Final - Deccan Chargers win IPL 2 in South Africa

The heart pounded the chest relentlessly – from the time Anil Kumble bowled Adam Gilchrist to long after the entire Deccan Chargers dug out raced to the middle to celebrate a fairytale victory over Royal Challengers Bangalore in DLF Indian Premier League final on Sunday. It was a night when the Deccan Chargers refused to be tamed the Bull Ring.

The heart sought to gloss over Herschelle Gibbs's effort – painstaking and scratchy for the most past – when Deccan Chargers batted first. He finished with 53 not out off 48 balls. But the mind reminded the heart that it was perhaps the single most significant batting effort on a sluggish track in the grand final. Deccan Chargers ended up with 143 for six in 20 overs.

The heart cringed a bit when the vastly experienced Andrew Symonds chatted up Royal Challengers Bangalore young opener Manish Pandey but it also knew that the teenager will have grown up considerably. Pandey, of course, heard more of Symonds and faced the attack less as had got to play but seven deliveries before being dismissed by Pragyan Ojha.

Ojha took a leaf out of Kumble's book, put his hand up for his team and finished with three for 28 to play the lead role in Deccan Chargers' spectacular defence of the low score. Of course there were others who made it work for the team that drew on the twin fuels of hunger and self-belief as they pursued their goal with single-mindedness.

Richard Harris starting the proceedings with a maiden over to Jacques Kallis; little-known Punjab fast medium bowler Harmeet Singh showing character under pressure and claiming two for 23; Andrew Symonds returning to scalp the dangerous Ross Taylor and Virat Kohli; RP Singh conjuring Kallis' dismissal and finishing with 4-0-16-1.

There was more. A spectacular catch by Harmeet Singh, who sprinted from long leg and lunged forward to get his hands under the skyer to dismiss a defiant Vinay Kumar in the 19th over. Gilchrist himself contributed with two wonderful stumping dismissals to curtain the innings of Roelof van der Merwe and Kohli.

The sum of such wonderful parts was beautiful. And the heart

Then again, it was hard for the heart not to reach to the gallant Anil Kumble. It is not often that a man does everything he could possibly do – bowl with the new ball and claim Adam Gilchrist, come back to pick up the wickets of Andrew Symonds and Rohit Sharma at critical junctures – and end up having to watch his team fall short by six runs.

Two teams that had finished eighth and seventh last season fought every inch and one had to run out winner at the end of a stunning game that climaxed a wonderful tournament. Believe me, the heart hasn't stop pounding through the writing of this piece; the words flowed even as a spectacular closing ceremony that followed such a breathtaking match.

Semi Final II - Royal Challengers defeats lacklustre Chennai Super Kings

Last things first. Royal Challengers Bangalore and Deccan Chargers, placed at the bottom last year, will face each other in the IPL final tomorrow. And lightning does strike twice. Ask Chennai Super Kings. They had shot under by setting Bangalore 147, but would have thought of it as a fighting total. Manish Pandey, who came out of nowhere and scored a century in the last game, didn't think so. His 35-ball 48 almost killed the chase, and a minor hiccup later Bangalore were in the final.

If anything this was an even better innings in terms of the quality of strokeplay and this being a knockout match. Pandey got going with a square-drive in the first over, following a ball both wide and full. As if to show it was no fluke, he brought out a more classical square-drive, down on one knee, to the next delivery. Jacques Kallis matched that start with back-to-back square-cuts of equal ferocity and beauty in the second over.

But within seven deliveries Bangalore lost Kallis and Roelof van der Merwe. To pull them out of the shock Pandey produced boundaries with a back-foot punch and a drive on the run in two deliveries in the fourth over. Out of habit the slogs came out in the next two overs, but he cleared the leg-side field with them. By the end of the Powerplays Pandey had reached 29 off 14 deliveries with the help of six fours, four of them along the ground, and Bangalore needed only 88 from 84.

Pandey had batting with him the best man possible, Rahul Dravid, whose classical strokeplay and superb planning had a calming effect on the 19-year-old at the other end. His straight-drive off Shadab Jakati and flick off Albie Morkel were shots as good as any played in the night. The key moment was always going to be when Muttiah Muralitharan, held back by MS Dhoni, came on to bowl.

Murali started off with a big lbw shout against Pandey, and after that Dravid made a conscious effort of keeping the youngster away from the fox. Pandey finally fell when he went to slog-sweep the other spinner, Jakati, and a turnaround was in the offing. Fifty-three were required in 45 balls then, and Dravid seemed to have it under control until Murali came back and got him lbw in the 16th over. After an asphyxiating over, Bangalore required 35 off four overs.

