live cricket

Royal Challengers: 124/4 (16.0 Ovs): Mark Boucher--50(40), Praveen Kumar--4(2)

Kolkata: Kolkata Knight Riders win by 6 runs in a rain-curtailed (16 overs) game against Bangalore Royal Challengers. Bangalore''s skipper could not do much to save his team and succumbed to Kolkata’s captain Ganguly’s superb delivery when the latter bowled Dravid’s leg stumps.

Chasing a total of 130 is not that a cumbersome target to be attained, but Kolkata knight riders made sure that it does get tough for the Bangalore Royal Challengers to chase even that.  The account of taking wickets started right with the opening pair. First it was Shivnaraine Chanderpaul who was caught by Murali Kartik on Ishant Sharma’s delivery in the fourth over. The next over saw the exit of Arunkumar on Umar Gul’s ball. Hodge compensated for his non-performance with the bat by running out Arunkumar off an excellent throw from deep-point.

Mark Boucher and captain Dravid was next to handle the crease. However, the skipper could not do much to save his team and succumbed to Kolkata’s captain Ganguly’s superb delivery when the latter bowled Dravid’s leg stumps.

It was not an auspicious start for the Riders when very early in the game they lost their opening pair Hodge and Akash Chopra in quick succession. Chopra who debuted today for Knight Riders wasn’t successful in giving them a solid start and was first to go on a superb delivery of Steyn. He was out lbw. Next in line, Brad Hodge who still has to show some artistry with his bat failed again when he was caught by Praveen kumar off Zaheer’s delivery scoring just a meager 10 runs.

Now, the hope of Riders rested on the shoulders of experienced captain Saurav Ganguly and able performer David Hussey. They laid a fair foundation for Riders and were looking that they would carry the day for the team. But, both of them got themselves run-out after scoring fairly good runs and almost leaving the inning in a limbo.

Another debutant Tatenda Taibu was showing some promise and did hit couple of interesting boundaries before he was out for 15 runs. For the Challengers it was Dale Steyn who gave the momentum to their pace attack and troubled the Riders frequently. He was the man who took three wickets and stopped Riders from achieving a big total.