By Suneer Chowdhary
The Royal Challengers armada was scuttled tonight by another of those special innings that one would go miles to watch. Adam Gilchrist did a Gayle, only to be propped by Shaun Marsh’s package of aggression and solidity combined in one and helped Punjab romp home by 111 runs.
Published: May 17, 2011, 11:21 PM (IST)
Edited: May 17, 2011, 11:21 PM (IST)
Kings XI players celebrate the dismissal of Chris Gayle, who was out for a duck © AFP
By Suneer Chowdhary
Dharamsala: May 17, 2011
The last game that was played between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kings XI Punjab, the marauding bat of Chris Gayle had beaten the Punjab bowling hollow. Gayle’s century was the cornerstone of an 85-run win for his side.
The tables were turned and the Royal Challengers armada was scuttled tonight by another of those special innings that one would go miles to watch. Adam Gilchrist did a Gayle, only to be propped by Shaun Marsh’s package of aggression and solidity combined in one and helped Punjab romp home by 111 runs.
A target of 233 has never been chased successfully in this format of the game before and a highly stung Royal Challengers Bangalore were not going to be the first. Especially after one of their biggest hopes and the form player of the tournament, Gayle, departed as early as in the third over without scoring a run.
The rest of the batsmen, with the exception of AB de Villiers, showed up for what looked like a guest appearance and walked right back, crashing to 121 all out.
Captain Virat Kohli’s 11 and Mohammad Kaif’s 15 were the only two others in the top-order to get to double figures, while de Villiers soldiered on for a while, getting to 34.
By the time de Villiers was dismissed by Piyush Chawla off a top-edge off a sweep, the side had got to only 89 in the 13th over and had lost seven wickets.
Chawla ended with a haul of four wickets as the win moved the Kings XI Punjab into the realms of a realistic chance of making it to the playoffs.
Earlier, Kings XI Punjab had to win this game to continue having a chance to enter the playoffs. For that to happen, they also needed someone to take the pressure off the solitary consistent batsman of the Punjab side, Marsh.
Gilchrist, who had had a poor IPL thus far, came to the party when it mattered to his team. Paul Valthaty had got out early after hitting a couple to the fence and Gilchrist had had a slowish start.
Punjab had crawled through to 30 for the loss of Valthaty’s wicket at the end of the field restriction overs. Off the next 13, it was mayhem that resulted from the bats of Gilchrist and Marsh.
Gilchrist had faced only eight balls in those first six overs, scoring two but clobbered 69 off the next four. The tide had so dramatically turned that it would have been difficult for Bangalore to comprehend what stuck them.
The bludgeoning bats of the two Aussies continued even after that, peaking in the 15th over of the innings, when Marsh joined in the fun by hitting three sixes and three fours off Johan van der Wath.
While the Royal Challengers pulled back in the last five overs of the innings, it was in relative terms, what will 59 still coming off them. Gilchrist brought up his century in the last over of the innings, getting there off 55 balls while Marsh finished up unbeaten on 79.
When Gilchrist did get out with a ball still to go in the innings, it had been the end of the best ever partnership in T20 cricket – that of 206 runs off 16 overs alone. Not too many, then, raised their eyebrows when Gilchrist was named the man of the match for his century.
With this win, Punjab now have 14 points from 13 games, with one game against the Deccan Chargers still to go. Kolkata have 14 from 12 games, while Mumbai and Chennai, both, have 16 from the 12. The big win improved Punjab’s net run-rate to 0.27 as compared to Kolkata’s 0.45.
Brief Scores: KXIP 232 for 2 in 20 overs (Adam Gilchrist 106, Shaun Marsh 79*; Charl Langeveldt 2 for 48) bt RCB 121 all out in 17 overs (AB de Villiers 34; Piyush Chawla 4 for 17, Ryan Harris 3 for 28, Shalabh Srivastava 2 for 30, Paul Valthaty 1 for 30) by 111 runs.
Man of the Match: Adam Gilchrist
(Suneer is a Mumbai-based cricket writer and can be contacted at suneerchowdhary@gmail.com and Tweets here @suneerchowdhary)
