Ken Borland

They were cheering all the way from Cape Town to Dhaka, from Haryana to Bengal to Kolkata, as the Knight Riders snatched a thrilling five-wicket victory over the Chennai Super Kings in the Indian Premier League final at the Chidambaram Stadium in Chepauk on Sunday.

 http://www.supersport.com/cricket/indian-premier-league/news/120527/KKR_finally_IPL_champs_with_thriller

Chennai, the two-time defending champions, looked well beaten despite defending 191 as Manvinder Bisla of Haryana, and Jacques Kallis, Cape Town’s finest, added 136 for the second wicket in 13.4 overs.

But with Bisla outfoxed by Albie Morkel for a scintillating 89 off 48 balls, announcing himself as a great talent, and Kallis, laid low by cramps, falling for 69 in the penultimate over, Kolkata needed 16 off seven balls as the Super Kings staged a fantastic fightback.

But Bangladeshi star Shakib al-Hasan, who may well be the new best all-rounder in the world once Kallis retires, scored seven runs off the last ball of the over as Ben Hilfenhaus bowled a no-ball for height and Dhaka’s hero then innovated with a scoop for four off the extra delivery.

Manoj Tiwary, one of the new generation of Indian batting stars, then struck two fours in the final over to clinch victory with two balls to spare and spark massive celebrations in his home state of Bengal.

Chasing such a daunting target, Kolkata seemed to have suffered a mortal blow in the first over when captain Gautam Gambhir missed with a rash swish across the line and was bowled by Hilfenhaus for just two.

But Bisla showed he was equipped to play a match-winning innings on the big stage. Brought in to replace seasoned New Zealand international Brendon McCullum, because Brett Lee had to return to boost the bowling attack after Lakshmipathy Balaji failed to recover from a hamstring injury, he showed enormous self-belief against the Goliaths of the IPL and an international-strength attack.

It was David’s night as everything Bisla tried came off, the 27-year-old hammering eight fours and five sixes. He was helped immeasurably by having the experienced Kallis at his side, the South African showing great skill in placing the ball in the gaps and giving Bisla the strike.

And once Bisla cut a slower-ball bouncer from Morkel to backward point in the 15th over, with 52 runs still needed, Kallis knew he had to step up and take over the aggressor’s role.

Playing superb strokes all over the park, Kallis went to town against the bowling of Dwayne Bravo in particular as he kept the Knight Riders in the game.

Laxmi Ratan Shukla swung straight to deep midwicket to give Bravo the consolation of a wicket, while Yusuf Pathan sliced a slog-sweep off off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin to fall for just a single.

Hilfenhaus was very happy when he ended Kallis’s 49-ball innings by having him caught by the cover-sweeper in the 19th over, but that soon turned to heartache.

And then Bravo, left to defend nine runs in the final over, did not seem to know whether to bowl short or full and was punished as a result.

Tiwary punched successive boundaries through the leg-side and the IPL trophy was in the box for Kolkata, giving movie star owner Shah Rukh Khan some reward at last.

Hilfenhaus had bowled brilliantly up front to put the Knight Riders under early pressure and finished with225 in his four overs, while Morkel bowled an outstanding spell of two overs, 1-12, in the closing stages to drag Chennai back into the contest.

But the other Super Kings bowlers failed to back up the new-ball pair, with Bravo (3.4-0-49-1) and spinners Shadab Jakati (4-0-38-0) and Ashwin (4-0-41-1) failing to adapt to a flat pitch.

SCINTILATING RAINA

Suresh Raina had earlier blasted the Kolkata Knight Riders bowlers all over the park as he led the Chennai Super Kings to a commanding 190 for three.

On an easy-paced pitch, all the Chennai batsmen looked comfortable with Murali Vijay (42), Mike Hussey (54) and Mahendra Singh Dhoni (14* off 9 balls) all contributing in an exceptional display by the top-order.

