Deccan Chargers

After suffering a hammering at the hands of Adam Gilchrist’s Kings XI Punjab, the Deccan Chargers decided to make wholesale changes to the squad ahead of the game against Sehwag’s Daredevils. JP Duminy was dropped to make way for Cameron White while Pragyan Ojha returned to the lineup in place of the erratic Manpreet Gony. Even Ishant Sharma found himself on the bench as the Chargers decided to give young Harmeet Singh his first opportunity this season. And in the end, it was these new names that made the difference as the Chargers posted a comfortable 15 run victory at the Feroz Shah Kotla.

Kumara Sangakkara, despite failing to successfully defend a total against KXIP, won the toss and elected to bat on a typically slow surface at the Kotla. Delhi also had a couple of changes to their lineup with Morkel returning in place of Michael Wade and Yogesh Nagar found a place ahead of Umesh Yadav. Sunny Sohal gave the match a cracking start as he drove Dinda through the covers of the first delivery of the match. A couple more boundaries through the covers by Dhawan and the Chargers were off and running. Irfan Pathan, operating with the new ball, got rid of Dhawan and that brought in the Chargers’ skipper. Sangakkara and Sohal worked the singles and twos and hit the occasional boundary as Chargers raced away to 90/1 at the halfway mark.  Three more boundaries of the eleventh over and even 200 looked possible with this duo out in the centre. But it wasn’t to be! Sangakkara mistimed one to cover where Finch took a wonderful overhead catch. Sohal meanwhile brought up his half century of 35 balls and then celebrated it by hitting Morkel for a huge six and a four. He finally holed out to Finch in the fifteenth over as the Chargers reached 129/3 at the end of the fifteenth over. The double strike was a huge blow for the Chargers as the run rate dropped drastically. Christian and White failed to middle the ball on the slowish track and could manage only 168 of their stipulated 20 overs, a mere 39 runs of the last five overs.

Delhi would have taken that score halfway through the first innings and had done remarkably well to come back into the game. The Delhi crowd went berserk as Sehwag smashed Christian for three consecutive boundaries and then Warner helped himself to a couple of boundaries of Steyn. The Chargers needed a breakthrough immediately and it was the young Harmeet Singh who struck! Sehwag slashed at a wide ball and Christian took a wonderful catch at point to send the home skipper back to the pavilion. Christian then himself trapped Naman Ojha in front as Delhi were put on the backfoot. Harmeet struck again as Finch nicked one to Sangakkara. 30 runs of the eighth and ninth over meant that Delhi required to score at 9 per over for the last eleven overs. But Mishra and Steyn choked the scoring and that resulted in another wicket as Venugopal tried to break the shackles. Warner reached his half century of 48 balls before gifting Dhawan his wicket. Ojha got rid of Pathan and even a cameo from Nagar came a bit too late as the Chargers posted their second victory of the season to jump to fourth in the table.

Sunny Sohal was awarded the Man of the Match while Delhi were left licking their wounds as they slipped to the bottom of the table after Royals Challengers got a point from their abandoned game against the Rajasthan Royals.

Tags: Cricket, DC, DD, Deccan Chargers, Delhi Daredevils, Indian Premier League, IPL, IPL 2011, IPL 4