KKR and Delhi swap places

This was yet another loss for Delhi Daredevils on home turf and one has to go through the entire results page to see where the number stands as far as the Delhi Daredevils' loss at home is considered. The present is that the Kolkata Knight Riders won the match by 17 runs against the Delhi Daredivels. Just few days before, the Chennai Super Kings took all applause for defending a mere total of 142 against the Pune Warriors when the latter were restricted to just 117 at less than run a ball. This time as well, the total of 148 was not a tough task for Delhi to chase.

Looking at the scorecard, despite being on the winning side, the Kolkta Knight Riders' innings was a one man show dominated by just Manoj Tiwary who scored an unbeaten 61 runs from 47 balls. That effort of his was more than enough for because the Kolkata Knight Riders eventually won the game as stated and Manoj Tiwary was awarded the man of the match. There was neither a supporting innings nor any quickfire from any of the batsmen from the Kolkata Knight Riders' side with the second best being 22 from the blades of Shreevats Goswamy in the beginning of the innings.

Looking at the scorecard once again suggests the lack of experimenting from the Delhi Daredevils side to be responsible for their debacle when they could not chase down 149 runs against the Kolkata Knight Riders. The Delhi Daredevils captain-Virender Sehwag bought in just 4 bowlers to bowl the Kolkata Knight Riders. Despite of this, the Delhi Daredevils should be glad that the total didn't shoot past 180. Sehwag could have bought in Yogesh Nagar, Naman Ojha and himself to bowl as a part of experimenting with his bowlers. Notable scores from Kolkata include only Goswami's 22 as mentioned. But, what if that is enough to win the game?

The Kolkata Knight Riders couldn't get the Delhi Batsmen all out with one wicket still left. The approach of the Delhi Daredevils was far from satisfactory with none of the batsmen making it count for the Delhi team. I doubt whether Virender Sehwag's score of 34 which topped the charts should be considered as a captain's innings which not only was the top score of that innings but was also the only score from the Delhi team that went above 30. The Kolkata Knight Riders unlike their opponents bought in 6 bowlers to bowl the Delhi batsmen which worked in restricting them below 148.

Any total is chasable in T20

Well it would not be a surprise for any team to have pulled off a stunning win against any team in T20 games. Mumbai Indians might have been the team that was on the top in the third edition of the Indian Premier League that was concluded some 5 months back. But, how can it consider itself comfortable with just 180 on board with 200+ totals being successfully chased down repeatedly. There should not be anything peculiar in any team that is found chasing 180 on board. Despite all odds, on fact to be noticed is that the Mumbai Indians' team didn't have even a single score above 50.

Well, that is not an area of concern for either of the teams out there. At the end of the day it is who wins and who loses and South Australia have made the better of the day by beating the Mumbai Indians by 5 wickets rather deserving. Unlike the Mumbai Indians' inings, the South Australian team had their openers post individual scores in excess of 50 with Michael Klinger and Daniel Harris scoring 50 and 56 respectively. By the end, Daniel Harris was awarded the man of the match for scoring just 6 runs above his opening partner which can seem to be a race for that as well.

There were no other contenders for the man of the match award with no bowler managing to take more than 2 wickets. Ali Murtaza and Lasith Malinga happened to top the bowling charts with two scalps against their names each with Aaron O'Brien doing the same for the South Australians. But these performances were not able to fetch either of the three the man of the match award with little coming from the willow and obviously the preference going to them. Despite a run rate of 9 an over, there were hardly any individual batting performances from both the teams.