INDIAN PREMIER LEAGUE

The second match of IPL was in Mohali between Kings XI Punjab and Chennai Super Kings. The previous match had set tone for the entire league and with some high profile players involved, this match was one that promised high amount of fireworks and i have not been disappointed. The pitch was yet again a good one to bat on with some help for the faster bowlers. M S Dhoni won the toss and there was no surprises as he elected to bat first.

With the opening pair of Hayden and Parthiv Patel one could expect some fireworks early on especially from Hayden who is well known to smash the ball in all corners of the ground. If Kings XI were to restrict Chennai to something under 170 they would have to rely heavily on their ace paceman Brett Lee who started brilliantly with just 5 runs from the first over. Opening the bowling with Lee was Sreesanth who just could not get it in the right place costing the team 15 runs of which 14 came from the bat of Patel who looked elegant and classy.

But Patel's adventure was soon brought to an end when he edged a ball from Lee to Sangakkara. But the onslaught continued with Hayden and Hussey batting brilliantly. Hopes was brought in the attack for Sreeshanth and he too recieved similar treatment going for more than 10 runs in the frist over. Irfan is brought into the attack and he strikes as Hayden plays on. The captain dhoni walks in and walks out just as soon as he came scoring just 2 before he was adjudged LBW off Hopes.

Suresh Raina and Hussey put up a dazzling display of stroke play as they destroy the spinners both going for more than 40 runs in the first 3 overs. It was raining sixes with the 2 at the crease clearing the boundary at ease and at will. But suresh Raina got himself out trying to heave Mota out of the park only to be caught in the deep by Pathan. But Hussey carried on to reach his first century in the tournament off jsut 50 balls.

Towards the end it was Hussey and Badrinath who hammered the bowling scoring a mammoth 71 runs off 4.1overs which seemed to be the deciding factor.

The reply from Kings XI could not be any better with Hopes and Goel both thrashing the bowlers. Hopes played a gem of an innings scoring 71 off 33 balls and Dhoni would be very pleased to see him back in the pavilion as he threatened to finish the game in a hurry. He played some brilliant strokes and everyone were dancing around enjoying every shot he played especially the franchisee owner Preity Zinta who was absolutely jubilant at the
start her team had made.

But with departure of Hopes at 115 defintely dented the Kings hopes of winning to some extent. But when the next batsman came there was a thunderous roar and you need not be a rocket scientist to guess who it was. Yuvraj Singh the only man i thought could get Kings to victory had now entered the center stage and he defintely threatened to da that wth some brilliant strokes hitting 2 sixes and a four enroute a modest 23 before being held out at the deep by Sharma off Amarnath. With this i thought the match was almost won for Chennai.

The match ended with the Kings XI falling 33 runs short of the target. But one has to give them a round of applause for their effort. Speaking of effort how can one forget murali attempting to catch of Hopes diving to his right. Unfortunately the ball jsut did not stick in his hand but what an effort that was.

But the man of the moment was Chennai's Hussey who played an absolutely brilliant innings of 116* off 54 balls smashing 8 fours and 9 sixes.