Gayle, rain drown Punjab by CricketArchive staff reporter

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Scorecard:	Kings XI Punjab v Kolkata Knight Riders
Player:	SC Ganguly, CH Gayle
Event:	Indian Premier League 2009

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DateLine: 21st April 2009

 

When it rains, it pours. That seems to be what Kings XI Punjab would be thinking, as one more match went down the drain for them, giving Kolkata Knight Riders their first win in the second edition of the Indian Premier League. At the same time, KKR would claim they were always ahead, which they were, thanks to Chris Gayle.

 

Chasing Punjab’s 159, KKR were 79/1 one after 9.2 overs, when the rain came down. The par they needed at that stage was 68, so KKR went home happy, winners by 11 runs.

 

KKR are a strange side. All their big guns seem to be at the beginning of the innings, in skipper Brendon McCullum, Chris Gayle, Sourav Ganguly and even Brad Hodge. So as it stands, either they win it at the top, or they don’t.

 

The way Gayle played on Tuesday, there was no concept of losing. Just as well, since skipper McCullum seems to have a lot on his plate, ever since he took over lead of the side.

 

Gayle capitalised on two dropped chances, by Karan Goel off Yusuf Abdulla and then by the normally safe Kumar Sangakkara, off Piyush Chawla. You cannot give a batsman like Gayle so many chances and still expect to win.

 

The rest was pure murder. What the left-hander hit, stayed hit. He was incredible, as Irfan Pathan found out, as did all the other bowlers. Forty four runs off just 26 balls with two fours and four sixes were just too much for Punjab to grasp.

 

McCullum did most things right, from winning the toss and fielding first, it seems like his natural game has been tempered a little with some responsibility. But one did saw streaks of his strokeplay though he would be unhappy about losing his wicket to the unrated Vikramjeet Malik.

 

Earlier, the Punjab scoring was a bit strange. Having lost Karan Goel early, they found some inspiration in Irfan Pathan, who is pretty used to this role of pinch-hitter at one-drop. He had a simple plan – hit it all as far as it would go and it worked for as long as he was on the crease.

 

Irfan and Bopara seemed to be going along merrily and some sort of inspiration was needed for KKR to get a breakthrough. That came in the shape of former captain Sourav Ganguly. Pathan decided that he would help himself to a few off his former skipper but skied one for Murali Kartik to take a very good catch indeed. Two balls later, Bopara tried a cut and incredibly Ganguly had two wickets for one run.

 

Thereafter, the Punjab batsmen seemed to decide to take it easy against Ganguly and that somehow seemed to dent their run-rate. Yuvraj seemed almost lethargic in his approach but he still scored with deceptive rapidity. His stand wit Kumar Sangakkara seemed to be taking them to a potentially huge total, till the time a communication gap between them ended the Sri Lankan’s knock and a flourishing stand.

 

Yuvraj looked very threatening throughout, capitalising on the escape offered to him when debutant Yashpal Singh’s running effort was negated the umpires. Punjab would have loved to have their skipper carry on, but he finally miscued one, and this time Yashpal’s catch was upheld.

 

The Kings were threatening to fall way short of the par score of around 160 which was being touted by the experts but former Sri Lankan captain Mahela Jayawardene decided to take over towards the end and ensured that KKR would have to chase at eight runs an over.

 

The rain that came down during the mid-innings break ensured that the spinners were not called up for any serious job, and the job was left to the medium-pacers, all of whom were more or less on the job. While McCullum would have loved a lesser target to chase, he wouldn’t really be complaining.