Knight Riders Back On Track
Friday, May 9th, 2008After a loosing streak of 4 matches, the much fancied Kolkata Knight Riders came back to winning ways yesterday against the Bangalore Royal Challengers. It was the same team against which KKR started their campaign. But this time the match was not one sided as the first one. Both teams desperately needed the win but problem occurred when mother nature showed its colours and started rain. The ground stuff was very good and due to their good work the game started at around 9:45 PM (1 hr 45 mins ) late.
It looked a bad decision from the Prince of Kolkata Saurav Ganguly when he chose to bat when most of the experts said it was wiser to bowl first in a reduced 16 over match. South African paceman Dale Steyn gave KKR the first blow with the wicket of Akash Chopra. Brad Hodge then fell victim to Zaheer Khan. Ganguly and Hussey steadied the ship a little before Ganguly got run out. But it was nice to see him dive to get back into the crease which he failed. Hussey perished soon and it was looking bad when a late performance from Tatenda Taibu, W Saha and Murli Kartik got them to a decent total of 129.
This was in no way a tough target by 20-20 standards. But the Riders bowled and fielded brilliantly. A fantastic piece of run out by Brad Hodge gave the Riders the extra energy. Skipper Ganguly bowled brilliantly and gave only 7 runs in 3 overs. He also took the important wicket of Rahul Dravid. It took a smart piece of thinking by Murali Kartik to get rid of Cameroon White. It looked impossibe with 35runs from 11 balls. But Boucher took on Murali Kartik. Needing 20 to win from the last over the Royal Challengers only managed to get 15 with a 4 of the last ball but it was not enough. I never saw a man happy when he goes for 15 in a over but that is what Ishant Sharma was when he finished the last over.
Saurav was declared the MOM and he got the gold plated helmet worth Rs 15 lakh from Shah Rukh Khan. I hope Knight Riders continue to win like this as they have a lot to climb in the table. I know all of you are not KKR supporters but I will like your comment. By the way Farhad from Digitalpoint told me that his team will win this match. But we won]