Ashish Nehra wrecks Royals !

Superb bowling by Ashish Nehra, 3/13, wrecked the mighty Royals ! McGrath says that the theory that it is a batsman's game is not correct and events in the IPL are only corroborating his statement.

The old adage " Bowlers win matches" still holds good in T20 ! Look at the records, Sohail Tanvir's 6/14 spelt doom, Sreesanth removing two in the first over, Pollock removing two in the first over !

Now Ashish Nehra. It the previous match he was on a hatrick. We welcome his return to form. Royals were bowled out for 103. Pollock, Kulkarni, Raje, Bravo and Jayasuria lent solid support to the former Indian swing bowler.

Takawale, the Mumbai wicket keeper impressed with 4 good catches. One of the catches he took was stunning. He scored 27, with one six and one four. Uthappa was 34 not out and Mumbai won by seven wickets !

More consideration should be given to IPL, says Paul Marsh, the ceo of the Australian CC. Ganguly says the youngsters who impressed in IPL should prove their mettle in Tests.

Mallya is irate at the way the RCs are losing the matches. Charu Sharma has been sacked. Brijesh Patel has been chosen as the ceo of the Royal Challengers.

"I was summarily dismissed" says Charu Sharma. There was widespread criticism that RC is a good Test side, with Kallis and Jaffer, excellent Test players ! Dravid took the lead in picking the squad, which had good Test players !

When the Royal Challengers suffered a humiliating defeat in the inaugural match, before a record TV audience and before BCCI and ICC officials, there was growing discontent in the RC camp. Nasty words were used that night to describe the team's lasklustre performance and there was even talk that the team was underperforming in order to make a laughing stock of the owner. The franchise sent a strong signal and the then ceo, Charu Sharma, was the obvious target !

So corporate cricket is serious business !

Bowlers bowl Deccan to victory !

Despite Gilchrist being named Man of the Match for his 54 no, it was the Deccan bowlers who bowled them to victory.

Good bowling by R P Singh, Pragyan Ojha, Afridi, Styris and V Kumar, saw that Chennai got only 144. They were at one stage 86/6, when Dhoni got out. Dhoni fell to Ojha, the left arm spinner. Suresh Raina played well for his 32. Abie Morkel and Gony indulged in some lusty hitting and took the score to 144.

Deccan in reply lost Gibbs, who was caught and bowled Gony for 10. Gilchrist fell to Morkel, after making a solid 54.

We envisage a World Cup with 39 teams, with all teams of the Stanford, ICL and IPL !

Sreesanth removes Jaffer and White and bowls Punjab to victory

Great bowling by Sreeshant and Chawla took Punjab to victory.

RC were 1/2 from which they never really recovered. Virat Kohli scored 33 and Dravid 66. Dravid's innings was highly sophisticated. RC were all out for 124.

For Punjab, Shaun Marsh scored 39 and Pathan and Jayawardene were not out on 17 each. Punjab scored 127/4.

In the future we envisage contests between the 8 teams of the IPL and 11 teams of the ICL. Also the 20 teams in the Stanford 20/20. So we have a corpus of 39 teams and all of them can partake in an international League. So this will be the future !

Tanvir wrecks Chennai;Mumbai beat Delhi

Mumbai created a big upset, when they defeated Delhi at Mumbai.

Mumbai scored a respectable 162, thanks to Shaun Pollock who scored 33,Jayasuria 33 and Thornely 30. But Gambhir was out cheap at 3/1 and then suddenly the Dare Devils were 82/4. Sehwag scored 40, but it was not enough and Delhi were all out for 133 ! What a relief for Mumbai Indians !

Tanvir wrecked Chennai but the best IPL figure of 6/14. Two were dismissed in the fist over and Chennai were 1/2, losing P Patel and S Feming within 1 runs. Then Vidyut was also taken by Sohail. Chennai were all out for 110 and the Rajasthan Royals won by 8 wickets, Graeme Smith

Punjab and Bangalore prevail

We had 2 magnificent nerve baiting finishes yesterday. Dravid's men trouncing the Deccan Chargers by 3 runs and Punjab winning by 9 runs.

The final over was bowled by experienced bowlers and they won the game for their teams. Kumble for Bangalore and Pathan for Punjab. If not for the great bowling of these bowlers, results could have been otherwise. This gives lie to the theory that T20 is a batter's game !

Piyush Chawla hit 21 in the last over to give Punjab a decent score, 178/6. Kolkota, despite David Hussy's 71 off 46 balls and Saha's 59 off 32, could only finish nine runs behind.

Praveen Kumar took 3/23 and bowled the Royal Challengers to victory. 20 runs were need in the last over and Sanjay Bangar hit 2 sixes and almost did a Shane Warne. But Kumble's experience proved too much for the Deccan Chargers !



Team P W L T NR PTS NRR
Delhi Daredevils 5 4 1 0 0 8 1.263
Chennai Superkings 5 4 1 0 0 8 0.743
Rajasthan Royals 5 4 1 0 0 8 0.525

The leading scorer in the IPL is R Sharma with 235, followed by Gambhir, 224 and Sehwag , 204. Sangakara is fourth with 203, Hayden with 189, McCullum with 186, Dhoni 172, Gilchrist 179, Yuvraj 168 and Mike Hussy 168 !

Delhi win by 8 wickets !

Chennai Super Stars looked depleted by the absence of Hussy, Hayden and Oram.

The Delhi bowlers McGrath, Asif and Company bowled beatifully to restrict the Super Kings to 169.

A glorious century partnership by Gambhir and Sehwag saw Delhi winning by 8 wickets. Sehwag hit 2 sixes off Goni in the second over and when the century partnership was hoisted, the match was almost over.

A great day for Sehwag & Co and Dhoni tasted his first defeat

Rajastan Royals and Kings XI win !

Shane Warne does it again. He won the toss and batted. Good innings by Asnodkar 60 Yousuf Pathan 55 and R Jadeja saw the Royals reach 196. Kolkotta went down fighting and they lost by 45 runs.

Shane Warne is proving to be the best captain in IPL. Many say he is the greatest captain Australia never had.

Ganguly hit 2 sixes and 4 fours in a good 39 ball effort. But the Knight Riders were all out for 151

Punjab won in the other match. Deccan could only muster 164/8, with R Sharma scoring 76 and Laxman 48. Gibbs failed and did Gilchrist. Afridi, V Rao and Bangar all failed. Shaun Marsh, the son of Geoff Marsh, went on to score 84 no and Jayawardene gave him solid support with 45 not out.