Wed, 13 Apr 2011 - IP Punjab vs IP Chennai, IPL 2011, 9th Match - Bulletin

Valthaty super ton derails Chennai

An unknown prodigy in the shape of Paul Valthaty set the IPL on fire by smashing undefeated century to take his across the line against defending champions Chennai. Riding on Valthaty super innings that saw him score 120 runs off just 63 balls, Punjab chased down a stiff target of 189 successfully to open their account this season.

Valthaty, not famous in cricketing circles, played a real gem hitting Chennai bowlers to all corners of the ground and what made his innings remarkable was the demeanor with which he carried out an onslaught. He displayed a great deal of his hitting prowess and kept his cool at crucial junctures to see his side through. His innings that included 19 fours and two sixes most of them from the coaching manual forced errors from Chennai bowlers who were all over the shop and fielders didn’t have a good day failing to hold on to a couple of chances provided by Punjab batsmen.

His opening partnership of 61 runs with skipper Adam Gilchrist inside six overs set the chase up as Valthaty didn’t seem to be overawed with the big stage cracking some terrific strokes. Gilly seeing his partner in murderous mood played a second fiddle before getting out to an aerial flick to be caught in the deep.

It didn’t bother youngster though as he kept attacking and forged another crucial partnership with Shaun Marsh to put on 39 runs in quick time. Only piece of bad cricket from Valthaty came when he didn’t respond to Marsh’s call resulting in latter’s run-out.

It, however, provided some tonic to Valthaty as he belted next three four to the boundary to calm the nerves and not let required run rate to go out of reach.

Another youngster Sunny Singh was impressive as he hit two four and a six in his 11-ball 20 to take some pressure off Valthaty as they put on 36 together. But there was some twist as Punjab lost Sunny and Abhishek Nayar on successive deliveries to give some hope to Chennai.

Valthaty had other ideas though as he and Dinesh Karthik scored next 63 runs in a professional manner hitting the boundaries when needed the most and never letting pressure to get better of them.

Earlier Chennai overcame the worst possible start as they lost two wickets to first two ball of the match to put a huge total on the board largely due to batting heroics from Murali Vijay, Badrinath and skipper MS Dhoni.

Praveen Kumar had a dream start as he removed Srikkanth and Suresh Raina off his first two balls but Badrinath and Vijay combined together to counterattack Punjab bowlers.

Vijay was very brutal hitting four and sixes at will while Badrinath was at his usual self finding the gaps and finding the odd boundary off bad balls. Vijay’s 74 came off 43 balls including half a dozen fours and four big sixes before getting stump out to Piyush Chawla to put an end to impressive 124-partnership.

Vijay’s dismissal brought Dhoni to the crease as he played a whirlwind innings off 43 runs coming off 20 balls punctuated with four boundaries and two sixes. Badrinath took 56 balls to reach to undefeated 66 including eight fours in what was a very well paced innings.