The Deccan Chargers beat the Royal Challengers Bangalore in a thrilling final to lift the second edition of the DLF IPL. This, after they had finished last in the previous edition, making it a fairy-tale ending for Adam Gilchrist and his side!
And to everyone’s surprise, Kumble himself opened the bowling attack against the half-century scorer of the semi-finals and rival captain, Adam Gilchrist. The move proved rich dividends, as the very second delivery saw the Gilchrist wanting to smash the bowler out of the ground, only to be bowled neck and crop! It was a totally unexpected start, but then one could have expected Gilli to always bat in that fashion.
T.Suman was promoted to open the innings earlier in the tournament, after Herschelle Gibbs had failed successively, and done well, but in the last few games, he has been pushed down to the number three position. However, in this case, his aggression did him in, as he tried to swat Vinay Kumar over the fence but only managed to scoop it to Manish Pandey on the off-side.
At 18/2 in the fourth over, it did look like the Chargers were in trouble, but it could have been a lot worse for them, when Andrew Symonds edged an out-swinger from Vinay Kumar to Rahul Dravid, but he dropped a sitter at the first slip!
Reolf van der Merwe was brought in the attack to take the pace off, at 45/2 in seven overs, but it only made Symonds pull a short ball away to the mid-wicket fence for a six. Just when Dravid would have been having a quiet, little prayer, Kumble stuck again. Bringing himself on again, he scalped the Symonds wicket, having him bowled off his pads. To be fair to Symmo, his dismissal was a little unfortunate as it was a short wrong-un that the batsman wanted to pull, but it only hit his pad and rolled over to the stumps! The Chargers ended the first ten overs at 62/3, clearly below what they would have wished for.
The early part of the inning after the strategy break had Gibbs struggle for his timing, as did Rohit Sharma, as the ball refused to come on to the bat. It was only a short delivery from van der Merwe that was cut away by Sharma to the fence in the 14th over that saw a trace of acceleration. And it indeed was.
Praveen Kumar’s 15th over had Gibbs play his first shot in anger, whipping the bowler over mid-wicket for a six! A brace and a wide later, Sharma was afforded a short ball which was pulled away with all might for another six. This resulted in 20 runs coming off the over, and for the first time in the inning, the run rate went over six runs per over.
Gibbs hit another boundary, but Kumble’s reintroduction had another brake on the scoring as he scalped two more wickets. First, Sharma tried to hit the bowler over the extra-cover fence, but only managed to lob it to the long-off fielder, while Venugopal Rao was dismissed off the very first ball. Kumble’s impressive spell had his four overs go for 16 runs, in the process scalping four wickets!
The three overs could have gone for many a runs, but some controlled bowling by the Vinay Kumar saw him concede not a single boundary in the 18th and the 20th over! The Deccan Chargers ended with 143/6, with Gibbs carrying his bat for an unbeaten 53 that came in 48 deliveries.
The target of 144 was not a very difficult one, but it is always a difficult proposition chasing totals in a pressure-final like this. Ryan Harris and R.P.Singh began with a couple of tight overs, but Harris’ third saw him getting smacked for a couple of boundaries by Kallis.
Kallis did repeat the dose to R.P.Singh too, but could not control a cut shot and played an inside-edge on to his stumps. Bangalore gambled with Reolf van der Merwe at the number three position, as a batsman who could send the ball and fielders helter-skelter. Van der Merwe has this strong penchant to slam the ball towards the leg-side, and Harris bore the brunt of this as he was slammed for a couple of sixes over long-off and long-on!
Van der Merwe’s inning was also full of slapstick comedy, as he danced around, edged a couple before diving straight into the stumps and laying them flat. In the meantime, Manish Pandey, India’s only century maker in this year’s IPL, had faced only seven deliveries in the first six overs and the first over after the six-over mark had him cut a Pragyan Ojha delivery to the ‘keeper, Bangalore 36/2 at the beginning of the seventh over.
Van der Merwe flicked another six – he was in such ferocious mood – but was snapped by Ojha once more, stumped by Gilchrist by a mile. Ross Taylor joined Dravid and smacked Harmeet’s first over for 10 runs and took the the Bangalore team to 69/3, with nothing in the game till then.
It was the post-strategic break period that pegged the Bangalore team back. Dravid was the first to depart, playing an atrocious shot off Harmeet, trying to scoop the ball over fine-leg, only to have his stumps flattened, while Taylor did some damage to Ojha’s figures before falling to Symonds. As if this wasn’t enough Virat Kohli was brilliantly stumped by Gilli off the very next delivery to leave the Challengers crippled.
From 45 needed off six overs with as many wickets in hand, 41 were needed in five, and when Harmeet had Mark Boucher cutting one straight to Gibbs at backward point, it looked all over bar the shouting.
Uthappa hit a six, while Praveen Kumar left and it boiled down to 27 off twelve deliveries. A four and a six later, Vinay Kumar left to leave the Challengers with a rather difficult task of scoring 15 in the last over. Uthappa did try getting R.P.Singh off, but the purple-cap holder was made of sterner stuff and the Challengers fell seven short!