The Delhi Daredevils faced the Royal Challengers Bangalore in what was both the team’s penultimate game of the tournament. The Royal Challengers had to win the game to remain in contention for a berth in the semi-finals where as the Daredevils had already got in to the knockout stage.
The Daredevils won the toss and elected to bat first but were rocked very early by Praveen Kumar, who scalped two wickets in the very first over to reduce them to 1/2. More importantly, Virender Sehwag failed yet again, as he hit a delivery on the leg-stump straight to the square-leg fielder. Mithun Manhas was the next to go, caught in the slips by Jacques Kallis off the same bowler.
Gautam Gambhir has been going through a bad patch of form, and he tried to overcome that by going after the bowling. He hit three boundaries and a six, and was looking good – scoring 27 of the 37 on board – before Kallis had the better of him, having him caught by Taylor.
The post-strategic break saw the end of the in-form de Villiers, who played back to a straighter delivery and was bowled neck and crop by Reolf van der Merwe.
Anil Kumble then produced a magical Yorker to get better of the debutant, Andrew McDonald, for three, as the Daredevils slumped to 73/5 in the 12th over.
Uthappa could have had another catch, but he fumbled an easy chance off Praveen Kumar to give Daniel Vettori a life in the final over. This was after Karthik had been dismissed off a cheeky shot that saw the Daredevils restricted to 134/7 in the twenty overs.
In reply, Uthappa’s woeful tournament continued, as he was sucked into playing a shot that he shouldn’t have; gone caught behind the wickets. While this was a start that Delhi wanted in order to try and defend the total, it was a long time before they got another wicket.
Kallis, who had opened the inning with Uthappa, was joined by Rahul Dravid and the pair carried the Bangalore hopes without too much ado. Both hit the odd boundary, but then, as is expected out of them, they were more content in taking the singles and rotating the strike.
Kallis smashed Avishkar Salvi for a six over square-leg, and Dravid pulled the same bowler away to the fence to get to 27/1 in six overs. De Villiers dropped a very difficult chance as McDonald conceded 10 runs in his first over and six in his second to leave the Bangalore team at 54/1 in ten overs. A steady start, but with a need to accelerate all the same.
The acceleration came in the form of the first two overs after the strategic time-out that went for 16, and then after Dravid was snapped up by Nagar, it was Taylor hit Salvi for a six and a four.
The very next over had Nagar being smashed for two successive sixes, but Taylor departed while attempting the third one. He had, however, done his job, and only 30 runs were needed off the last four overs.
Nehra was played out for seven runs, whereas Vettori hit for 14 – including a six – to not leave much for the 19th over. The required nine runs were easily scored by the duo of Mark Boucher and Kallis as the Royal Challengers triumphed by seven wickets.
Kallis was the obvious choice for the man of the match for his unbeaten inning of 58. And with this win, the Challengers moved to 14 points from 13 games.