Sun, 17 Apr 2011 - IP Pune vs IP Delhi, IPL 2011, 16th Match - Bulletin

Delhi’s maiden win spoils Pune’s evening

Delhi finally won their first game this season not before overcoming some scary moments during their successful chase of mammoth 188 runs against Pune. Following his hurricane batting effort, Pune skipper Yuvraj Singh nearly turned on it with the ball but some useful cameos from Delhi lower order batsmen saw visiting team halt a two match winning streak of home team.

With required run rate over 12 runs per over in last four overs and top batters back in the hutch, Aaron Finch, Venugopal Rao and James Hopes who all kept their nerves under pressure to have their team winning their maiden game.

It was David Warner and skipper Virendar Sehwag who set the big chase up with a blistering opening stand that saw them put on 75 runs inside seven overs. Left hander Warner who exchanged some not so funny words with fast bowler Alfonso Thomas gave chase a aggressive start and gave thumping answer to Thomas with the bat.

While Warner was batting in over drive from the word go, Sehwag after settling in played his best innings of this season cracking his trademark drives and flicks to put Pune bowlers under pressure.

Run-out looked only way to separate the Delhi openers when they were going great guns and it needed that to uncouple the two. Warner was found short in pursuit of a quick second run when batsman was on 46 runs including half a dozen fours and a couple of sixes.

Sehwag kept hitting the boundaries after Warner’s wicket but played a loose shot off Jesse Ryder to see his stumps disturbed to end his 23-ball knock for 37 runs punctuated with six fours.

Once Sehwag was gone scoring rate was slow and wickets kept falling to have Delhi on the mat as Yuvraj removed Irfan Pathan and Naman Ojha off two successive delivery. It looked Delhi will have wait for their first win for more time but Rao and Finch had other ideas as they unleashed big shots to bring required run rate down.

Rao who has been the Delhi’s best batsmen used his feet to deposit spinners into the stands while Finch played a breezy knock of 25 runs marked with two sixes to make things easier for his team.

With 23 runs needed in last two overs, Yuvraj decided to bowl himself and had Finch off first ball but Rao hit him for a six and four in the same to take his on a brink of victory. There was a another twist though as Yuvraj removed Rao off his last ball of the four spell in which he gave away 29 runs for 4 wickets. It was left to Hopes playing his first game this season brought into side due to an injury to Morne Morkel to hit a six and four to seal victory for his side.

Yuvraj had a terrific day with the bat as well as his 32-ball 66 and Ryder’s blistering fifty helped Pune to post a big total of 187 runs.

Ryder’s aggressive innings of 60 runs off 27 balls punctuated five sixes and as many fours came in the early stages of the inning as he slammed two sixes in first over of the match. He continued on with the same speed slamming boundaries one after another at will to score season’s second fast fifty and he was helped by Delhi fielders as well who not only dropped him once but gave him easy runs also.

Ryder’s fall saw some sanity to the proceeding as Pune batsmen failed keep up the tempo and combusted in pursuit of quick runs. Delhi, in the middle overs, had a good little period slowing down the runs and getting wickets of Robin Uthappa and Monish Mishra as well.

With run rate dipping and wickets falling, Yuvraj realised it was time to go and he did in some style hitting five sixes and four boundaries in his classy 32-ball 66. He gave Ashok Dinda some beating in last over of the innings looting 27 runs including three sixes on last three balls of the over.

Yuvraj’s all-round heroics, however, ended in a vain as Delhi batsmen replied the chase even with more aggression.