Raina’s scintillating 73 off 38 balls merely increased the pressure on the Kolkata bowlers after openers Vijay and Hussey had plundered 86 runs in 10 overs.

Hussey, normally the accumulator, did not sit back on this grand occasion, galloping to his 50 off 38 balls, with four fours and two sixes and some wonderfully clever strokeplay and manipulation of the field.

With Vijay conducting a similarly brutal assault on the bowling, picking up four fours and a six off 32 balls, the runs kept flowing for Chennai as the first wicket put on 87 off just 64 balls.

Vijay fell in the 11th over to a beautifully-judged, diving catch on the square-leg boundary by Shakib, giving medium-pacer Rajat Bhatia his only wicket.

But that brought Raina to the crease and that’s when life really became busy for the stats men.

The chunky left-hander smashed five sixes, four of them over midwicket, and three fours as he added 73 for the second wicket with Hussey off just 41 deliveries and made his highest score in this year’s IPL.

Kallis bowled Hussey in the 18th over, but the inspired Raina batted on until the last ball, which he slog-swept off the bottom of the bat, Brett Lee having to dash in sharply from cow-corner to get the ball in his hands.

The wicket was just reward for left-arm spinner Shakib, who conceded just eight runs in the final over.

Shakib and Bhatia both bowled just three overs, conceding 25 and 23 runs respectively, while the other wicket-taker, Kallis, was also reasonably tidy, conceding 34 runs in his four overs.

But key bowlers Sunil Narine and Lee were less successful with ball in hand, conceding 37 and 42 runs respectively in their four overs.

Murali Vijay was back to his best as his dominating century led the Chennai Super Kings to a thumping 86-run victory over the Delhi Daredevils in their Indian Premier League semi-final at the Chidambaram Stadium in Chepauk on Friday.

 – http://www.supersport.com/cricket/indian-premier-league/news/120525/Vijay_sets_up_Chennai_win_amidst_Delhi_blunders

The Daredevils, who topped the round-robin log, will have to reapply their minds when it comes to strategy in the playoff stages as they made some absolute howlers in the two defeats that see them lose out on the final.

In the semifinal, leading wicket-taker Morne Morkel was left out of the team in a shock selection, while the player who replaced him made his IPL debut, conceded 47 runs in three overs and was out first ball.

Captain Virender Sehwag also batted number three in yet another rejigged Delhi batting line-up that failed dismally to come close to their daunting target of 223, subsiding lamely to 136 all out.

Mahela Jayawardene scored 58 off 35 balls for the Daredevils, but key hitters David Warner (3) and Sehwag (1) both failed, South African all-rounder Albie Morkel, the brother of Morne, accounting for the Delhi captain with a short delivery.

Jayawardene and Ross Taylor (24) combined for a third-wicket partnership of 52 in 4.4 overs, but the home crowd were soon cheering the inevitable Chennai victory when Dwayne Bravo removed Taylor with his second ball.

West Indian Andre Russell was sent up the order to have a dip and hit two fours in his 16 off 11 balls, before Ravichandran Ashwin dismissed him and then bowled Jayawardene.

Lower-order batsmen have little chance of getting on top of the tall off-spinner and Ashwin finished with superb figures of three for 23 as Delhi meekly subsided, losing their last wicket in the 17th over.

Australian paceman Ben Hilfenhaus kept things tight at the start of the innings, taking one for 17 in three overs, but any audit of the match will reveal that the Daredevils threw the match away more than Chennai won it.

Vijay scored a cavalier century for the Chennai Super Kings as they posted a massive 222 for five as the Daredevils paid the price for omitting the competition’s best strike bowler.

The Super Kings took control from the start, with opener Vijay going on to plunder 113 off just 58 balls – one of the great IPL innings.

Chennai were sent in to bat and Vijay and Michael Hussey (20) made a great start as they added 68 for the first wicket in eight overs.

