Mon, 16 May 2011 - IP Pune vs IP Hyderabad, IPL 2011, 62nd Match - Bulletin

Hyderabad win in Sanga's last match

Hyderabad finally managed to string a good all-round show to outclass Pune by 6 wickets at the DY Sports Academy in Mumbai. Hyderabad played perfect ‘party-spoilers’ as they ended Pune’s mathematical chances of making it to the play-offs.Pune had only themselves to blame as their top order batsmen threw it away after a good start to let Hyderabad run away with an easy win. The visitors knocked off the target of 137 runs with minimum of fuss after putting in a good performance with the ball.

Openers Sohal and Shikhar Dhawan set it up for the visitors with a rapid 67 run stand, the former hit some lusty blows in 28 –ball knock of 34. Dhawan however played some authentic cricket shots, a punch drive through covers stood out in his 28 run innings. Skipper Kumar Sangakkara, who was playing last match of IPL-4, played his part with a pretty 25.In the end, Hyderabad got there with a decent batting show as the opposition didn’t have the runs on the board to put any kind of pressure on their batsmen.

Pune bowlers failed to make an impact with an average performance. They needed early wickets for any kind of pressure to build on the Hyderabad batsmen, but that just didn’t happen. However, leggie Rahul Sharma continued to impress with his tight bowling. He defeated Sanga with a googly, the Sri Lankan tried to cut and trapped Sohal plumb in front with a fast leg break.

Earlier, Pune overcame a top order collapse to post a middling total on a surface that had something for the spinners. The lost the plot during the middle overs and were at one point stuttering 5 for 45 before Mitchell Marsh launched a counter-attack to lend some respectability to their score. The openers Jesse Ryder and Manish Pandey started aggressively against the spin of Duminy, 31 runs came off the first four overs.

From a relatively comfortable position, the home team’s top order just withered away. Sourav Ganguly who had shown a bit of spark in the last match failed to get off the mark as he tried to hit Daniel Christian over extra cover, instead found the fielder. Robin Uthappa and Mithun Manhas failed to read impressive Amit Mishra and fell cheaply to leave their team in deep trouble.

Captain Yuvraj Singh briefly tried to anchor the innings with a good-looking 23 but was outdone by a bouncer form Christian. In came, Mitchell Marsh and played a brilliant innings to lift Pune to a respectable position, his 28-ball 37 was punctuated by 3 huge sixes. Pune finished with 136 runs, something that they would taken at the half-way point of their innings.

The strong Hyderabad bowling was in its element, everybody except Ishant Sharma had something in the wickets column. Leg spinner Amit Mishra was a treat to watch with his full repertoire on display. He outthought Manhas with a superb wrong-one. Daniel Christian has not had a good tournament with the ball but he finally found some kind of from with two crucial wickets of Ganguly and Yuvraj.

Steyn also bowled an economical spell and picked up the wicket of Jesse Ryder.For a change, the Hyderabad fielders didn’t drop too many catches.After a dismal campaign, Sanga can at least take some positives out of his teams’ last two wins against Mumbai and Pune.