Hyderabad Keep Their Hopes Alive

Hyderabad won a crucial tie against Bangalore to keep them in contention for a semis berth. It was a clinical performance by Suman and Symonds that saw them through. If  Hyderabad need to make it through, they need to look at each game from a must win point of view.

As far as Bangalore is concerned, they suddenly seem to have lost the winning formula. Leave apart Kallis who might end up scoring close to a thousand runs this season looking at his level of consistency, no one else has performed up to the mark.They all need to fire together and that is what is not happening for them. Even if you have a look at yesterdays match, had Virat Kohli not played that blitzkrieg innings Bangalore were in a really bad position.

The first half of the Bangalore innings belonged to Hyderabad who picked up wickets at regular intervals to hold back the run rate. Manish Pandey fell early and surprisingly Rahul Dravid was sent in to bat at No. 3. He held the innings together with a steady 26 along with Kallis before throwing his wicket away looking to hit Ojha over Midwicket ending up giving a dolly to Sharma at point. Uthappa, who has been in fine form off late, was also dismissed cheaply. Taylor had no clue of the delivery that got him out plumb in front.

Bangalore got to the 100 mark in the 15^th over and it looked that they would get somewhere around 140-150 max. But, Virat Kohli had other plans. He plundered boundaries and sixes in the last 4-5 overs and his handy 58 along with Kallis’ 68 helped Bangalore reach a challenging total of 184. Hyderabad’s inning started steadily with Suman getting a promotion at No.3. Gilchrist hardly got any strike early on with Suman taking most of the strike and progressing steadily in his innings.

When Gilchrist fell after a quick fire 32, it was up to Suman and Sharma to take it through. But Shrama too fell early and it looked like Hyderabad would once again collapse the way they had in so many previous matches. Symonds came in and along with Suman wrapped up the game with a breezy 50 that had Kumble visibly upset especially in the last over when Hyderabad needed 9 to win off 6 balls. It took Symonds only two balls to finish the game.

Bangalore for the last 2-3 matches have started experimenting with the team composition, the batting line up and one wonders whether that is what is costing them their matches. They suddenly look like a bowler short in crucial stages of the match and it seems that Van der Merwe should get a look in to strengthen their bowling. Whatever it is Bangalore need to pull up their socks and get back to winning ways or else they might keep a lot to be done for themselves towards the end. And for Hyderabad they have no other option but to win, win and win every other match!

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