Chennai needed a gamble then, after all other bowlers had been taken for runs. Suresh Raina bowled the next over, and both Ross Taylor and Virat Kohli took a six off him. The decisive, and the most symbolic, blow came in the next over when Kohli read a doosra, stepped out to Murali, and hit him straight down the ground for a big six. Bangalore's fifth win in a row was all but sealed.

The win, though, looked far away when Parthiv Patel stunned them after they had put Chennai in. The whole talk before the semi-final centered around the orange cap holder Mathew Hayden and whether he would be back for the big match. But Bangalore were hit from an unexpected quarter. It's not often you go about outscoring Hayden in good form, and if you do you better be playing exceptionally. That's precisely what Parthiv did for a brief while.

Parthiv was attacked with short bowling, but he brought out the pulls, the cuts, and the upper-cuts. In the first six overs Chennai raced away to 52, and Hayden hadn't even warmed up by then. In fact Parthiv had reached 32 off 20 deliveries, while Hayden was still 13. What odds would punters get for that?

But Anil Kumble and Bangalore regrouped fast. Smart bowling changes and smart bowling thereafter kept pulling Chennai back whenever they threatened to move too far out of reach. The result? A late assault never came. It was Kumble, who brought some control to the proceedings, coming in to bowl the sixth over. And then when Hayden went for one six too many off R Vinay Kumar and mis-hit to long-on, Kumble seized the opportunity.

He brought back Kallis, whose first two overs had cost 21. With his fourth delivery Kallis removed Parthiv, and Bangalore could now try and rein in the two new batsmen.

The new batsmen were Dhoni and Raina, in that order. There was a period of quiet around the time-out, and Kallis went for five in his next two overs. Just when Raina looked like opening up, with a four and a six off Vinay, Kumble brought back Praveen in the 15th over. With the first ball, Praveen got Raina to sky a slower ball, and Bangalore had once again prevented Chennai from getting away.

Again, when Morkel slogged Kumble for a six after 23 balls without a boundary, van der Merwe got Dhoni, caught at long-on. Dhoni's move to come in at No. 3 didn't work: he didn't hit any boundaries in his 30-ball 28.

Kumble handed over India's Test captaincy to Dhoni but today he had managed to outfox his younger counterpart.

Semi Final - I : Delhi Daredevils blown by hurricane called Adam Gilchrist

Deccan Chargers skipper Adam Gilchrist lit up the night with his boyish enthusiasm and glowing brightness long before the fireworks went off around SuperSport Park at the end of the semifinal of the DLF Indian Premier League here on Friday. His 35-ball knock of 85 runs (10 fours and five sixes) will stay etched in the minds of all those who were privileged to watch it here or from the comfort of their drawing rooms or on their computers.

It seemed he had single-handedly powered his team into Sunday’s final with a six-wicket win over the fancied Delhi Daredevils. But the truth is that his bowlers had done well to stop Delhi Daredevils at 153 for eight in 20 overs after Virender Sehwag and Tillekeratne Dilshan took the team batting first to 83 for two in 10 overs.

Sehwag's fall in the 11th over slowed things down for Delhi Daredevils and men like Dilshan - who batted like a dream when Sehwag was around -- AB de Villiers and Dinesh Karthik were unable to make much headway in the second half of their innings. After Andrew Symonds trapped Sehwag in front, bowlers like rookie Harmeet Singh and Rohit Sharma did well to pull the game back decisively for Deccan Chargers.

Delhi Daredevils had come back so strongly after losing openers Gautam Gambhir and David Warner to Ryan Harris, who bent his back and generated extra bounce, in the first over. But for a side that was expected to top the 180-run mark and put the match beyond Deccan Chargers, Dilshan, de Villiers, Karthik and the others were unable to justify the favouritsm.

Chasing a total that was at least 25 runs less that most would have expected, Deccan Chargers – nay, Adam Gilchrist – walked out with purpose. He hit five successive boundaries off a hapless Dirk Nannes in the opening over to regale the fans and leave Delhi Daredevils bewildered. Captain Sehwag did all he could to stop the Gilchrst show from running for long but in vain.

When Dilshan bowled a good first over, Sehwag was motivated to try his own off-spin but Gilchrist delighted in taking 25 runs, including three sixes in-a-row, off the only over that the Delhi Daredevils captain bowled in the tournament. Deccan Chargers were 84 for one at the end of the over, Gilchrist himself having scored 74 of those runs in an amazing exhibition of hitting.