Delhi will also rue the decision to bring in debutant off-spinner Sunny Gupta, who bowled the first over and had his first two deliveries hammered for four by Vijay as he conceded an awful 47 runs in the three overs he bowled.

Having made some very strange tactical decisions in their qualifier loss to the Kolkata Knight Riders, Sehwag will also regret bringing himself on for an over, which cost 21 runs as Vijay hit him for a pair of sixes and fours.

Varun Aaron was the other Daredevils bowler to have a nightmare, conceding 63 runs in his four overs, although he did take two wickets.

Suresh Raina (27 off 17) and Mahendra Singh Dhoni (23 off 10) chipped in to support the rampant Vijay in partnerships of 69 in 5.3 overs and 36 in 2.5 overs respectively, before Bravo blasted 33 not out off just 12 balls to give the Chennai innings a tremendous ending.

Vijay stroked the ball to all corners of the ground to pick up 15 fours and four sixes, being run out off the last ball of the innings.

Fast bowler Umesh Yadav was the best of the Delhi attack, doing exceptionally well to avoid the slaughter as he conceded just 27 runs off his four overs and claimed the wicket of Albie Morkel, wicketkeeper Naman Ojha diving full-length to his left to take a brilliant catch and dismiss the South African first ball.

The IPL wraps up with Sunday’s final at the same Chepauk venue, with the Super Kings taking on the Kolkata Knight Riders.

It will be the spin of the mysterious Sunil Narine and his other two slow colleagues against the powerful Chennai batting line-up, for which the return to form of Vijay is an obvious and major boost.

Perhaps more importantly, it will be the big-match performers in the CSK team that will be the key men as they go in search of a hat-trick of titles.

The Kolkata Knight Riders were cheering the outstanding death bowling of Jacques Kallis as he led them to an 18-run victory over the Delhi Daredevils and a place in the Indian Premier League final after their qualifier at the Subrata Roy Sahara Stadium in Pune on Tuesday.

 – http://www.supersport.com/cricket/indian-premier-league/news/120522/KKR_waltz_into_IPL_final

After batting well to score 30, Kallis sunk Delhi’s hopes as he conceded just 11 runs from the 17th and 19th overs and claimed the key wickets of Venugopal Rao and Ross Taylor. The Daredevils were most definitely in the game before the South African’s return to the attack, needing 46 runs from the last four overs, with six wickets in hand.

But Kallis, no doubt delighted to be bowling on a pitch that was not the usual low-bouncing track found in India, used the short ball superbly and bowled with pace as he finished with two for 24 in four overs.

Delhi were chasing 163 but lost big-hitting openers David Warner (7) – to a very mediocre decision by umpire Billy Doctrove – and Virender Sehwag (10), both caught behind by Brendon McCullum off successive deliveries from Shakib Al Hasan and Lakshmipathy Balaji.

So the Daredevils needed to rebuild, and Naman Ojha and Mahela Jayawardene brought Delhi back into a position from which they could win the game as they reached 83 for two after 10 overs, needing just 80 more to win.

Jayawardene was playing a masterful innings, knowing exactly where to place the ball, as he went to 39 off 33 balls, with six sublime boundaries.

Ojha scored a run-a-ball 29 before he cut a short delivery from medium-pacer Rajat Bhatia straight to backward point to give Kolkata a vital breakthrough in the 11th over.

Four overs later, McCullum managed to stump Jayawardene on the second attempt as the Sri Lankan came down the pitch to left-arm spinner Iqbal Abdulla, but was beaten by a quicker, flatter delivery that was fired into his pads.

Tomes have already been written about Kallis’s prowess with the bat, but on Tuesday he showed his brilliance with the ball. The 36-year-old so seldom errs in his reading of conditions and he dug the ball in to menacing effect.

Venugopal and Pawan Negi were surprisingly sent up the order when the Daredevils’ batting line-up houses a destructive, experienced hitter in Taylor, and the two Indians produced stodgy innings.

