Tue, 03 May 2011 - IP Hyderabad vs IP Kolkata, IPL 2011,42nd Match - Bulletin

Kolkata back on top after Pathan blitzkrieg

Yusuf Pathan and shoddy fielding by their opponents helped Kolkata reclaim the top spot in the IPL league standings as they completed a comprehensive win over Hyderabad,defeating them by 20 runs. Pathan’s 47 runs helped Kolkata post a formidable 169 runs on a pitch where 150 was about the par score.

The average first innings score at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium before this match was165 but the home side’s batting woes would always make such a chase difficult.

Although the Hyderabad openers started brightly unleashing some powerful ground-strokes but young Iqbal Abdulla provided his team the vital breakthrough dismissing Sunny Sohal for 26 and the score was 41 for 1.Soon it became 41 for 2 as Hyderabad’s best batsman Kumar Sangakkara played a ball from the left armer that seemed to stop a bit and Kallis took a dolly at midwicket. Cameron White’s nightmare continued as he departed with only 13 runs to his name. In all likelihood, JP Duminy would take his place in the next match.

Shikhar Dhawan, however tried to keep up with the required rate and once he was dismissed for 54 runs, the match was all but lost. More than their batsmen Hyderabad fielders were the main culprits.

After being put in by Sanga, Kolkata batted intelligently to put a big total on the board. Their 169 runs were largely due to the hitting of Yusuf Pathan and some ordinary fielding by Hyderabad.

Kolkata once again opened with Eoin Morgan and Jacques Kallis, the former tried some innovative shots but fell trying to charge Dan Christian and his leg stump went for a cart-wheel.

Kallis did not look in his element and was beaten many a time trying to force the pace.

Kolkata captain who came after Morgan’s dismissal showed aggressive intent from the very onset. The first ball he faced was hit over the covers for a boundary. A pumped up Gambhir later got into an altercation with Hyderabad bowler Christian; the umpires had to do the firefighting before things spiraled out of control.

Kallis and Gambhir were dismissed within a space of five balls and it looked like Hyderabad were back in the game but that was not to be. Pathan, who hasn’t really got going in IPL-4 was promoted above Manoj Tiwary to have few sighters before starting the fireworks. However, he was lucky to survive till the end having been dropped twice, first Amit Mishra misjudged a skier at deep midwicket and then Christian put him down at long on, worse he parried the ball towards the boundary for a four. From that point when Pathan had made only 12 runs, the Kolkata innings got a real move on.

Manoj Tiwary, who played a match-winning knock in the previous match, combined with Pathan for a brisk partnership totaling 80 runs off just 8 overs to push the total beyond Hyderabad’s reach. Pathan’s innings was punctuated with six hits to the fence; three along the ground and the rest were monsters landing in the crowd.

For the first half of the innings, Hyderabad looked like restricting the visitors to a total of manageable proportions as Pragyan Ojha troubled the batsmen more than once. Had they held on to their chances, the story of this match would have been different.