Once again, the Chris Gayle storm destroyed the Pune Warriors Indians bowling attack in the Indian Premier League [IPL 2012] match played at Subrata Roy Sahara Stadium, Pune 11 May 2012 – day/night (20-over match)
Earlier, stand-in skipper of Pune Warriors India [PWI] Steven Smith won the toss and elected to bowl first, but Chris Gayle soon destroyed all the hopes of PWI with quick-fire 50, and the Royal Challengers Bangalore [RCB] side was later helped by Sri Lankan all-rounder Dilshan’s half-century and Tiwary’s important 36 runs knock.
RCB made solid 173 runs in their limited 20 overs of the play.
Steven Smith led the PWI as regular skipper Sourav Ganguly was rested for the yesterday’s DLF IPL 2012 match of RCB vs PWI.
Batting second, PWI lost two wickets in the very first over of the match with just 4 runs on the board. Pune never recoved from that loss and lost wickets at regular intervals.
During presentation, Indian pacer Zaheer Khan said, “I get the feeling we are peaking at the right time, we started poorly, now we are doing well. We had a few areas to work on, we are putting in some good effort here. I am happy with the way my fitness, don’t want to jinx it by talking about it. Gayle is a special guy, he has helped us get into the top four.”
PWI Steven Smith said, “It was good fun, fought back quite well after Gayle and Dilshan were doing well. Wanted to play with a bit of freedom.”
RCB skipper Virat Kohli said, “The last two games, we have bowled well, peaking at the right time which is good. We wanted to give Saurabh Tiwary some game time, before we get to the playoffs.”
Chris Gayle was the Man-of-The-Match winner in the IPL Twenty20 match of Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Pune Warriors
Gayle said, “Yeah timing them well, don’t know whether this is the best nick I have been. (In jest), Murali has stolen my Orange Cap away, so wearing this one, I sleep the whole day after breakfast to get in shape for the game!”
Scoreboard
Royal Challengers Bangalore: C. Gayle c Pandey b Matthews 57 (31b, 3×4, 6×6), T. Dilshan (run out) 53 (44b, 6×4, 1×6), V. Kohli c Smith b Rahul 9 (12b, 1×4), S. Tiwary (not out) 36 (30b, 3×4, 1×6), de Villiers (not out) 9 (4b, 1×4); Extras (b-4, w-4, nb-1) 9; Total (three wkts. in 20 overs): 173.
Fall of wickets: 1-80 (Gayle), 2-95 (Kohli), 3-138 (Dilshan).
Pune Warriors bowling: Upadhyay 4-0-33-0, Thomas 4-0-46-0, Bhuvneshwar 4-0-40-0, Matthews 3-0-14-1, Rahul 4-0-31-1, Clarke 1-0-5-0.
Pune Warriors: M. Mishra lbw b Zaheer 4 (4b, 1×4), M. Clarke c Tiwary b Vinay 13 (10b, 2×4), M. Pandey b Zaheer 0 (2b), R.
Uthappa st. de Villiers b Muralitharan 38 (23b, 5×4, 1×6), A. Majumdar c Zaheer b Harshal 31 (26b, 4×4), A. Mathews st. de villiers b Appana 4 (10b), S. Smith (not out) 24 (25b, 1×4), Bhuvneshwar b Muralitharan 2 (4b), A. Thomas b Vinay 7 (6b, 1×4), Rahul b Vinay 0 (2b), K. Updhayay (not out) 11 (8b, 1×6); Extras (lb-3, w-1): 4; Total (nine wkts. in 20 overs) 138.
Fall of wickets: 1-4 (Mishra), 2-4 (Pandey), 3-22 (Clarke), 4-72 (Uthappa), 5-84 (Mathews), 6-102 (Majumdar), 7-108 (Bhuvneshwar ), 8-118 (Thomas), 9-122 (Rahul).
Royal Challengers bowling: Zaheer 4-0-21-2, Vinay 4-0-32-3, Harshal 4-0-36-1, Appana 4-0-30-1, Muralitharan 4-0-16-2.
Man-of-the-match: Chris Gayle.
Umpires BF Bowden (New Zealand) and SK Tarapore
TV umpire VA Kulkarni
Match referee RS Madugalle (Sri Lanka)
Reserve umpire NA Patwardhan
