IPL Season 5 - Match 42 - Pune Vs Deccan

Match 42   Pune Warriors Vs Deccan Chargers

at Barabati Stadium, Cuttack

Pune Warriors were strengthened by the arrival of Michael Clarke, though he doesn't play International T20.  They chose to replace Alfonso Thomas with Wayne Parnell and Jesse Ryder with Michael Clarke.  Pune Warriors should have dropped Samuels to accommodate Clarke instead of dropping Jesse Ryder who had done reasonably well as opener, winning them couple of matches.

Deccan chargers skipper Sangakkara got back into the team after dropping himself in the previous outing against the Mumbai Indians.  Deccan Chargers won the toss and elected to bat first. 

Pune Warriors got rid of Parthiv Patel off the first ball, Samuels being the successful bowler.  Shikhar Dhawan got out for 13 runs, bowled by Bhuvneshwar Kumar.  Sangakkara and Cameron White steadied the innings.  But fine bowling from Parnell, Nehra and Bhuvneshwar Kumar kept them struggling for runs.  Deccan Chargers reached their 100 around the 15th over.  A score of 140-150 was on the cards.  But poor bowling from Pune Warrios in the last 5 overs cost them more.  Ganguly missed a trick by not bowling Murali Kartik's last two overs, probably having Piyush Chawla's drubbing in his mind.  But Ganguly and Nehra were not spared in their last over and the Chargers' late assault enabled them post a challenging score of 186/4.  Sangakkara scored 82 off 52 balls and White scored 74 off 45 balls.  This pair took the match away from Pune.

Pune's chase was disastrous losing Manish Pandey off the first ball.  For the first time in the history of IPL both the teams lost their first wicket off the first ball of the innings.  Clarke and Ganguly played beautifully to prevent any further loss of wicket and took the score to 90.  But they missed a trick by not attacking little bit extra, taking some risk and the run rate was around 7.5 to 8 throughout.  Had they maintained a run rate over 9, things would have been easier for the batsmen who followed.  Clarke got run out for 41 off 31 balls and Ganguly got out for 45 off 40 balls, It was left to the big hitting Steven Smith and Robin Uthappa struggling to hit big sixes in this season.  Smith did his part by remaining not out on 47 off 27 balls, but Uthappa struggled to score runs at the required rate getting out for 26 off 18 balls.  Pune did the same mistake again, changing the gear a little bit late.  Pune ended at 173/5 losing the match by 13 runs.  One has to blame the Pune bowlers for having bowled very badly in the last five overs.