A Sparking Win of Kolkata Knight Riders over Deccan Chargers
Kolkata Knight Riders started their 3rd edition of IPL journey with their first match an 11- run victory over defending champions Deccan Chargers on Friday.
Skipper Adam Gilchrist’s a stormy innings of 54 runs in just only 35 balls even became fruitless. One time Kolkata Knight Riders were in deplorable situation when their score was only 84 for 4. Skipper Sourav Ganguly was out for duck. But unbitten innings of Angelo Methews and Owails Shah who scored 65 and 58 respectively helped night riders to throw their opponents a challenging total of 161 for four. Sourav Ganguly-led side restricted Deccan to 150 for seven at the floodlit DY Patil Stadium.
Adam Gilchrist and VVS. Laxman started innings for Deccan Chargers in such a brilliant way that one times it seemed that Deccan Chargers could easily defeat them. They scored 61 in just only 5.5 overs. Laxman scored individually 22 in 14 balls including a six and two fours to give a solid start for their team with his opening partner Adam Gilchrist. VVS Laxman was out first when the team score was 61 .But after falling wicket of Gilchrist, who struck three fours and many sixes, the defending champions lost wickets of Hershelle Gibbs (19) , Andrew Symonds(5) and Rohit Sharma (13) one after another. When Gilchrist was out the team score was 91.
Rider’s spaceman Langeveldt got two wickets for 26 runs while Ishant Sharma and Laxmi Ratan Shukla took 1 wicket each for 31 and 30 respectively to destroy the winning strategy of their opponent team.
Knight Rider’s bowlers were looking helpless when Gilchrist was batting explosively to keep the run rate well and lead the team to a superb victory. After Laxman’s out, Gilchrist and Harshell Gibbs added 38 runs on board.
Knight rider’s fielders dropped the valuable catch of Adam Gilchrist more than two times when on two and 41. Symonds was caught by Ganguly at mid on when the Australian pulled off Ishant to leave Chargers needing 45 runs in 35 balls.
The task became difficult when Rohit Sharma left the field in 17 the over, followed by Anirudh Singh.
The chargers failed to meet their target required 21 in the last two overs.
As mentioned Knight Rider’s starting innings was not good since Chaminda Vaas took 2 wickets for 22. He sent back Tiwary (0) and Ganguly(0).
Tiwary was the first man to be out to the first ball while he tried to clip Vaas to Rohit. Ganguly was out by a superb out-swinging delivery of the left-arm bowler to first slip fielder Anirudh.
Cheteshwar Pujara(10) and Hodge (13) repaired the damage by taking the score to 31 before being dismissed. Hodge was looking good and he hit a six and a four. Hodge’s departure pushed KKR back-foot before Shah and Mathews set a valuable partnership score.