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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Lights, pitch defeat Chargers

Poor lights, umpiring errors and a substandard pitch contrived to subdue a spirited fight by the Deccan Chargers in their opening IPL match against the Kolkata Knight Riders at an erratic Eden Gardens here on Sunday. After being bowled out for 110, the Hyderabad team had done well to have the Knights on their knees at 89/5 in the 17th over when two of the four light towers shut down suddenly.

The half-hour break provided the home team time to recover and regroup before they went on to the field needing 22 runs from 20 balls while the Chargers had to go through the drills and expend extra energy to warm up and take to the ground.

Man of the match David Hussey admitted it was a welcome break. “It was a decent break for us, giving us time to collect our thoughts and have a drink to get back our energy. It worked very well for us,” he said. Chargers captain V.V.S. Laxman rued the interruption. “It definitely affected us because we had the momentum going when the lights shut down,” he said. Laxman also called the wicket “shocking.”

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