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Kolkatta Knight Riders won the toss and elected to bat at the Eden Gardens, Kolkatta on Wednesday. Saurav Ganguly and Chris Gayle opened the innings and laid a decent foundation for the Kolkatta  score to read 181 for the loss of three wickets.

Ganguly’s half century was punctuated with 8 fours and a six and chris Gayle slammed 40 runs with 5 fours and a six. Ganguly was bowled by  Vittori and Gayle was bowled by Bhatia. Tewary was not out on 26 and Mathews contributed 46 not out. 

After 10 overs Kolkatta Knight Riders  were 88 for no loss and they  scored the 100 runs in 10.5 overs. Gayle hit most of his runs to the fine leg boundry and hit Collingwood for a towering six. 

Gayle hit Mishra over the long-on boundary and followed up with two powerful sweep shots to the fine leg boundary. Ganguly cleared the fence for the first time in the tenth over, dancing down the pitch to  Paul Collingwood. At the halfway stage, Kolkata were 88 for 0. Their hopes are still alive for a semi-final berth. The home crowd cheered the Kolkatta team and roared when Delhi was restricted to 167 runs only.

In the eleventh over Gayle hit Rajat Bhatia over long-on and the ball was lost in the construction site. However Bhatia beat Gayle in next ball to hit the stumps. Ganguly went shortly after, bowled by Vettori. Both their set batsmen were lost, and Brendon McCullum followed soon after. 

Thereafter, for Kolkata it was Mathews and Tiwary combination who scored well and got the team to a fighting total.  Tiwary joined in the hitting right at the end, and they boosted the innings by taking 18 runs off Mishra’s last over. Their partnership was worth 70 runs and it helped set Delhi a testing target in a match vital to Kolkata’s chances. 

For the Delhi Daredevils Warner and Sehwag opened the innings and Warner was bowled by A Dhinda without scoring. Sehwag plundered the Kolkatta bowlers and perished after making 64 runs and was bowled by Ajit Agarkar. 

 Sehwag, who hit six fours and 3 sixes in his 64 was dropped twice off the bowling of Ajantha Mendis.  

Gautam Gambhir who also played a spendid knock of 47 runs but was run out (Ganguly) and missed his half century. Dinesh Karthik sored 20 runs and was caught by McCullum bowled by A Dhinda. In fact it was after the departure of the danger man Sehwag that Saurav Ganguly and company   – smelt victory. 

Paul Collingwood (2) was soon out to Mendis but Sehwag kept hitting  fours and sixes before he edged an Ajit Agarkar delivery onto his stumps in the 15th over. Ganguly took two catches and his captaincy was visible all over the field. 

Rajat Bhatia  and Daniel Vettori  bowled very well for Delhi and took three quick wickets of Gayle, Ganguly, and McCullum  to stop the run rot. 

Gayle exploded later which was Vittori’s second, as he slammed one six and two boundaries in the seventh over which yielded 15 runs. He was bowled by Bhatia. 

Ganguly, meanwhile, carved out his sixth IPL half-century with Knight Riders getting to the 100-mark by 11th over. 

Daredevils claimed their prize scalp in McCullum when he  was run-out for six as Kolkatta  were reduced to 111 for three in 13.1 overs. 

Mathews and Tiwary then took over the resoonsibility to score quickly after McMullum was out. 

The award for the maximum sixes went to Virendra Sehwag. 

The Karbonn Kamaal Catch went to Saurav Ganguly. 

The Man of the match award was also given to Saurav Ganguly.

Ravi Matah.

Tags: Chris Gayle, Delhi Daredevils, Eden Gardens Kolkatta, Gautam Gambhir, Kolkatta Knight Riders, Saurav Ganguly, Virendra Sehwag

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 8th, 2010 at 8:47 am and is filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.