Leg-spinner Amit Mishra bowled four splendid overs, first to end Azhar Bilakhia's status as the most privileged spectator in the ground andthen to end the mayhem caused by Gilchrsit before the strategic break. He returned to tie the other batsmen down and get the strokeful Andrew Symonds out but Gilchrist had done too much damage to the Delhi Daredevils cause.

With Tirumalasetty Suman picking up the runs, Deccan Chargers’ vice-captain Rohit Sharma played a quiet, guiding role at the end. He ensured that Deccan Chargers would not crumble under pressure on the home stretch as they had done quite a few times earlier in the tournament. Not on a night when Hurricane Adam had uprooted Delhi Daredevils.

Yet, when they head home on an earlier flight than they would have liked, it is possible that Delhi Daredevils think of how Gambhir was frustrated by a new ball bowler with a series of dot balls and eventually threw his wicket away in IPL semifinal for the second year running. And the tournament's most consistent and balanced squad fell short of the final again.

Bangalore Peaking at the right time

Manish Pandey will not need a visiting card in a hurry. So what if he is only 19 years old? So what if he did not get to play too many games for India when it won the World Cup for Youth (under-19) last year? On Thursday, he became the first Indian to score a century in the history of the DLF Indian Premier League and set up a 12-run victory for Royal Challengers Bangalore over Deccan Chargers in the race for the third spot in the league table.

Turning out in only his third game for Royal Challengers Bangalore and entrusted with the task of opening the innings along with Jacques Kallis, Pandey set the SuperSport Park alive in making an unbeaten 114 off just 73 balls (10 fours, four sixes). Glowing with confidence after he was dropped when on 2, Pandey caned the Deccan Chargers attack.

His assault on Tirumalasetty Suman in th 11th over was decisive. He struck him for two sixes as he picked up 18 runs in the over. And his attack against Purple Cap holder RP Singh was spectacular in its fearlessness and breathtaking in its execution. He scored 20 runs off nine balls that he faced from RP Singh.

Roelef van der Merwe, Rahul Dravid, Ross Taylor and Virat Kolhi were privileged spectators from across the pitch as Pandey - who idolises Matthew Hayden's strokeplay - dominated their partnerships. Kohli joined the party by helping Pandey take 22 runs off RP Singh’s final over and rubbing it in for the bowler who had dropped the teenager in the third over of the day.

That final over helped Royal Challengers make a powerful finish and make a daunting total of 170 for three. It was always going to be tough for Deccan Chargers to chase that down, even if Herschelle Gibbs batted like a man in a hurry, blazing away at the start. But with no other batsman complementing his knock of 60, Deccan Chargers were only playing catch up.

Andrew Symonds's dismissal, bowled by a van der Merwe armer for 18 and Rohit Sharma's fall to a catch in the deep off Kumble meant that Deccan Chargers had to settle to be second best on Thursday night, take the fourth place ahead of Kings XI Punjab with a better net run rate and get ready to take on the favourites Delhi Daredevils in the first semifinal here on Friday.

Royal Challengers Bangalore, who took the third place after another win in a high-pressure game, will have a day’s rest before locking horns with last year’s finalist Chennai Super Kings in Johannesburg on Saturday. One young man answering to the name of Manish Pandey ensured that with an amazing knock.

Daredevils has it easy against Mumbai

Barring a late scare by Harbhajan Singh , who took 4 for 17, the Delhi Daredevils go into the semi-final with a confidence boosting 4-wicket win against the Mumbai Indians. At the toss Virender Sehwag said he wanted to field to give his side some much needed practice chasing. And a fair bit of practice they got, with Sehwag leading the power-hitting top order who stayed ahead of the fairly steep required run-rate.

Gautam Gambhir and David Warner, Delhi's openers, blitzed to 30 in the first three overs. It started from the sixth ball of the first over. Lasith Malinga found bounce and bowled over 140kph but Gambhir picked his slower bouncer and pulled it for four to square leg. Then Gambhir and Warner hit 22 off the next 12 balls. Gambhir walked out and hit Dhawal Kulkarni for a four behind square leg before lifting a fuller one down the ground for another boundary.

Rahil Shaikh began his IPL campaign with a high full toss that Warner pulled to midwicket boundary before being picked for another in the same area by Gambhir. Warner lofted Kulkarni for a six over long-on but then top-edged one and ended up losing his wicket and his bat. But Delhi couldn't afford to slow down, needing over seven an over. Not that they would slow down when Sehwag joined Gambhir at the crease. Kulkarni was the one to suffer as Sehwag scored boundaries off whatever length he bowled. He gave away 36 in three overs.

