Daily Cricket News

Deccan Chargers End Awful Home Run In Style

A long-running Indian Premier League hoodoo was broken tonight when the Deccan Chargers won their first game at home in Hyderabad with a 33-run win over the Royal Challengers Bangalore.

At just their ninth atttempt (the tournament was shifted to South Africa in 2009 and they were not allowed to play at home last year) they overcame a slow start to beat the Challengers, who put in their second straight underwhelming performance.

Batting first, the Chargers had an enterprising unbeaten half-century from Barat Chipli to thank as they reached 175 for five and despite an impressive 71 from 51 balls by Virat Kohli, the Chargers won when the Challengers could only reach 142 for nine in reply - outclassed as pacers Dale Steyn and Manpreet Gony both took three wickets.

They made a poor start with Shikhar Dhawan (11) departing early to Zaheer Khan but their innings was moulded into a competitive score thanks to Sunny Sohal's 38 and Kumar Sangakkara's 36 in 25 balls.

JP Duminy marked his 27th birthday with a cameo of 22 in 15 balls but the real star was Chipli, whose 61 came in 35 deliveries and included five fours, three sixes and plenty of crisp hitting. Zaheer showed his experience with three for 32 but it was clear that the Chargers were the favourites at the halfway stage.

And when the Challengers made an appalling start to their run chase, slumping to 29 for four, the game was as good as over. Tillakaratne Dilshan (7), Zaheer Khan (0), AB de Villiers (0) and Mayank Agarwal (16) fell to the new-ball assault led by Steyn, Ishant Sharma and Gony and when Saurabh Tiwary played a horrible shot to be caught by Sangakkara off Amit Mishra, the Challengers were in dire straits at 56 for six.

Kohli counter-attacked with brilliance, hammering five fours and three sixes and while he and Cheteshwar Pujara (25) were batting together, admittedly slim hopes of a recovery remained alive. They were finally extinguished when Pujara drove Steyn to Daniel Christian at mid-off and Kohli was bowled by an excellent Gony slower ball.

The tail had no chance of succeeding where the top order had failed and Johannes van der Wath (0) and Ryan Ninan (3) also fell before the game petered out to is inevitable conclusion, Sangakkara picking up an IPL 2011 record five dismissals.