Match Review of Kolkatta Knight Riders vs Deccan Chargers

Indian Premier League Match review
Date : 3rd May 2011 Match No. : 42nd
Teams : Kolkatta Knight Riders vs Deccan Chargers
Venue : Rajiv Gandhi International, Hyderabad.
Umpires : Amish Saheba and Suresh Shastri Third Umpire: Paul Reifel
Toss : Deccan Chargers won the toss and elected to field

Playing XI

Kolkatta Knight Riders Gautam Gambhir (c) Eoin Morgan Jacque Kallis Manoj Tiwari Yusuf Pathan Mark Boucher I. Abdullah Bret Lee Rajat Bhatia L. Balaji Jaidev Unadkat

Delhi Daredevils Sunny Sohal K. Sangakara (c) Shikhar Dhawan Dan Chirstian C. White Ravi Teja Bharat Chipli Amit Mishra Pragyan Ojha Ishant Sharma Dale Steyn

Knight Riders, after their win against Kings XI Punjab, were ready to take on the Deccan Chargers in their home ground, Hyderabad. The chargers performance on their home ground has been woeful as they have lost 12 out of 13 matches played.

The Riders have impressed the critics with some great wins and positioned themselves at No. 3 on the points table.

The Riders currently positioned at No. 3 on the points table knew that one more win would take them on top of the table. Chargers, on the other hand needed to win most of their remaining matches to stand any chance of qualifying for the next level of competition. The pressure was on the home team as they were desperate for a win.

For Deccan's, the batting revolves around their Skipper Sangakara, who is amongst the top 10 run scorers this season. Besides him, though Shikhar Dhawan has played some useful knocks but has not been able to convert them match winning totals. Sunny Sohal showed some spark with his courageous last inning. Rest of the middle order has not been consistent at all.

On the contrary, the batting performances by the Riders have been solid and consistent under the leadership of Gautam Gambhir. Kallis, Tiwari & Morgan all have proved to be Mr. dependable and have rescued the side whenever required. And if their master stroke player Yusuf Pathan gets going towards the death overs, he can convert the ordinary looking total to a competitive one

Put in to bat after loosing the toss, the Riders had a hasty start. Their opener Eoin Morgan got his first life on a run out chance on the very first ball of the match. J. Kallis and Morgan had a very slow star for the first 5 overs. The Riders would like to have accelerate the pace within the first 6 overs, with the filed restrictions lifted up. Before they could do that, Morgan got out on the score of 14 on a slower ball by Dan Chirstian.

Skipper Gautam Gambhir joined Kallis to build the partnership and they put up a good show by taking the total to 79 in 11 overs. They were all set to get going with flow when Amit Mishra got rid of the dangerous J. Kallis on a modest score 30 in 31 balls with 4 boundaries. Manoj Tiwari joined the skipper and they both had a very fresh memory of the last match against the Kings, where they had driven the team to victory with an unbeaten partnership. The skipper was in good knock and showed some nice looking hits with 3 boundaries and 1 six before he nicked the wrong on of Pragyan Ojha and got caught by Sangakara at the score of 35 in 22 balls.

Knights were now on 84 for 3 wickets in 11.4 overs and certainly needed some boost after this. It was due on Yusuf Pathan's part and looked like it was his day. He was dropped thrice on easy looking catches. He scored rapidly 47 in just 26 balls and entertained the crowd with 3 boundaries and 3 huge sixes.

Wicket did not offer anything to the bowlers. 150 could have been a good total but with 170 on the board, the Chargers just let them go away with it.

Shikhar Dhawan and Sunny Sohal opened the batting for chargers. Sunny looked in a good form from his entertaining knock against the Kochi. It was due on Shikhar Dhawan's part to show some good batting skills. Both were looking good with bat and put up a 41 run stand in 5.4 overs which was a better start than the Riders, till Iqbal Abdullah man of the match from the last game did the trick with his fine spin and got Sunny Sohal out on 26 in 20 balls. Captain Kumar Sangakara came into crease but could not even open his scorecard and got out on duck by Abdullah again.

Cameron White tried to handle the situation in the middle with Shikhar Dhawan but got deceived by Rajat Bhatia's slower one and got clean bold and could contribute only 13 runs. Shikhar Dhawan from other end kept scoring but could barely make any difference as wickets kept falling at the other end. The middle order batsman, Ravi Teja surprised everyone, who put up a stand of 56 runs with Shikhar Dhawan as fifth wicket partnership. After realizing the situation skipper Gautam introduced his best bowler Bret Lee to do the job and finish it off. Lee clean bold Ravi Teja on the score of 30 in just 22 balls.

Jacque Kallis brought end to the valuable and entertaining inning of Shikhar Dhawan at his score of 56 in 45 balls with 4 boundaries and 1 six. Bharat Chipli and Amit Mishra could barely touch the ball. Dhawan's fighting half centaury went in futile with over all clinical performance by knights who won the match by 20 runs.



Last Updated on 5/5/2011