Harbhajan came on at the end of the Powerplays with Delhi at 60 for 1. He kept it tight by mixing flighted deliveries with flatter and sharper ones but it didn't help as Sehwag and Gambhir instead picked the boundaries from the other end. Gambhir played Abhishek Nayar's shorter deliveries to the fine leg and midwicket boundaries while Sehwag hit a half-volley over the bowler's head for a six. After ten overs Delhi were 93 for 1 in contrast to Mumbai, who were 72 for 3 at the same stage.

Gambhir finally fell in the 12th over, again walking down the track but mistiming a loft to a diving Mohammad Ashraful at third man. But by then the required run-rate had come down to under seven an over, mostly owing to the wides conceded by Sanath Jayasuriya. Tillakaratne Dilshan waited only two balls before going for the big shot. He hooked a slower ball by Malinga to deep backward square leg for six. Jayasuriya further pulled down the asking rate to less than six, this time owing to Sehwag who made room to hit him for four over extra cover and a six over long-on. Dilshan stuck into Malinga in the next and overs 12 to 14 cost Mumbai a whopping 39. Sehwag got his fifty immediately after that but the two batsmen fell off successive balls to Harbhajan.

There were some tense moments for Delhi after that. Harbhajan gave away only three and JP Duminy two. Harbhajan came back to pick up AB de Villiers and Rajat Bhatia off successive balls as well. de Villiers was caught at midwicket trying to flick him for a six and Bhatia misread an offbreak and was bowled for 2. At the end of that over, Delhi needed 12 off 18, with four wickets in hand. Amit Mishra ensured they needed only three of those balls, hitting Duminy for a six and a four, and Mumbai ended their IPL campaign at No.7, after having being a semi-final contender at one point.

However their batsmen, led by Ajinkya Rahane, had given them a chance to end on a positive note. Rahane began attacking after the Powerplay overs and added 73 with Sachin Tendulkar. Bhatia, bowling his slow-medium stuff, had sent down four tight balls and a wide before Tendulkar messed up the over with two beautifully executed fours. He late-cut the first to the third-man boundary and drove the next straight past the bowler to long-on. After the strategy break, the two took advantage of Mishra's poor length and scored 15 off his third over. Even after Tendulkar fell, Rahane kept the scoreboard ticking and got to his second half-century of the season from 37 balls. Mumbai scored 56 off the last five overs but Delhi's batsmen came in to form and spoiled their farewell.

Mesmerising Murali say good bye to Punjab

Mooraaleee! The announcer led the chant through the PA at the Kingsmead Stadium as the mesmerising contortionist lured Punjab's top scorer Luke Pomersbach into a fatal lunge. That 26 was Punjab's highest score told a tale of devastation by the spinners, especially by Muttiah Muralitharan.

The little big moment of the match came at the toss. MS Dhoni has, through this tournament, used the opportunity afforded by the toss - which is broadcast around the ground - to throw challenges to the opposition in the past; today, he turned the heat on his bowlers. He didn't need much prodding to talk about their failure and spoke at length about how his batsmen have shouldered the burden but the bowlers have let the team down. However, he ended that rather public flogging on a note of support, saying he was sure his bowlers would stand up this time. They did. The batsmen failed for once but the spinners saved the day.

Muralitharan came on within the Powerplays, something he rarely does while playing for Sri Lanka, and dipped into his bag of tricks. The score at the time read 25 for 1 in four overs, Punjab chasing a meagre 117. Everyone knows what he can do but not many know how best to respond. Shane Warne's fans have always believed their hero has more guile; Warne, they argue, thinks out batsmen more than Murali does. Murali, they say, uses the mysterious mode of delivery as his main weapon.

Well, he'd be a fool if he didn't. When you have an action that can throw people off and when you have deliveries that can spin big either way and which many batsmen seem unable to pick, your first attempt would be to strike with the mystery. If they survive it, Murali then changes his gameplan. He will toy with the lesser batsmen but, with the top-order, you can see the brain cooking up devious plans. As he showed again today.

Simon Katich, who likes to shuffle towards off even against the spinners, was sorted out round his legs. Pomersbach was harassed with the doosras before being packed off with a dipping, sharply turning off break. Pomersbach lunged - and so did Raina at first slip to collect the ball. By the end his figures read 4-0-8-2. With the pitch taking sharp turn, Suresh Raina and R Ashwin too chipped in with vital wickets to send Punjab out of the tournament.

Raina the offspinner has been a revelation. Against Punjab in the earlier round, he came on at the death to kill a spirited chase. Today, he had to ensure that he completed the job started by Murali. He has a nice side-on action with the ability to delay the release by that crucial extra second that allows him to spot the batsmen's intent. He took out Yuvraj, who was looking for the big hit, with a skidding delivery that came in. It was the killer blow. Punjab never recovered.

