tamilsweet – Freelance Web Developer

It has been a forgetful tournament so far for Sharukh Khan and his team. Kolkata Knight Riders lost their 9th league match against Delhi Daredevils yesterday.

IPL 2009 – Match 31 – Kolkata Knight Riders Vs Delhi Daredevils – Full Scorecard

Kolkatha Knight Riders

Kolkata Knight Riders skipper McCullum won the toss and elected to bat first. They got a good start for the first time in the tournament as the openners put on 58Runs for the first wicket, their highest in this version of IPL. Captain McCullum got the start but couldn’t capitalize it and got out for 35(29 balls). Hodge came in at no.2 but could only help Delhi Daredevils. He struggled to get bat on ball and wasted deliveries. Van Wyk played brilliantly on one end scoring his 50 in just 32 deliveries. Hodge got out at crucial stage and Henriques came in to give first maiden over for the day to Amit Mishra. This is were Knight Riders lost their way, as the previous over yielded 15Runs inspite of a Wicket. Some good clean hits from Van Wyk and late flurry from Henriques helped Kolkata reach past 150 mark ending up at 154/3 in their 20 Overs. For Delhi Daredevils, Amit Mishra bowled well just giving away 18Runs in his 4overs including a maiden over, his 4th over and 14th of the match. Nehra blowed extremely well in the depth. Nannes was the odd man out missing out his 50 as he conceded 49Runs in his 4Overs.

Chasing 155 under light is not an easy job, but Delhi Daredevils did it in style, as out of form Gautham Gambhir got some form back and will do a World of good for him and his team. Gambhir scored 71Runs, thanks to McCullum, Henriques and Umpire Ian Howell. Gambhir survived two drop catches, a simple run out chance and given not out on a big nick to wicketkeeper van Wyk. Kolkata bowlers started well but worse fielding let them down badly. Ganguly couldn’t get a hand to the ball coming straight to him and Saha dived before getting close to the ball and the ball stopped itself. I couldn’t keep myself from laughing when Simon Doull commented on the dive as “Swimming on ground might not be such a good idea” . Fielding standards of Kolkata Knight Riders improved a bit as they only dropped 3 catches while dropped 4 catches in the previous match. McCullum, Henriques and Ghosh each dropped a catch. Warner and Dilshan carried their good form and scored 36 and 42 resp. Gambhir scored the winning runs a he lofted Ishant Sharma over long off for a boundary and was named Man of the Match. Murali Karthik(18/0 in 4 Overs) was the sole performer from Kolkata Knight Riders and bowled well in the middle overs.

Yet another loss for Knight Riders and its unlikely they bounce back from this position. Kolkata Knight Riders started this version of IPL T20 with a strange strategy of having 4 Captains and using them in rotation, not sure what happened there on. Thanks to rain God, otherwise they might not have had any points to their tally. Their only victory came by D/L(Duckworth-Lewis) Method against Kings XI Punjab; chasing 158 they got to 79/1 when the rain interrupted and were 11 runs ahead by D/L method.

IPL 2009 – Match 30 – Rajasthan Royals Vs Kings XI Punjab – Full Scorecard

Earlier in the day Rajasthan Royals outplayed Kings XI Punjab posting the highest total of this verion of IPL T20. I missed out to watch the flurry of runs from the Rajasthan openers. Rajasthan scored 211 in 20 Overs highest in IPL T20 2009. Kings XI Punjab lost wickets in regular intervals and could only score 133/8 in 20 Overs. Amit Singh bowled exceptionally well for his 9/3 including 2 wickets of the first over of the innings and his. Yuvraj scored 48Runs reducing the margin of victory for Rajasthan Royals.

IPL T20 Points table after 31 League matches

IPL T20 – Points Table

Delhi Daredevils moved to the top of the table with their win against Kolkata Knight Riders. Rajasthan Royals moved to 3rd position and 78Run victory imporved their run rate but still in negative. Uncertainity has become certain with the points table in this version of IPL T20, making it interesting and the trophy is wide open for the top 7 teams now.  If Deccan Chargers could win today’s match against Mumbai Indian, they will get back to the top of the table. Let’s see what happens…!