Pune overcome Hyderabad by six-wickets
It was a ‘dead rubber’ by no means. With Sourav Ganguly finally making debut in IPL-4, excitement was in the air and he did not disappoint his fans as he helped Pune defeat Hyderabad by six wickets at the Rajiv Gandhi stadium in Hyderabad. They have now fallen out of the top-four race, even the mathematical chance has evaporated.
Pune backed up their good show in the field with a decent performance with the bat to get across the line. Jesse Ryder took the attack to the home bowlers and bludgeoned his way to a quick fire 35 off just 20 deliveries. In came Sourav Ganguly, the Hyderabad crowd cheered wildly as he opened his account with a punch down the ground. He joined Manish Pandey to take his team to a commanding position, Pandey falling short of a fifty by a single run. The highlight of Dada’s unbeaten innings of 32 runs was a big six off leggie Amit Mishra, the ‘Bengal Tiger’ charged down the track and deposited the googly over square leg. However, there were a few hiccups towards the end when Robin Uthappa and Yuvraj went back without doing a lot, but Ganguly’s presence prevented any jitters.
The Hyderabad bowling lacked bite and the terrible fielding continued. It seems they need to borrow Jonty Rhodes for some days from Mumbai. In fact, the runs they had on board deflated their bowling and in the end they just didn’t look like a team trying to compete.
Earlie, their batting followed the usual script, a good start was squandered and acceleration in the end didn’t happen. As a result, they posted a mediocre total of 136 runs. Shikhar Dhawan and Ravi Teja started solidly with a half-century opening stand at a healthy rate. They played aggressively making full use of the good batting conditions.But, the Pune spinners strangulated rest of the batting with wickets falling at regular intervals. Dhawan was the first one to depart, caught in the deep trying to launch Yuvraj into the stands. In the very next over, his partner Teja got an inside onto the stumps off Mitchell Marsh, his 30-run knock punctuated by four boundaries.
The next man in was Hyderabad skipper, Kumar Sangakkara who promised much but couldn’t do a lot. He tried to sweep the impressive Rahul Sharma and was caught plumb in front of the stumps. By the time Daniel Christian went, the home team had already lost the initial momentum but, with JP Duminy still on the crease the hopes of a 150 total were high. His run-a-ball 30 wasn’t enough to push the Hyderabad score and they ended with a below par total. Barring the first seven overs, the Hyderabad innings was a struggle as they struggled to accelerate at the right time.
The Pune bowling was led by skipper Yuvraj who bowled an economical spell of four overs for 17 runs with two crucial wickets. Marsh bowled on good areas and was rewarded when the batsmen were on the charge getting three wickets in one over to finish with four scalps. Sharma continued to impress as he troubled batsmen on a regular basis. The Pune fielders backed up the bowling with a spirited show.
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