Knight Riders sends out the Champion from IPL

The much-ridiculed underdogs of this year, Kolkata Knight Riders, have ended the tournament for the original underdogs, but not before they almost made a mess of the chase. Laxmi Shukla was the saviour for Kolkata, after they had stumbled to 45 for 6 in 11.3 overs. They had Charl Langeveldt to thank as well for pinning down Rajasthan Royals, and his 3 for 15 exposed Kolkata's blunder of not playing him throughout the tournament.

The lesson to learn was not to write off Rajasthan till the end. Not even when they are defending just 101 in a must-win game. At the half-way mark, after a frenzied innings during which they added just 79 to the 22 they got from the first over, the tournament seemed all over for Rajasthan. One final twist remained.

Even that seemed to be flattening out soon after Brendon McCullum hit two boundaries off the first two balls of the chase. The final figures of Munaf Patel after those two fours, 4-0-14-2, epitomised the comeback.

Munaf got Sourav Ganguly in that first over, and Amit Singh sent back McCullum with the first ball he bowled from the other end. That was the piece of fortune Rajasthan needed, as the half-tracker rose only as high as McCullum's knees. On a cracking pitch, Shane Warne's innovative field placings, and smart bowling by his bowlers worked superbly after that. Even Brad Hodge and David Hussey, the pair who was key during Kolkata's chase of 189 against Chennai Super Kings, found it extremely difficult to score.

Naman Ojha did superbly to dismiss Brad Hodge, who looked to run after dropping Johan Botha's first delivery at his feet. He had barely taken a step, but couldn't make his way back. More pressure and smart bowling followed. Botha and Warne followed the first seven-over spell of 30 runs by the medium-pacers with a five-over spell of 17. And wickets fell consistently throughout.

Hussey got a top-edge thanks to Botha's extra bounce, and Shoaib Shaikh ran himself out. But when Shukla, was dropped on 6 off a Warne flipper by Ojha, the final turnaround started.

Shukla batted sensibly, choosing well when to go bog, and when to accumulate. He knew he needed only two or three big hits, which would be enough to set the cat among the pigeons. His first break came when he went after Warne in the 13th over, and cleared the wide long-on boundary easily.

His next assault came in Ravindra Jadeja's second over, the 16th of the innings. Shukla went over extra cover first ball, and managed three more couples through that over. It was indeed a tough match for Jadeja, who was involved in two run-outs, failed to make up for those run-outs, and then bowled one over too many.

Shukla's turnaround finished as it started, with some luck from behind the wicket, as Ojha missed on two run-out opportunities as Shukla and Ajit Agarkar stole two byes in the 19th and 20th overs, with five and four still required respectively.

Spare a thought for Ojha, though. Apart from that brilliant run-out of Hodge's earlier in the piece, Ojha had got Rajasthan off to the best start a team could have imagined. It was Hodge who suffered at his hands then too. He slogged and lofted Hodge's first over to take 22, the most expensive first over of the tournament. But as he had Shukla to spoil his good work in the second innings, there was Langeveldt in the first.

How fitting it was that when Langeveldt finally got a game he was not given the first over. But the first ball Langeveldt bowled was a bouncer that hurried Rob Quiney up, got the top edge and nestled in wicketkeeper Shoaib Shaikh's gloves. The extra pace and bounce was obvious and the away movement lethal. In his next over, Langeveldt removed Ojha, with one that kicked off from just back of a length, and moved away too. In between these two strikes, Swapnil Asnodkar ran himself out when going for a single. From 22 for no loss, Rajasthan had slid to 28 for 3 in 15 balls.

Kolkata then hustled Rajasthan with quick bowling and athletic fielding. When Langeveldt came back to remove Niraj Patel's wicket, Rajasthan had stumbled to 62 for 5 at the half-way stage. Two disastrous run-outs followed. When Yusuf Pathan dug a yorker out, Jadeja called him for one, then realised the ball had traveled too fast towards Shukla, the bowler. Jadeja didn't go through, and the most dangerous batsman in the team was left stranded. Jadeja's face told a story of guilt. Three balls later, when Jadeja called Tyron Henderson for a quick single, he found to his horror that Henderson was too slow, and that Hussey had hit the stumps direct.

None of Dinda, Agarkar, Sourav Sarkar or Shukla provided Rajasthan any respite later, and the last 3.4 overs got Rajasthan only nine runs. The last over, from Agarkar, went for 21 less than the first.