Cricket Tournaments

What Dale Steyn’s vicious spell couldn’t do for Bangalore Royal Challengers, Ravichandran Aswhin’s super effort did for Chennai Super Kings against the Kolkata Knight Riders in a do or die encounter for both sides at Chepauk. While Deccan Chargers managed to recover from Steyn’s three-wicket burst, Kolkata were not as lucky as they were tamed by Chennai’s lions by a thumping 9-wicket margin.

Ashwin, who opening the bowling after Sourav Ganguly won the toss and elected to bat, sent back Chris Gayle, Brendon McCullum and David Hussey in no time to have Kolkata reeling at 19 for 4 at the completion of the fourth over. Thanks to some lusty hitting by Angelo Mathews (48) and good support from Manoj Tiwary (27), the visitors recovered somewhat to post 139 for 8.

But, Kolkata’s hopes of making a match out of it evaporated rather quickly as Suresh Raina (78 from 39 balls) went on an all-out attack after the early dismissal of Matthew Hayden. With Murali Vijay (50 off 40 balls) giving him company, the Super Kings never looked in even an inch of trouble.

Looking back, the game was decided within the first 20 minutes itself. Things weren’t all that bad for Kolkata when Gayle spanked Ashwin for a mammoth six. However, the very next ball, the off-spinner had his revenge when the tall West Indian was stumped for 7 going for a repeat of the stroke.

McCullum followed almost immediately, a mistimed sweep ending up in the safe hands of Muttiah Muralitharan. David Hussey did not last long either. He was brilliantly stumped down the leg side by MS Dhoni. Ashwin was now on a hat-trick, and should have had it, but for a rare blip by Simon Taufel, who could not spot the ball taking Angelo Mathews’ gloves on its way to the fielder. Still, Ashwin finished with memorable figures of 3 for 16. At the other end, Doug Bollinger beat Ganguly for pace and trapped him lbw for 10.

Everything was looking downhill for Kolkata. But, Mathews made use of the luck that came his way and helped his side gain some amount of control on the innings. He was particularly severe on his countrymate Murali, who was being recalled into the side. With two massive sixes off him, he made a run-a-ball 48 before Murali had his revenge. Following his departure, Laxmi Ratan Shukla blasted two sixes off Raina’s bowling to help his side post a target of 140 for the Super Kings.

The only way Kolkata could have won would have been if somebody did an Ashwin. But, while Gayle promised a little by cleaning up Hayden, whose slog sweep found the stumps, what followed was nothing short of disheartening for the bowling side. Raina began by caressing Ashok Dinda for three boundaries in his opening over.

And, when Gayle returned for this second over, he was hammered all over the place. As a result, Chennai reached their best score at the end of the powerplay overs during this edition, 67 for 1. All this while, Vijay, himself in belligerent form, was prepared to be silent spectator.

Raina cut, drove and lofted with ease and even when he mistimed his pulls, he made sure that the ball headed in the safest direction, over his keeper. Vijay joined in the act towards the end as Chennai cruised to victory and kept their semi-final hopes alive.

Mitchell Johnson

It was Mitchell Johnson and Ryan Harris who were Australia’s heroes with the ball at the end of the second ODI. Australia survived a late scare from the new Zealand skipper Daniel Vettori after his he displayed a wonderful array of shots all round the wicket en route his innings of 70 of just 49 balls. Vettori exposed his stumps all day as he moved across his stumps and flicked for boundaries in the square leg, long leg region. New Zealand were in tatters before Daniel Vettori walked in with the score being 131 for 6 and the black caps still needing another 135 off 114 deliveries.

Earlier in the day ponting had called right for the second time in a row and surmisably Australia decided to bat first. The Australians failed to convert another good start provided by their openers Watson (47) and Haddin (53). Both the openers failed to carry on and were dismissed in an attempt to increase the tempo. Ricky ponting and his deputy Michael Clarke both fell to dismal strokes leaving Australia in trouble at 116 for 4. It was up to Cameron white and Michael Hussey to dig them out of the hole that they had created from themselves to a substantial total.

Call him Mr. Cricket or Mr. Fixit, Michael Hussey always comes up with the goods when the Australians need him. And so he did this time around too as he put on a game changing partnership of over a 100 with Cameron white. The duo were flawless and looked set to help Australia put on a score off over 300 before Cameron white holed out in the deep to Brendon McCullum. The wicket fell just against the run off play and halted proceedings for a while as Australia once again posted a below par score off 273.

