Last night, for the first time, I was able to relate to the heightened emotions experienced by football fanatics.There were times when I wanted to shovel Sehwag down a manhole and whack Mc Grath on his head for playing so well. I cried, I sulked and I abused.The Delhi Daredevils, well they came, they played and they conquered. My sunshine squad was left dumbfounded.
Dhoni’s side lost Hayden, Oram and Hussey to country duty and this seems to have taken its toll. Oram’s bowling was well missed but having said that they did played good cricket. It was just not enough to beat the Daredevils.
The homeside (Chennai) won the toss and elected to bat. The opening pair of Parthiv Patel and Stephen Fleming seemed a solid one to crack until Yomahesh walked in. His first over was an exciting one to watch. He duped Fleming into a catch with some brilliant pace attack only to discover it was a no-ball.To add insult to injury Fleming knocked a boundary off the free hit. One more free hit and a boundary later Yomahesh was thrilled to watch the stumps fly off into the air for a change and Fleming returned to the pavillion. Then came in a warrior in the disguise of S.Vidyut and he carried the match on his shoulders. However, wickets kept falling at regular intervals. Even Mc Grath returning hurt to the pavillion didnot benefit the Super Kings much. His niggardly bowling had done enough damage. Morkel added a few mighty boundaries at the very end of the innings and the Super Kings finished at 169 at the end of 20 overs.
Chennai R B 4’s 6’s SR
| Parthiv Patel | c Y Mahesh b V Sehwag | 21 | 20 | 3 | 0 | 105.00 |
| Stephen Fleming | b Y Mahesh | 13 | 13 | 2 | 0 | 100.00 |
| Vidyut Sivaramakrishnan | c Y Mahesh b G McGrath | 54 | 37 | 7 | 1 | 145.95 |
| Mahendra Singh Dhoni (c) (wk) | c S Malik b M Asif | 32 | 27 | 2 | 1 | 118.52 |
| Albie Morkel | c V Sehwag b R Bhatia | 28 | 16 | 3 | 2 | 175.00 |
| Suresh Raina | run out (P Sangwan) | 3 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 75.00 |
| Subramaniam Badrinath | not out | 11 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 220.00 |
| Joginder Sharma | not out | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 |
Out came the Delhiities. 6 overs later with all wickets intact and a calm and composed innings from Sehwag I was sure this match would be won by the visitors. My TV was in great danger of being hit by one of my mom’s prized sculptures from Kochin, so I switched over to Star Plus instead. As predicted, Sehwag’s team did go on to win with 8 wickets intact. None of the Chennai bowlers could weave much magic save for Gony and Murli, but that too was not enough.
This is the story of how the reigning kings were toppled . They will strike back,oh yes, they will.
Delhi R B 4’s 6’s SR
| Gautam Gambhir | b M Gony | 50 | 37 | 5 | 1 | 135.14 |
| Virender Sehwag (c) | c M Muralitharan b J Sharma | 71 | 41 | 7 | 4 | 173.17 |
| AB de Villiers | not out | 26 | 21 | 2 | 0 | 123.81 |
| Shikhar Dhawan | not out | 19 | 17 | 2 | 0 | 111.76 |
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