It was always a safe bet that Venugopal, flapping erratically at short balls on his way to 13 off 22 balls, would eventually run out of luck and he was all at sea against another Kallis lifter on the penultimate delivery of the 17th over, splicing a catch into the covers.

Taylor, completely wasted at No 7 in the order, then clipped Kallis firmly off his legs but straight to deep square-leg to fall for 11 off eight balls.

When Kallis finished his spell, Delhi were on 137 for six and needing 26 off the last over, but mystery spinner Sunil Narine easily accounted for Negi (14) and Morne Morkel (0).

The Daredevils finished on 144 for eight and the Kolkata Knight Riders had sealed their first appearance in an IPL final.

LATE BOOST

Yusuf Pathan provided the Kolkata Knight Riders innings with a late boost as they posted 162 for four after electing to bat first.

Pathan, who has had a woeful IPL, hammered 40 not out off just 21 balls as the Knight Riders reached a challenging total on a pitch that offered turn and some assistance for the pace bowlers.

The Knight Riders’ top-order struggled to break the shackles of tight fielding and tidy bowling by Delhi, with Gautam Gambhir, McCullum and Kallis all getting set before getting out as Kolkata struggled to 106 for four after 16 overs.

Left-arm spinner Negi was the Delhi bowler who kept the tightest rein on the run-scoring, taking one for 18 in four excellent overs.

Kolkata openers Gambhir and McCullum successfully negotiated the impressive opening burst from Morkel, and Gambhir was humming along splendidly as he raced to 32 off 16 balls.

But McCullum then drove Varun Aaron firmly to mid-off and Gambhir came too far down the pitch, Venugopal scoring a direct hit, which the third umpire ruled had just beaten the Indian star’s effort to get back to his crease.

McCullum was just starting to show some promising signs of blossoming as he went to 31 off 36 balls, but he then sliced a drive off Negi to point.

Kallis scored 30 off 33 balls before he picked out the man at deep midwicket with a wonderfully-struck short-arm pull off Umesh Yadav.

That left the Knight Riders in an awkward position with just four overs remaining, but Pathan hammered three fours and two sixes with the ferocity of an orc, while Laxmi Ratan Shukla set about the bowlers from the start of his innings in a scintillating 24 not out off 11 balls.

Pathan and Shukla added 56 for the fifth wicket off just 24 balls to leave Delhi chasing a testing target against the best spin-based attack in the competition. The pair took 21 runs off the last over of the innings, bowled by Aaron.

The Daredevils’ decision to use just one spinner in Negi backfired, with the South African, Roelof van der Merwe, left on the sidelines as the fast bowlers – Yadav (4-0-37-1), Morkel (4-0-37-0) and Aaron (4-0-48-0) – all leaked the runs at an alarming rate.

Irfan Pathan, the left-armer, was the one pace bowler to impress, conceding just 20 runs in the four-over quota while claiming the wicket of Shakib for a single.

Delhi will now play the winners of the eliminator between the Mumbai Indians and the Chennai Super Kings to decide the other finalist.

The mysterious skills of spinner Sunil Narine decided the outcome as the Kolkata Knight Riders snatched an extraordinary 32-run victory over the Mumbai Indians in their Indian Premier League match at the Wankhede Stadium on Wednesday.

 – http://www.supersport.com/cricket/article.aspx?id=1384311

The victory means the Knight Riders join the Delhi Daredevils as the only two teams that are through to the playoffs and, defending just 141, it was thanks to the brilliant efforts of their bowlers in making the ball talk on a helpful surface.

Narine led the way with four for 15 in 3.1 overs and the West Indian is so mysterious that, in a bygone age, his dominance would have been churlishly attributed to ball-tampering, throwing or some other dark art.

With a required run-rate of just 7.05 runs per over, Mumbai were obvious favourites as the experienced duo of Sachin Tendulkar and Herschelle Gibbs strode out to begin the run-chase.

