Mumbai: It wasn’t supposed to be a super match with instant rewards. But whatever little it had to offer, was solely meant for the Pune Warriors, not the Deccan Chargers.
A win would still have kept the complicated mathematics, of the Warriors making it to the play-offs, alive. And for a certain Sourav Ganguly, it was a chance to sharpen his blade before the evergreen warrior’s battle against the Knights, on Thursday.
But as often in life, the googly of events castled the expectations. The Warriors lost and Sourav fell for a duck.
For the Chargers, pride, and not two points, were at stake as their name had already been struck off from the race to the play-offs. They had humbled the formidable Mumbai Indians in their last match. And they can rightly be called the party poopers after their six-wicket victory on Monday wiped out whatever little hope the Warriors had.
The target — 137 — was never an imposing one. With some handsome contributions from the Chargers batsmen, the Warriors ended up being no match for the visitors.
In a way, it was also a revenge well taken for the Hyderabad side as they had lost the first leg clash. Interestingly, the target in that match, too, was 137, but it were the Warriors who had crossed the finishing line last time.
The opening wicket stand of 67 between Sunny Sohal (34) and Shikhar Dhawan (28) paved the way for Sangakkara (25), JP Duminy (23), Daniel Christian (14 not out) and Bharat Chipli (5 not out) to complete the steps to victory.
The Warriors’ bowlers never managed to extract proper bite from the wicket and thus their resistance, in short, was toothless.
Earlier, the Warriors looked a limping side after Sangakkara ‘tossed’ them to bat first on a pitch which had life in it for the bowlers.
It wasn’t really a superlative show from the Chargers’ bowlers, but the right balls came out of their hand at the right time. The Warriors’ batsmen, too, were jittery in their shot selection, either overdoing it or being terribly short of the required effort.
Jesse Ryder, however, was looking to defuse the Chargers with some lusty hitting. Sangakkara opted to start the bowling, and weirdly too, with Duminy. The part-timer didn’t appear at ease with this responsibility and Ryder (18) launched him out of the ground with the fifth ball of the day.
Dale Steyn wasn’t as good as his reputation, but somehow he managed to strike the first blow for Chargers when Ryder’s ill-timed drive was lapped up brilliantly by D. Ravi Teja at covers.
In came Sourav. After making a solid ‘debut’ for the Warriors, expectations were ripe. But it wasn’t Dada’s day. After a couple of tentative pushes and a swing-and-miss attempt, all that the former Knight managed was a half-hearted lob, off Christian. Pragyan Ojha accepted the chance at covers as the ‘home’ team slumped to 35/2.
With Robin Uthappa and Yuvraj still in the bank, a turnaround for the Warriors wasn’t really stuff of fiction.
All it needed was some sensible investment of time and shots on a tricky pitch. But then, when you have decided harakiri would be your plan of action for the day, expecting sanity is like fanning a volcano.
Manish Pandey (23), Ryder’s opening partner, decided to be a superman using ferocious power to punish the ball. But lack of judgement for the good and bad balls brought his downfall as his attempted backfoot cut off Ojha crashed onto his stumps.
Uthappa (4) played a coach as he gave Amit Mishra some catching practice off his own bowling. Mishra struck again with his very next ball, a googly, as a hapless Mithun Manhas (0) was castled searching for the ball at the wrong place.
It was actually a splendid over from the Man of the Match leg-spinner — two wickets conceding zero runs.
At 45 for five after eight overs, Pune were looking like a defeated band of Warriors. Chances of putting up a decent total on the board were as dead as the proverbial Dodo.
That Yuvraj’s side managed 136, losing nine wickets, from their quota of 20 overs, was commendable.
First it was the captain himself, hitting 23 off 17 balls. Then Mitchell Marsh played a useful innings of 37 off 28 balls pushing the total past 120.
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