Monday 20 April 2009

Rain rain go away

Hopefully it doesn't come back another day. The 3rd and 4th mtches of the IPL were affected quite drastically by the rain at Cape Town, with the Kings XI vs. Delhi match being shortened to just 18 overs in total.

The results: Delhi Daredevils won against Kings XI, despite some excellent performances by Karan Goel and Ravi Bopara up the order for Punjab. But the organisers decided to go with the stupid tactical time-out after 6 overs of play, and when they came back, all was not well for Kings XI.

You could argue that Goel had gotten out on the last ball of the over before the break, and that Delhi were going to bring on Dan Vettori anyway, but I do feel that 7 and a half minute break had something to do with Punjab's collapse. Ravi Bopara was out lbw first ball of Dan's over, who went on to pick up 3 wickets for 15. Impressive stuff from the Kiwi, which we all expected.

Yuvraj had a hard knock with a couple of sixes before being run out and eyeing Jayawardene quite frostily down at the other end. After that, Punjab were doomed, but they still set up over 100 runs. Delhi came in and Gambhir and Sehwag went lukewarm nuts, whatever that means. Rain stopped play soon after, and when Delhi came back on, they needed 30 to win from 25 balls. Easy. Delhi won. AB didn't get to bat. Heh.

Then there was Kolkata vs. Deccan Chargers. The latter won, surprisingly. But it was a good performance, and the Chargers won impressively by 8 wickets.
Rohit Sharma was smoking.
Herschelle Gibbs is in form, which automatically means he's on fire.
RP Singh was burning, picking up 4 wickets on the night.
Fidel Edwards - you saw it, need I say more?

But that run out from Sharma was one to watch. A direct hit from extra cover had Ajit Agarkar sobbing off the field. Brilliant. He also had an excellent catch, taking Moises Henriques, again at extra cover.

I guess Ganguly had his revenge. Brendon's first match did not go well.

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