Rahul fell chasing a wide one from Chawla, the end of an 84-run (58b) stand for the second wicket. A.B. de Villiers was out to the UP bowler not long after, trapped in front by a quicker delivery.

Having gone for 24 from his first two overs, Chawla recovered admirably, taking two for eight from the next two.

RCB was staring at a mediocre total until some quick runs from Shane Watson, Sachin Baby and Stuart Binny changed the colour of the innings. Fifty-four runs came off the last three overs, including 41 off two bowled by Umesh Yadav. His counterparts, though, would fare worse.

RCB 185/7 (20.0 Ovs)

KKR 189/5 (19.1 Ovs)

Kolkata Knight Riders won by 5 wkts

PLAYER OF THE MATCH
Andre Russell

Sunday, 1 May 2016

Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Kolkata Knight Riders, 30th Match

Series: Indian Premier League, 2016 Venue: M.Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru Date & Time: May 02, 08:00 PM LOCAL

RCB battles bowling concerns as it takes on KKR

Pep talk: RCb captain Virat Kohli would want his bowlers to put in more effort to complement the team's batting.

RCB has tinkered much with the eleven — four more changes against Sunrisers — trying in vain to find the right combination.

It has been a difficult fortnight for Royal Challengers Bangalore. Four games away from home have produced one win, leaving the team with four points from six. All along, the bowling has caused Virat Kohli headaches.

After failing to defend 191, 170 and 180, RCB batted second for the first time this IPL season on Saturday, but conceded too many runs to chase. Not one of the 12 bowlers used so far this season averages under eight runs an over; five of them have gone at over 10.

It is an issue Kohli will continue to grapple with as his men return to the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium here, for a meeting with Kolkata Knight Riders on Monday. Even with victory, RCB can climb no higher than sixth on the table; defeat will turn this torpid start into a bit of a crisis.

RCB has tinkered much with the eleven — four more changes against Sunrisers — trying in vain to find the right combination. In Hyderabad, Chris Gayle, although available for selection, was overlooked. He could, presumably, have only been accommodated at Kane Richardson’s expense and the bowling unit could not afford that. England’s Chris Jordan, who has built a reputation as a reliable bowler of yorkers at the death, now arrives as Mitchell Starc’s replacement. He may well feature on Monday.

“I’m not too worried about the batting,” Kohli admitted after the Sunrisers game. “It’s the bowling we need to get better at.”

KKR, for its part, does not have much to fret over, Saturday’s loss to Delhi Daredevils notwithstanding. It sits third on the table, and has the opportunity to move up one place here. The team has sorely missed Manish Pandey, who is recovering from chicken pox.

In the three games he has not played, KKR has tried Suryakumar Yadav, Shakib Al Hasan, and Piyush Chawla at one drop. Robin Uthappa admitted in Delhi that Pandey’s absence had forced some reshuffling in the batting order and that his return to No. 3 would restore stability.

There was a chance Pandey, who is here having flown home to recuperate, could play on Monday, Uthappa said, although it was not certain.

Uthappa himself was in good form at the Kotla. Gautam Gambhir and he account for over half of the runs KKR’s batsmen have scored, but whilst the team wins, this over-reliance will not matter. At the halfway stage, KKR will feel it is well placed to qualify for the play-offs. RCB, though, will need to sort things out quickly.