But the tight bowling of seamer Lakshmipathy Balaji up front and the spin trio of Shakib al-Hasan, Narine and Iqbal Abdulla, the latter snaring the wicket of Gibbs, trapped lbw for 13, saw the required rate jump to over eight an over after just a handful of overs.

Tendulkar was happy to just accumulate ones and twos until the ninth over, when he punished Jacques Kallis for a six and a four.

But the glory of dismissing and thoroughly baffling Tendulkar went to Narine as he bowled him for 27 at the end of the 11th over, a fizzing off-break seemingly taking a bit of hand, bat and thigh on its way on to the stumps.

From then on it was like David’s battle against Goliath – except the underdogs didn’t get the divine intervention they needed – as Mumbai required 81 runs off the last nine overs.

Dinesh Karthik scored 21 off 26 balls before his pull shot off Balaji was perfectly placed for Yusuf Pathan to take the catch on the fine leg boundary.

Ambati Rayudu hit left-arm spinner Abdulla out of the park in the 14th over but was then stumped by Brendon McCullum for 11 when he tried to repeat the stroke against the other left-arm spinner in the Kolkata line-up, Bangladesh star Shakib al-Hasan.

Kallis then went to town in the 17th over, proving his all-round worth after a first-ball duck with the bat as he deceived Kieron Pollard (8) with a slower bouncer and then trapped Dwayne Smith lbw with the next delivery for a Caribbean double.

Any semblance of hope then disappeared for Mumbai as Harbhajan Singh, not knowing if Narine’s delivery was spinning in or turning away from him, skied a big hit to long-on.

Narine then spun out Rohit Sharma for 12, McCullum bounding out from behind the stumps to take the catch, and the 23-year-old then wrapped up the win by dismissing Rudra Pratap Singh for three with the first ball of the 20th over, earning himself the Purple Cap in the process.

The Kolkata bowlers would obviously like to put the Mumbai pitch in a box and carry it around India with them because they all thrived.

Apart from Narine, Balaji ended with terrific figures of two for 11 in four overs, Shakib produced a fine performance with one for 25, Abdulla showed his talent with one for 23 and Kallis did the wicket-taking job required of him with two for 32.

The Kolkata Knight Riders had earlier left their supporters cursing what seemed to be a mediocre batting performance as they struggled to 140 for seven.

Many tomes have been written about Kallis, but he was one of the Knight Riders batsmen to fail as he was bowled through the gate by Rudra for a first-ball duck.

In the South African’s defence, however, he errs so seldom and it was a cracking delivery from the left-arm seamer that nipped back off the seam, against the natural angle across the right-hander.

It was a disastrous start for Kolkata after Mumbai captain Harbhajan seemingly made the right decision at the toss and sent them in, McCullum having suffered an awful lbw decision from Subroto Das off the previous delivery from Rudra.

McCullum was well down the pitch, the ball pitched outside leg stump and probably would have gone over or outside off stump, but Subroto sent him on his way for a single.

Captain Gautam Gambhir (27) and Manoj Tiwary (41) brought some respite with a third-wicket stand of 38 in seven overs, but the accurate Mumbai seamers allowed them little leeway.

The Knight Riders had limped to 54 for three at the halfway mark, which finally brought out the strokemaker in Tiwary as he hit two fours and two sixes before falling to the superb Munaf Patel in the 15th over.

The lower-order did come to the party, with Shakib (13), Yusuf Pathan (21*) and Rajat Bhatia (12) all upping the run-rate, while Narine hit two fours off the first four balls he faced at the death.

The Mumbai bowlers held sway, however, with Munaf the best of the bunch with the brilliant figures of one for 17 in four overs.

Rudra finished with two for 33, while Lasith Malinga was unusually in the background as he took one for 32. The medium-pace of the West Indian duo of Pollard (3-0-20-1) and Smith (2-0-8-1) was also impressive on the helpful Wankhede pitch.