White fell before hammering two consecutive massive sixes of James Franklin who later stretched his hamstring. He (white) fell in an attempt to clear the boundary on the third instance. The strategy seemed logic less as it was the 43rd over and Australia still had their batting power play in hand. Had they taken it white would possibly have carried on.

New Zealand started their chase with Brendon McCullum attacking Doug Bollinger. Bollinger really had one of his off days, perhaps his worst of the summer. Ponting was very pro-active throughout the day. He saw that, and immediately brought in a change he brought in Mitchell Johnson to bowl in the 5th over of the New Zealand innings.

The crowd with their ‘booing’ tried to put Johnson off his game all day but only inspired him to perform better. Johnson, on the day let the ball do the talking by picking up a 4-for. Before he started his spell, Johnson at the top of his run up turned, faced the west stand and kissed his Australian coat of arms and accounted for McCullum in his first over itself. Ponting in the post match presentation said that the emotional quickie was only spurred on “if anything” by the whole saga today.

Johnson was seen accompanied by a security personnel while fielding at the boundary. Ryan Harris struck with a couple of L.B.W’s off consecutive balls putting Australia in front before the rain finally came. The match was then reduced to 45 over one with the black caps needing 266 to win (D/L method). Australia were in the driver’s seat before Styris (Australia’s undoing the last time round), Hopkins and Tuffey all played well around their skipper Daniel Vettori who gave the Australia some butterflies.

In the end it came down to 13 off 11 balls as Vettori tried another of his flicks only to see his stumps rattled by Ryan Harris. How ironic it was that the match had to end with Vettori playing his, for the day ‘flick’. The anguish was etched on Vettori’s face after he was dismissed for a classy 70. Ponting later said that this wasn’t Australia best performance by any stretch of imagination and they had a lot of work to do. Australia do need to do some “fine tuning” before they go in to Hamilton’s fixture on Tuesday.

New Zealand’s hero was set to miss the match as he decided to rest his neck but was forced to play after Ross Taylor injured his leg during practice. With Oram also missing Vettori had to play. However, Vettori showed “A wounded man can still hurt you”—just.

A clinical performance from Sri Lanka ensured that they beat New Zealand by 48 runs in a decisive Super 8 game of the Men’s T20 World Cup. The Sri Lankan lions stormed into the semifinals of the competition with a thumping win over the Kiwis. This victory sets up an interesting semi final line up, where Sri Lanka takes on the West Indies, for a place in the summit clash of the competition. With both the teams displaying good form, it remains to be seen as to who has the last say in this match.

Winning the toss, the Sri Lankan captain did not have any hesitation to bat first. However, things started to look a bit shaky when they lost Sanath Jayasuriya in the very first over. The Kiwi pacers then got the better of Chamara Silva to put Sri Lanka in a precarious position. The whole innings was resurrected by the experienced Sangakara who scored 35 runs and Dilshan who scored 48 before Vettori picked both of them. By then, the Sri Lankans were on track towards registering a challenging total for the Kiwis. The other notable contribution came from Jayawardane who took the Kiwi bowlers to the cleaners as Sri Lanka posted a score of 158 runs. The best bowler for New Zealand was Daniel Vettori, picking up two important wickets when Sri Lanka was looking to run away with the match.

Chasing a target of 159 in a do or die encounter, the Kiwis got of to a brilliant start as Aaron Redmond hit Jayasuriya for three fours and a six in the second over of the New Zealand innings. It was looking as if the Kiwis would end up having the last laugh for the day. However, the departure of Brendon McCullum and Redmond in quick succession halted the Kiwi run chase. Martin Guptill carried on with the fight and gave some hopes of victory to the Kiwi bench, before the trickery of Mendis caught the Kiwi batsman off guard.

The departure of Taylor in the ninth over of the Kiwi innings led to a mini collapse orchestrated by Mendis, as Sri Lanka took charge of the match. The Sri Lankan bowlers then ensured that there would be no let up, as Kiwi wickets fell in regular intervals. The Kiwi tail did not have the sufficient skills to wag this time round and the Lankan lions got a thumping victory in the match. With this result, the other team in the group and last years loosing finalist Pakistan, heaved a sigh of relief as they qualified for the Semi Finals as group runners up. They will take on the South African’s in an interesting Semi Final battle.