Skipper Rohit Sharma guides MI to 8-wicket win

Rohit fire Mumbai Indians to fifth win

Mumbai Indians 161 for 2 (Rohit 85*, Buttler 27) beat Rising Pune Supergiants 159 for 5 (Tiwary 57, Smith 45, Bumrah 3-29) by eight wickets Mumbai Indians brought the curtains down on Maharashtra Day with an eight-wicket win over Rising Pune Supergiants at the MCA Stadium in Pune. Rohit Sharma's fourth half-century in a successful chase this season - an unbeaten 60-ball 85 - helped make light work of a 160-run target and sealed Mumbai's fifth win with nine balls to spare.
Rohit completed the job that was set up by Mumbai's bowlers, who conceded only 66 in the second half of Supergiants' innings after Steven Smith and Saurabh Tiwary had clobbered the ball all over the ground in a swift second-wicket stand of 84.
A flurry of boundaries, misjudged catches and misfields formed the crux of the first 10 overs of the Supergiants innings after they were put in to bat. Ajinkya Rahane was dismissed early but Smith, who offered a tough chance to Parthiv Patel on 1, was quickly into his stride, hitting three successive boundaries off Tim Southee in the third over.
The confidence of a century in the previous game showed in Smith's intent to dominate. One moment, he was pulling in front of square. Next he swiftly used the depth of the crease to cut and ramp the ball over third man. He raced to 33 off 14 deliveries as Supergiants brought up their fifty in the sixth over.
Smith was not the only Supergiants batsman to ride his luck. Tiwary should have been dismissed for 4 by Mitchell McClenaghan but Jasprit Bumrah fluffed a regulation chance at mid-on in the fourth over. Galvanized by the let-off, Tiwary raced from 6 off 11 deliveries to 34 off 22 balls. He was eventually dismissed for 57 off 45 balls, his first IPL half-century since 2013.
Tiwary's formula was simple: staying deep inside the crease, he cleared his front leg and used his broad shoulders to repeatedly find the leg-side boundaries. He was severe on left-arm spinner Krunal Pandya, who was hit for two sixes and a four in his second over that went for 20.
Bumrah was brought back with Supergiants at 91 for 1 in nine overs, and he struck off his second delivery as Smith's attempted dab down to third man resulted in a deflection to MS Dhoni. From there on, the innings stuttered like a two-stroke engine running out of oil. Peter Handscomb was also dismissed quickly and those wickets not only allowed Mumbai to apply the brakes, but also brought about hesitancy in Tiwary's game. MS Dhoni, who walked in to bat at No. 5 in the 13th over, also struggled to bring out his big hits.
While McClenaghan hustled the batsmen with pace, Bumrah varied his lengths effectively with yorkers and cutters. Harbhajan Singh, too, kept a lid on the runs by darting the ball and cramping the batsmen for room. The squeeze meant that Supergiants scored only three fours and a six in their last 11 overs.
Mumbai had the momentum going into the break and Rohit made his intentions clear when they came out to bat. Happy to swing at the length balls, he got away with two thick edges that flew towards third man in the third over. Parthiv was in sparkling form, driving Ashok Dinda for three successive boundaries before nicking the fourth ball to Dhoni. By then, Mumbai had wiped out 39 in four overs.
Ambati Rayudu played a typical innings, quietly nudging the ball, picking singles and hitting the odd boundary. He switched to attack in the eighth over, Ashwin's first, by stepping out and lofting the offspinner for a six over long-on. There was little pressure to contend with and Rohit effortlessly reeled off the runs, a majority of which came in the arc between deep midwicket and long-on.
Rayudu's wicket gave Supergiants a brief respite but an equation of 67 from eight overs allowed Jos Buttler enough time to find his range. At the other end, Rohit brought up his fifty off 38 balls and ensured that Supergiants' campaign was left in disarray with their sixth loss in eight matches.

RPS 159/5 (20.0 Ovs)

MI 161/2 (18.3 Ovs)

Mumbai Indians won by 8 wkts

PLAYER OF THE MATCH
Rohit Sharma

Kings XI snaps the winning streak of Gujarat Lions

BACK IN BUSINESS: Kings XI Punjab's left-arm spinner Axar Patel, who has had a poor run so far in the tournament, picked up four wickets to help his side defeat Gujarat Lions.

