Ken Borland

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 International Rugby Board’s anti-doping regulations have put paid to the potential comeback of former Springbok captain Victor Matfield, the South African Rugby Union (Saru) admitted on Thursday.
New Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer was considering Matfield, a veteran of 110 tests and the driving force behind their powerful lineout, for the three-test series against England next month, despite the 35-year-old announcing his retirement after last year’s World Cup.
With the series happening in the middle of the SuperRugby season, Meyer has little chance to work with his team, which will feature several new faces following the retirement of long-time captain John Smit, injuries to flanks Schalk Burger and Juan Smith, and the migration of stalwarts such as scrumhalf Fourie du Preez, centre Jaque Fourie, utility forward Danie Rossouw and prop Gurthro Steenkamp to overseas clubs.
Meyer is also facing a dilemma over who to appoint as captain because the frontrunner, Burger, has been ruled out of the England series due to a knee injury. The former Bulls coach previously hinted that Matfield could return to steer the team through the transitional period.
But an IRB rule stating that a player who has announced his retirement may not play international rugby for six months after his comeback has ruled out Matfield’s return.
The regulation is used by the IRB to prevent players who have used banned substances from suddenly retiring and then returning to the game once the drug is out of their system.
“We have discussed the option, but the International Rugby Board’s regulations counted against us,” Saru chief executive Jurie Roux told Reuters on Thursday.
“We would be keen to use Victor’s outstanding knowledge and have not ruled out the option of using it in some other way in the future.”
Matfield is acknowledged as the foremost student of lineout play in the game and is currently employed as an analyst by broadcasters SuperSport.
“I did want to play an experienced side, but a lot of players are not available,” Meyer said on a BBC radio interview this week. “There’s a big concern about the lack of time we have to train together. That’s why it’s difficult to pick a side because there will be injuries after those derbies. It’s not an ideal situation but you can’t make excuses,” he said.

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 Stormers hung on in the second half despite their creaking set-pieces to beat the New South Wales Waratahs 19-13 (half-time 16-3) at Newlands on Saturday and install themselves at the top of the SuperRugby standings.

The Stormers had scored two tries in the first half and, with dominance in possession and territory, seemed to have set up a comfortable victory over the Australians.

But the Stormers lost their structures after the break as the boot of Waratahs flyhalf Berrick Barnes kept them pinned in their own territory. But the much-vaunted defence of the South Africans held firm and they only conceded one try.

The kicking game of the Waratahs brought the first points of the match in the ninth minute as centre Adam Ashley-Cooper’s deft up-and-under forced a five-metre scrum, which went straight to ground, leading to a penalty by scrumhalf Brendan McKibben.

But the Stormers scored the first try of the match nine minutes later, off the platform of an attacking lineout as wing Gio Aplon burst through the defences after a wonderful inside pass from scrumhalf Dewaldt Duvenhage, and fullback Joe Pietersen, an obvious attacking threat throughout, rounded off the move in the left corner.

Duvenhage then deceived the Waratahs defence on the blindside, leading to a penalty which Pietersen kicked (8-3), and the Stormers crossed the tryline again seven minutes before half-time.

They set up a rolling maul off a lineout and, with the Waratahs distracted by another ball thrown on to the ground, hooker Tiaan Liebenberg crashed over for the second try.

Flyhalf Peter Grant then kicked an injury-time penalty to give the Stormers a commanding 16-3 lead, before they suffered another concerning second-half fade-out.

Lock Andries Bekker was chiefly to blame for a defensive failure that allowed replacement lock Kane Douglas to burst through and, with eighthman Dave Dennis carrying the ball well, outside centre Rob Horne was able to stroll over the tryline.

McKibben converted to close the gap to 16-10 and the Stormers continued to endure a hugely frustrating second half. They were pinned in their half for long periods by Barnes and this led to indecision when it came to either returning the kicks or trying to run the ball out from deep inside their own territory.

This confusion led to a McKibben penalty in the 47th minute when wing Bryan Habana was caught in possession and played the ball on the ground.

Grant provided some relief for the Stormers with a 50th-minute penalty, but the home side had to work exceptionally hard to keep the Waratahs out and secure the win.

Scorers

Stormers – Tries: Joe Pietersen, Tiaan Liebenberg. Penalties: Pietersen, Peter Grant (2).

Waratahs – Try: Rob Horne. Conversion: Brendan McKibben. Penalties: McKibben (2).