Centurion Warner vanquishes Knights

Delhi: Magic was in the air, as was the ball, with the ever threatening David Warner lighting up the Kotla skyline with some massive shots to score IPL 2010’s second century and help Delhi Daredevils defeat Kolkata Knight Riders by 40 runs.

When the game began it was the visiting Knight Riders who had the dream start. The Kolkata outfit saw off three Daredevils in the first three overs. Sourav Ganguly repeated a trick most captains seem to be employing in IPL: he opened his attack with spin. Chris Gayle’s off-spin completely stumped Sehwag. Interestingly, the wickets of the dangerous Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir and Dinesh Karthik fell on the last ball of the three overs.

But from then on it was a solo performance by Warner. The track was dry and slow and offering help to the spinner, but Warner seemed to be playing in a different realm tonight.

No KKR bowler was spared, with Warner being especially hard on Charl Langeveldt. The Aussie hit Langerveldt for 29 runs off 13 balls, which included two straight sixes. The southpaw played in his characteristic style, not making any exceptions either for the bowler or the difficult situation Delhi were in. He just stood still at the crease, cleared his front foot and swung hard.

At the other end, Paul Collingwood was playing the supporting role to perfection. The tenacious Collingwood scored a half-century (53) in his first match for Delhi this season. The duo were involved in a 128-run partnership that eventually took another piece of magic to break. David Hussey took probably the best catch of the tournament to dismiss Collingwood. Hussey was on the long-on boundary and caught Collingwood, threw the ball up in the air when he saw he was going over the rope and then jumped back to catch it again.

Warner, though, did have one scary moment when he was on 96. Murali Karthik took a return catch and Warner started walking, but the third umpire called him back after deciding that the catch wasn’t clean. He took full advantage to reach his century (107, 69b, 9x4, 5x6) and helped the Daredevils post 177.

The Knight Riders were never really in the hunt after losing Sourav Ganguly, Mandeep Singh and Manoj Tiwary in the space of ten balls with the score reading 21. And once they lost the dangerous Chris Gayle (30) they had lost all hope of chasing down the big total. The KKR innings showed it wasn’t an easy pitch to play on and Warner’s innings made all the difference.

Gambhir’s return proved lucky for Delhi Daredevils. And their second win on the trot takes them to eight points from seven games and places them among the top four in the table.