Axar Patel took four wickets in five balls, including the first hat-trick of the season, to pave the way for Kings XI Punjab's 23-run win against table-toppers Gujarat Lions in Rajkot. Axar's burst reduced Lions to 57 for 6 in their chase of 155, setting up the side's second win of the season. Both sides suffered batting collapses but Lions were poorer as they stuttered to their second loss of the season.
Kings XI's defence of 154 got off to an ideal start with the early wickets of Brendon McCullum and Suresh Raina, as both batsmen missed straight balls from Mohit Sharma. After a slow Powerplay, Axar was brought on in the seventh over, his second of the innings. Off the third ball, Dwayne Smith muscled a lofted drive and found Gurkeerat Singh at long-off. Two balls later, the left-arm spinner got one to skid through and Dinesh Karthik's inside edge clattered into leg stump. Dwayne Bravo chopped the first ball he faced onto his stumps and the over ended with Lions at a shaky 39 for 5.
Brought back in the 11th over, Axar then got his first ball to dart past Ravindra Jadeja's outside edge. It seemed like bat had hit pad, but the umpire raised his finger. This was Axar's first T20 hat-trick, and the 14th of the tournament.
Thereafter, Lions were always behind the climbing asking rate. Kings XI's new captain M Vijay rotated his bowlers continuously. Ishan Kishan and James Faulkner added to Lions' score but the slide had taken much of the game out of their hands.
At the halfway stage, however, it did not seem like Kings XI had enough. Despite a flying start from Vijay and Marcus Stoinis, Kings XI collapsed to 154. Vijay's sweetly timed drives and flicks off Lions' seamers, Dhawal Kulkarni and Praveen Kumar, helped the side score 34 off the first four overs. Vijay contributed 31 of those. Stoinis, then, cut loose and Kings XI plundered 59 off the Powerplay, their highest this season.
In the seventh over, Stoinis ran past a slider from Jadeja and the wicket sparked another Kings XI collapse. Chinaman bowler Shivil Kaushik's whippy action forced Kings XI to look for pushes and nudges. Shaun Marsh could not keep one of those flicks down and found midwicket. On a pitch with a bit of grass, Kaushik found no turn, but his quick-arm action caused the ball to skid off the surface. One ball after Marsh was dismissed, Glenn Maxwell missed an attempted a cut off Kaushik and the ball snuck under his bat. Dinesh Karthik belted out an appeal and the umpire raised his finger, much to Maxwell's bewilderment.
Kings XI's situation worsened when Gurkeerat Singh, one of four changes for Kings XI, was run out after an acrobatic effort from James Faulkner at point. Kings XI stuttered from 65 for 0 in the seventh over to 73 for 4 in the ninth.
David Miller and Wriddhiman Saha, though, found the boundary regularly in their 39-run stand for the sixth wicket. They tried to build a platform for a late surge but that did not come as Dwayne Bravo and Praveen Kumar brought out their slower balls to flummox Kings XI's lower order. Lions conceded one four off the last three overs and picked up five wickets to bowl Kings XI out.

KXIP 154 (19.5 Ovs)

GL 131/9 (20.0 Ovs)

Kings XI Punjab won by 23 runs

PLAYER OF THE MATCH
Axar Patel

Warner, Williamson set up a big total

David Warner's dominant 92 leads RCB rout

Sunrisers Hyderabad 194 for 5 (Warner 92, Williamson 50) beat Royal Challengers Bangalore 179 for 6 (Rahul 51, de Villiers 47) by 15 runs

