Every body was thinking of two devils, namely, Sehwag and Gambhir in the Delhi contingent but de Villiers and Dilshan made it clear that each and every player of the Delhi team is a devil. No one could expect a team except for Delhi Daredevils, to resurrect from an early mishap of losing key players like Sehwag and Gambhir for a score of 8 runs to a comfortable poising of 46/2 in 5 overs and further develop it to 189/5 after 20 overs. The whole show belonged to de Villiers who beckoned his maiden IPL ton which also is the first in IPL Season 2 to make the Super Kings way out of caging the Daredevils.

He was not ready to compromise with anything except for sixers and fours and in fact he took over the slaughter from Dilshan after the latter departed immediately after scoring his half century. Till then he was looking like a gentleman hiding the devil in him behind and once his companion parted the half century partnership, the Protean kept aside the policy of taking singles and propelled the ball 11 times beyond the fence out of which 6 times it did not touch the ground before ensuring the maximum runs. His 105* but could not help Daredevils touch 200 mark as Balaji claimed some good bowling and 3 wickets.

Hayden and Patel had some home work done before they started the chase as the duo could make a ‘super’ start with the partnership finding the fastest fifty runs of IPL Season 2, off just 27 balls. In fact Super Kings were better placed than the opponents with the score on 56/0 after the first quarter of their innings comparing to the 46/2 of Daredevils by that time. Patel departed with score on 57 but Hayden was in massive form and 7th over was the worst hit for Daredevils as 25 runs were conceded off it. But Sangwan at last got the fish with Hayden hitting him to find Nannes receiving the ball at mid-on. With 57 runs off 27 balls he surely swayed the game towards the Kings’ side.

The fall of Hayden not only allowed Daredevils to stump over the opponents but it also made Kings feel that the match was not theirs or else they could have easily chased down the target with the run rate surging way ahead of the required one. Even singles and odd boundaries would have done the trick for them but after the fall of a giant king like Hayden it is obvious to see this sort of twist in the match. Last two overs found them needing 24 runs with 5 wickets in hand. But Badrinath could not take on the pressure and he was trapped by Vettori and though Gony could keep the mercury levels high with a six off Vettori, his fight concluded on the last ball of the over with a run out.

15 runs needed off the last over by Nannes but the bowler beautifully handled the situation though Joginder could scalp 4 runs off first two balls. Then he too ran to get out and on the very next ball Balaji too did commit the same mistake of running for an impossible run and lastly with Morkel managing only a single on the penultimate delivery, Muralitharan had one ball with a requirement of 10 runs. He could not make any miracle as obvious and it remained a dot ball to register a 9 run win for the Daredevils.

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

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