Delhi back to winning ways

In match 17 of the DLF Indian Premier League (IPL) the Delhi Daredevils beat the Bangalore Royal Challengers by 10 runs. This was their third win of the tournament in four games played.

After winning the toss at the Feroz Shah Kotla at Delhi, Rahul Dravid decided to field first and thus Sehwag and his lads geared up to bat.

The Delhi innings started with a flurry of strokes from the willows of Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag before the latter departed in the fifth over with the score on 53. But Shikhar Dhawan continued his reputation as one of the best youngsters in the tournament and kept the momentum going with Gambhir who looked in fine touch slamming 11 fours and 1 six to all parts of the fence.

When Dhawan departed in the 15th over, the platform was already set for a huge score with the run rate over 10. But the Delhi middle order seemed a little rusty and Shoaib Malik and Dinesh Kartik fell without doing any major damage to the scoreboard. Gambhir too departed in the penultimate over attempting to boost the total. At the end of the innings the Delhi Daredevils managed 191/5.

Among the Bangalore bowlers, Praveen Kumar and Zaheer Khan had the best figures of 24/0 and 29/1 of their 4 overs respectively.

In an intuitive move, Dravid promoted Praveen Kumar to open the Bangalore innings. But he along with fellow opener, Wasim Jaffer were too good for the guile of Glenn McGrath. New Zealander Ross Taylor came at one down and looked to finish things off in a hurry but he was barely getting started when McGrath claimed his third victim of the match.

At 48/3 in the fifth over, it was left for captain Rahul Dravid and Jacques Kallis to steady the boat and that’s exactly what they did. Both experienced candidates, Kallis and Dravid put on an 87 run partnership of more than a run a ball to put Bangalore in the chase for victory. But when Dravid got out courtesy Glenn McGrath in the 15th over, the asking rate seemed to be climbing with every ball. Even a quick fire innings from Jacques Kallis and Mark Boucher could not help them achieve the target of 192.

They ended up falling short by 10 runs and losing their fourth match of the tournament out of five played.

Glenn McGrath was named Man of the match for his bowling spell of 4/29. This feat earns him another record as this is the first time any bowler has claimed 4 wickets in a Twenty20 match.

In match 18 of the IPL, the Rajasthan Royals take on the Kolkata Knight Riders at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium at Jaipur.