David Warner showed that his duck against Rising Pune Supergiants was just a one-off blip in an otherwise red-hot streak. Like he had done during his 25-ball 58 against Royal Challengers Bangalore in their first face-off this season, Warner hammered the visitors' attack to all parts of the ground during his 50-ball 92, his fifth half-century in seven matches. His knock led Sunrisers Hyderabad to the top half of the table with a 15-run win, after the sides had managed to play a full game despite rain delaying the start by an hour.
Warner used his force, timing and gigantic bat to hit boundaries regularly. He found an able partner in Kane Williamson who scored 50 off 38 in his first game of the season. Their second-wicket stand of 124 runs in 12.1 overs charged Sunrisers to 194 for 5, their highest total of the season. The Royal Challengers chase showed promising signs initially and the hosts helped them by dropping AB de Villiers twice, but Sunrisers' quicks and the pressure of a rising asking rate were too much for the visitors.
Having lost his second successive toss, Warner changed gears after Shikhar Dhawan handed a return catch to Kane Richardson in the fourth over. Harshal Patel was introduced into the attack in the sixth over and Warner showcased his power-hitting, collecting 16 runs to launch Sunrisers' run rate into an orbit from which Royal Challengers could not pull it back.
Williamson nudged the ball around in his slow start to give Warner most of the strike. The Royal Challengers spinners, Parvez Rasool and Tabraiz Shamsi, applied a speed breaker briefly by not conceding a boundary off 11 successive deliveries. Warner, however, went deep into the crease to tackle Rasool's flat deliveries and Shamsi's wrong'uns.
Once the quicks came back, Williamson took charge with a variety of fours in the 13th and 14th overs - a flick, an edge and a whip - which pushed the run rate close to 8.50. Warner targeted Richardson in the 15th with powerful and well-placed shots that lifted the scoring rate past 9. The Sunrisers captain holed out to long-off in the next over, and Williamson and Naman Ojha fell within four balls, but Moises Henriques' 14-ball 31 with three sixes propelled Sunrisers close to 200.
Without Chris Gayle, who was not picked despite being available, Royal Challengers' chase was dependent largely on Kohli and de Villiers. But it was KL Rahul who kick-started the innings, using sheer timing and placement to score flowing boundaries on the off side, even as Kohli was caught for 14 in Mustafizur Rahman's first over.
Sunrisers could have derailed the chase further when de Villiers, on 3, skied a short ball to fine leg, where Ashish Nehra made a mess of an easy catch. Rahul continued to cream boundaries on the off side and brought up his fifty off 26 balls. Sunrisers, though, hit back when Moises Henriques produced a thin outside edge from Rahul's bat and Barinder Sran ran Watson out for 2.
In between those two dismissals, another de Villiers catch was put down: the batsman pinged the ball to extra cover but Deepak Hooda could not hold on. In the 14th over it looked like de Villiers was going to make Sunrisers pay. He clubbed two short balls from Henriques for mighty sixes, but the threat did not last long as he handed his third catch of the night off Sran's bowling. Williamson, at long-on, leapt forward to get his fingers under it. At that stage, Royal Challengers needed 66 from 32, and with Mustafizur having two overs left to bowl, the task was too stiff.
Sachin Baby's fearless strokeplay fetched him a 16-ball 27. Kedar Jadhav targeted the leg side for two sixes but their efforts weren't enough to lift Royal Challengers, who are placed second from bottom in the points table.

SRH 194/5 (20.0 Ovs)

RCB 179/6 (20.0 Ovs)

Sunrisers Hyderabad won by 15 runs

PLAYER OF THE MATCH
David Warner

Transformed Daredevils put it past Knight Riders

Time to tango: Carlos Braithwaite's has reason to celebrate as his lusty blows and thrre-wicket haul helped Delhi Daredevils to a clinical win.

DD gets its sums right, tweaking the batting and trusting the Young Turks

Delhi Daredevils is not taking a false step this season. The tactical acumen of Rahul Dravid and Zaheer Khan has brought about a remarkable transformation in the team being dismissed as just one of the teams to emerging as the team to fear. This was evident in DD’s 27–run victory over Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) at the Ferozeshah Kotla here on Saturday.

Some tweaking in the batting line-up and the faith in some of the Young Turks meant that DD had got its calculations right. The decision to gamble with a bowling strength of five may have left little scope for experimentation but it worked. Carlos Brathwaite chipped in and DD scampered to the goal even as KKR faltered at a critical stage.

“No extra pressure,” said Brathwaite on having five bowlers. “But if you go for runs you have to come back strongly. After my second over went for a bit I went off the field with a slight hamstring, calmed myself and returned to the game. Had to come back as strongly as possible,” said the West Indian. DD plucked catches to change the course. The turning point was Amit Mishra grasping the stinging straight drive by Andrew Russell. His vigorous celebration was understandable since Russell had the capacity to swing the contest.

There were other sensational moments too when Shreyas Iyer ran in to complete a fine effort to get rid of Suryakumar Yadav. He was also precisely positioned at point to snap up Robin Uthappa, which was the deciding moment in DD’s successful campaign. Uthappa had threatened to take the game away but he failed to finish a job that he had carried on brilliantly.

There was excitement for the home fans when DD, put in, set a target of 187 courtesy Karun Nair and Sam Billings, the latter making his IPL debut in style. Brathwaite swung his bat for some telling blows that proved a treasure in hindsight. Zaheer, proving to be the most astute captain in the competition, marshalled the team superbly. “With Zaheer you have to be very careful. He is a cunning bowler,” said Uthappa. The DD captain did not lose his grip on the contest and ensured a fourth win in six matches.

DD 186/8 (20.0 Ovs)

KKR 159-all out (18.3 Ovs)

Delhi Daredevils won by 27 runs

PLAYER OF THE MATCH
Carlos Brathwaite