Date:13/05/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/05/13/stories/2008051360621900.htm

Sport

Kings XI leaves Challengers in ruins

Rakesh Rao

Marsh continues his impressive run with another fluent knock

— Photo: Akhilesh Kumar

GROWING IN STATURE: Kings XI’s Shaun Marsh was in his element against Royal Challengers Bangalore at Mohali on Monday.

MOHALI: Rahul Dravid, under fire from all quarters, must have finally realised that it is impossible to win a war with bows and arrows against an enemy armed with rapid-fire guns.

It was yesterday once more for Royal Challengers Bangalore as it came up with yet another uninspiring performance against Kings XI Punjab and found itself gunned down with nine wickets and 4.2 overs to spare.

The victory was the sixth for Kings XI in nine matches. With 12 points, the team shares the second spot with Chennai Super Kings. The result meant that Royal Challengers kept Deccan Chargers company with four points and seven losses from nine games, but trailed in the net run-rate to be last in the standings.

Yuvraj Singh may have lost the toss but got everything right mainly due to the bulk of the job done by home-grown bowlers and overseas batsmen. A target of 144 never looked challenging as Kings XI’s frontline batsmen dealt in sixes and stayed in cruise mode.

Shaun Marsh continued his consistent run with an unbeaten 74 off 51 deliveries. He hit two sixes and nine boundaries. James Hopes smashed three sixes in his 19 before Luke Pomersbach made his presence with a 24-ball 34. The latter hoisted two sixes and three boundaries during the unbroken 102-run match-winning second-wicket stand that came in just 9.2 overs.

Familiar pattern

Earlier, electing to bat, Royal Challengers followed a now-familiar pattern. Wickets fell at the start, some frontline batsmen tossed it away after getting reasonable starts before Mark Boucher shouldered the responsibility of giving the total some respectability.

Royal Challengers needed much more than Misbah-ul-Haq’s eight-ball 21 and Rahul Dravid’s 27-ball 29. Boucher once again came good and kept alive his team’s hopes of making a fight of it. He contributed a useful 39 off 31 deliveries.

S. Sreesanth took three wickets and Piyush Chawla struck twice. The early dismissal of J. Arunkumar brought in Misbah and he got down to business straightaway.

Sreesanth tried to bowl short to Misbah and got the punishment. In the third over, Misbah picked up successive boundaries. He pulled Sreesanth to mid-wicket and then guided another rising delivery to the fine-leg fence.

In Sreesanth’s next over, Misbah began with a six over long-off, then executed a classic cover-drive off the fifth delivery before being hit-wicket off the next.

The scores: Bangalore Royal Challengers: J. Arunkumar c Jayawardene b Sreesanth 1, V. Kohli b Chawla 21, Misbah-ul-Haq hit wkt. b Sreesanth 21, C. White c & b Chawla 10, R. Dravid b I. Pathan 29, M. Boucher (run out) 39, Praveen b Sreesanth 5, Vinay Kumar b V. R. V. Singh 1, Zaheer (not out) 1, A. Kumble (not out) 0; Extras (b-5, lb-2, w-8): 15; Total (for eight wkts. in 20 overs): 143.

Fall of wickets: 1-4, 2-36, 3-49, 4-74, 5-102, 6-123, 7-129, 8-139.

Kings XI Punjab bowling: Sreesanth 4-0-29-3, I. Pathan 4-1-23-1, Chawla 4-0-33-2, V. R. V. Singh 4-0-15-1, Yuvraj 2-0-14-0, Hopes 2-0-22-0.

Kings XI Punjab: S. Marsh (not out) 74, J. Hopes c Steyn b Vinay Kumar 27, L. Pomersbach (not out) 34; Extras (lb-5, w-4): 9; Total (for one wkt. in 15.4 overs): 144.

Fall of wicket: 1-42.

Royal Challengers Bangalore bowling: Steyn 2-0-33-0, Zaheer 4-0-35-0, Praveen 2.4-0-15-0, Vinay Kumar 2-0-11-1, Kumble 4-0-36-0, Kohli 1-0-9-0.