Deccan to easy win - Deccan Chargers at top of Indian Premier League table

Adam Gilchrist mounted a blistering attack that completely took the spirit off the Royal Challengers and set up an easy victory for Deccan Chargers here on Wednesday.

Gilchirst made 71 off just 45 balls to take Chargers to 184-6, the highest score in the tournament. Rohit Sharma hammered a 30-ball 52 that took the game out of the Challengers’ hands even before they began to bat.

With this victory, Deccan Chargers zoom to the top of the table for IPL-2.

Gilchrist’s innings had glad tidings on another front. The Chargers captain hit five massive sixers. Each hit over the boundary meant that Amway’s Freedom Wheels programme would donate a modified bike to a child with special challenges.

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Deccan at full charge

Deccan Chargers trounced Kolkata Knight Riders on Sunday, putting on display their inherent potential.

Chargers were never in trouble against the Riders, bowling tightly and scoring runs without a fuss.

It was sweet revenge for the Chargers: The floodlights had failed at a crucial time in their match against the Riders at the Eden Gardens last year, robbing them of a win.

The lights failed here on Sunday before the match, possibly reviving bitter memories and charging up the team for revenge.

Chargers got it right from the start. R.P. Singh took 4-22, accounting for big hitters Brendon McCullum and Chris Gayle cheaply.

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Rajasthan runs out Indian Premier League boss

BCCI vice-president Lalit Modi’s long reign as Rajasthan’s cricket boss ended on Sunday when he lost an acrimonious election to IAS officer Sanjay Dixit by 13 votes to 18.

The IPL boss’ entire list of nominees was wiped out, failing to win any of the 21 posts for which elections were held.

Mr Modi accused the Ashok Gehlot government in Rajasthan of engineering his defeat.

“I paid the price for being close to Vasundhara Raje (Rajasthan’s former BJP CM). The state government did whatever it could to defeat me,” Mr Modi said.

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Deccan ChargersTakes Chennai

The IPL could well be a tournament decided by momentum shifts. Deccan Chargers seven-wicket win against Chennai Super Kings here on Tuesday was a tribute to their self belief.

The way the team moved in the field told the tale. There was a spring in the step that hardly indicated their tournament record thus far. This was the best chance for Chargers to stage their comeback bid.

Adam Gilchrist and his men would for a moment have thought they were in Uppal rather than in distant Chepauk as the crowd cheered every boundary or six that flowed from the blade of the Chargers.

After restricting the Kings to 144 for 7, the Chargers rode on Gilchrist’s 36-ball 54 to overhaul the target with two overs to spare. The IPL looks wide open now. Every side will now fancy their chances of making the final. Adam Gilchrist had a promise to keep. “We will do justice to the inspiring name you provided the team,” Gilchrist had said to S. Nandakumar who had won the ‘Predict the name’ contest and he did just that.

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Bhajji gets 11 game ban

Harbhajan Singh was handed an 11-match ban after pleading guilty to slapping his India teammate Shantakumaran Sreesanth at the end of the Mumbai Indians versus Kings XI Punjab Indian Premier League match in Mohali on April 25 before adjudicator and match referee Farrokh Engineer here on Monday.

The length of the ban means that the spinner is out of the inaugural edition of the IPL unless Mumbai reach the semifinals of the tournament, which seems quite unlikely now.

Harbhajan is also likely to face action at the hands of the Board of Control for Cricket in India as he is a centrally contracted player. The BCCI has appointed a lawyer, Sudhir Nanavati, to conduct the preliminary inquiry.

The temperamental off-spinner was also fined 100 per cent of his match fee from the third match onwards in the IPL, while Mumbai Indians coach Lalchand Rajput was penalised 50 per cent of his match fee for not restraining Harbhajan after the game at Mohali. The spinner’s contract was for 14 matches for the 2008 IPL season, out of which he will receive the match fee for the first two matches he played.

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It was Devils’night out

Virender Sehwag slammed a swashbuckling unbeaten 94 to guide Delhi Daredevils to a comfortable victory over Deccan Chargers in the IPL game at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium here on Tuesday.

“If it is my day, no one can stop me,” said Sehwag who closed the match with three sixes and three fours in one over.

Set to chase a modest 142 in 20 overs, the visitors started in style with captain Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir blasting the ball around. The Chargers could not scuttle the rapid-fire rate at which the runs flowed from the Delhi willows as they overhauled the target with nine wickets and seven overs to spare.

Nothing went right for the Chargers, who kept losing wickets at regular intervals to put up a low score after electing to bat. It would have been worse but for the brilliance of Rohit Sharma, who accelerated the innings towards the end.

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Indian Premier League thrill starts today

Boundaries will matter as usual. But national boundaries will not.

As the Indian Premier League action gets underway with the match between Bangalore Royal Challengers and Kolkata Knight Riders at Bangalore on Friday, traditional rivalries and friendships will give way to explosive new combinations.

With players from around the world crisscrossing borders with only the essential spirit of the game to guide them, a new cosmopolitanism has entered the game.

Cricket will no longer be the same after the eight IPL franchises have had their say, or play.

Newfound partnerships will matter more to the players than old loyalties as eight teams fight it out in 59 Twenty20 matches over 44 days.

Prize money worth Rs 4 crore awaits the team that would win the June 1 final. The franchises have spent bushels of money to acquire the teams and star players and have done everything to ensure that the cup of entertainment would overflow.

It promises to be an electrifying experience when the likes of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Andrew Symonds, Sachin Tendulkar and Shane Warne clash on the field, in different permutations this time. The Deccan Chargers, with devastating batsmen such as Symonds, Adam Gilchrist, Herschelle Gibbs and Shahid Afridi in their ranks, appear to be the most menacing of the squads and should go all the way.

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India Versus South Africa - Proteas Trapped in Kanpur Twister

The pitch crumbled, as did the South Africans. Two days of evenly poised action in this Test, and nine days of super performances by them in the series were undone in one appalling session of play as the visitors handed an eight-wicket win to India on Day Three of the third Test at the Green Park here on Sunday.

From 90/4 in 39 overs just prior to tea, the visitors collapsed to 121 all out in 55.5 overs, spanning just an hour-and-a-half of play. Set a target of 62 to win, India broke no sweat in clinching the game and levelling the series 1-1.

Sourav Ganguly had talked about how imperative a good performance was on the third day. The team thereafter put his words into action. A deteriorating surface notwithstanding, India’s last pair of Ishant Sharma and Shantha kumaran Sreesanth put on 46 feisty runs, stretching the lead to a nifty 60.

From the overnight score of 288/9, the duo edged and pushed for 70 more balls frustrating the South African captain Graeme Smith who would have been hoping for a quick mop-up from his bowlers.

Ntini and Steyn were wayward and Harris was negotiated without much ado. To their credit, though, Sreesanth and Sharma had their share of luck, with a combined total of four edges managing to evade the fielders and a catch held off a no-ball.

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