IPL Twenty20 Match Summary

Delhi Dare Devils Vs. Mumbai Indians
May 24, 2008 02:25 PM PST

This is a fan report on the Indian Premieur league match between Mumbai Indians led by legendary Sachin Tendulkar and Delhi Dare Devils led by dhashing bat, Viru. Sewag.

This Super Saturday match produced a magic battle in bringing together the legends and old adversaries, McGrath against Tendulkar and pitting McGrath against Sanath Jayasurya. It was dream stuff, to watch on a Saturday, indeed.

Tendulkar played two sublime strokes that had mastery written all over it. One was a mere push through extra cover region against McGrath, the ball cruising through the gap to reach the boundary. Another flicked four played with a still head and an effortless turn of his wrists to guide the ball on its way, looked so easy, when it came from the master's bat.

At the other end, Jayasurya was putting on his own show of magnificent hitting. He took apart, Delhi's new addition, Brett Greeves, the Tasmanian, who bowls at a good pace. Delhi Captain, Sewag was left scratching his head on how to set field for this man. Jayasurya hits the ball with an effortless ease. YoMahesh, the mumbai medium pace bowler was taken apart by JayaSurya with two consecutive sixes and a deliberately edged four in his first over. Mumbai reached its first fifty in 5.3 overs.

Maharoof, the tall, Srilankan in Delhi Team, bowled an outstanding spell. He once had Sachin over-balancing and Karthik, Delhi's wicket keeper couldn’t collect the ball to take the bails off. Sachin survived. Adding insult to the injury, Jayasurya belted Mahroof for a six of the next ball. This Sachin - Sanath show ended, when Tendulkar chopped the ball onto his stumps of YoMahesh's bowling. But, Sanath carried on to hit a magnificent 68 of just 42 balls. The later part of Mumbai innings received a boost from Robbin Uthappa who hit a 46 from 23 balls. He found ways to score three fours in one McGrath over. Uthappa has been sleep-walking through this tournament, so far. Mumbai ended up scoring 176 from its 20 overs, which seemed to fall short of expectations, as they started off phenomenally well, scoring 70 without loss.

The Delhi innings brought up another classic battle. The world-class run miser, the great South African, Shaun Pollock went up against the marauding Delhi opening batting pair of Gautam Gambhir and Viru. Sewag. Sewag started of the game with a blistering attack, taking 19 of Shaun Pollock's first over. It was all clean hits from Sewag and Pollock was stunned. Then Sewag departed, when Ashish Nehra, his old Delhi Team mate, made his leg stump walk. Nehra has steadily picked up steam as the tournament has progressed.

Then Delhi's Shikhar Dhawan and Manoj Tiwari got together and steadied the innings. However, when Dhawan got out, Delhi lost a second wicket in quick succession to Dwayne Smith, Mumbai's new addition from West Indies. The Delhi middle order has done precious little so far in the tournament. Tiwary made a 36 out of 29 balls building a steady partnership with Karthik, before he needlessly ran himself out.

Karthik then started taking control of the game, playing a gem of an innings to take Delhi to victory. The feature of Karthik's innings was, it was sublime and effortless batting. He was in a zone,as one commentator called it. Delhi needed 8 runs from 6 balls in the last over. Tendulkar threw the ball into the hands of Nehra, who has bowled miserly so far in the game. The big hitting Srilankan Maharoof and Karthik were at the crease for the Delhi Devils. The contest was over in the last but one ball, but not before, Nehra displayed his death bolwing skills. However, Maharoof was upto the challenge. This match is another IPLT20 classic.

KEY BATTLE LINES

McGrath vs. Tendulkar McGrath vs. Sanath Jayasurya

This time, the two legendary batsmen managed to negotiate McGrath. If these teams meet again in the semis, don't expect McGrath to give them even an inch.