Hyderabad On Song

Posted by Abhishek Kamble in IPL on 04 17th, 2010 | no responses

Rohit_Sharma_50 Rohit Sharma guided the defending Champion Hyderabad to 5 wickets win over the Punjab and thus their hopes of making it to the semi finals are alive. On a track which had live grass in the middle of the pitch and hence a good bounce and little seam movement Rohit Sharma played an excellent inning of 68 runs in 38 balls to take the chargers home.

Dharmashala another home ground for the Kings proved to be a good venue for the chargers. The ground was very different from the one you see elsewhere in India. In the backdrop of Himalayan ranges it had a lush green but fast outfield. The track had a patch of grass in the middle providing good bounce to the seam bowlers a hint of the swing in the air. Bowling from one end, this patch came in at a good length of the track while from the other end it was at a short pitch length.

Looking at the ground conditions Gilchrist invited Punjab to bat first after wining the toss. R Harris continued his form getting S Marsh in the very first over. But Deccan could not capitalize on the early breakthrough. RP Singh and Mitchell Marsh provided a lot of width to the Sri Lankan duo of K Sangakara and M Jayawardene. Although Jayawardene struggled a bit Sangakara was in good touch. He made excellent use of these wayward deliveries hitting nine fours and one six on the way to his half century. The duo put together a partnership 86 runs in 63 balls before Sangakara got out on 52 runs trying to play a reverse sweep of Rahul Sharma; then came in Yuvraj Singh who has had a poor run in this IPL.

After getting Sangakara Deccan bowlers put on a break on the scoring rate of Kings in the next few overs. The run rate fell form 7.81 in the 11th over to 6.5 in the 15th over. Although Yuvraj didn’t score much he held on his wicket rotating the strike. On the other end Jayawardene cut loose. From 98/2 in 15 overs he powered Punjab to 174/3 in the quota of 20 overs, scoring 76 runs in the last 5 overs. Jayawardene put on another 86 run partnership with Yuvraj. He hammered the Deccan bowlers all around the park and scored 93 runs from just 62 balls hitting 13 boundaries and 2 sixes in en route. Earlier Tom Moody the coach of Punjab had expressed that a score of 150 would be enough on the track. So with 174 on board the side must have been pretty satisfied with the performance.

Coming out to bat in conditions which might have made him feel at home Gilchrist looked to break his streak of bad run. He hit a boundary to get of the mark but lost his wicket in the next over. Mishra played a short knock of 20 runs in 21 balls with the team score being 54 runs in 6.3 overs when he got out. Rohit Sharma walked in when the team needed 121 more runs form 13.3. Sharma played an excellent inning with controlled aggression. He had the support of the T Suman who has been playing a very important role in the last few wins of the Hyderabad. Both of them played sensibly taking singles, hitting boundaries and always keeping the required run rate within the reach. They both added 66 runs in 6.4 overs. But Suman and Symonds got out in the back to back overs increasing the pressure on Rohit. Requiring 19 from last 2 overs the memories of loss against Rajasthan must have flashed through his mind. But he ensured that it did not repeat the history.

They scored 18 in the penultimate over which included some hard doubles, a four and a last ball six by Sharma. The last ball six was a miss hit which went over the long on. Piyush Chawla tried to get under it but just managed to get some hand on it. The ball bounced out of his hands and went for a six and scores were leveled. The formality was completed by Sumanth. Deccan still have one more game to go against Delhi. A win will ensure them a berth in the semis. A loss will make it extremely difficult for them because of their poor net run rate.

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