Deccan charges into Kings' bastion

Dharamsala: Rohit Sharma stormed Kings XI Punjab’s hilly bastion to power Deccan Chargers to a five-wicket victory over the hosts here tonight.

There was a danger of the rains ruining the night with a forecast predicting showers, thankfully it didn't rain. But the idyllic location did see a downpour - that of sixes from the bat of Sharma. The explosive middle-order bat seemed to have learnt from his experience against Rajasthan Royals and played intelligently to see his team through.

Sharma’s innings (68) was made up of precision timing, judicious power hitting and also running those precious singles and twos. He never seemed to be worried and despite losing partners at the other end, Sharma didn’t panic or play any rash shots.

The Maharashtra lad’s six in the 19th over that just eluded a fully stretched Piyush Chawla decided the game. And then B Sumanth completed the formalities by hitting a boundary in the last over.

The Deccan Chargers had earlier lost their skipper early again. His partner Mohnish Mishra soon joined him after a brief little cameo. This brought together T Suman and Sharma and the duo set off like an express train with each trying to outdo the other’s big hitting. Unfortunately, Suman (43) nicked a Piyush Chawla delivery for Adam Gilchrist to pouch it.

Earlier, the in-form Ryan Harris struck early getting rid of Shaun Marsh in the very first over for a golden duck. The early departure of the KXIP opener though denied cricket lovers the opportunity to see an interesting contest: Shaun facing his younger brother Mitchell’s bowling.

Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara didn’t let the early wicket affect them attacking the Chargers with aplomb. But the bowlers, who were getting appreciable bounce and swing from the helpful pitch, would feel unlucky at not having got a nick despite making the two batsmen play and miss regularly.

The Sri Lankan duo rode their luck, with Jayawardene being dropped when he was on 21 and then again in the 16th over the culprit both times being Rahul Sharma. Sangakkara (52) scored a quick-fire half-century. But he couldn’t quite kick on, getting out to an overambitious reverse sweep against leggie Rahul Sharma.

Jayawardene, on the other hand, took full advantage of his lifeline scoring freely with boundaries galore and a couple of sixes. His unbeaten 93 being the chief contribution towards the team total of 174.