Bangladesh 240 for 3 (Tamim 116*, Mushfiqur 65) beat Pakistan 239 for 6 (Nasim 77*, Wahab 51*, Haris 44, Shakib 2-51) by seven wickets
Tamim Iqbal hammered his second consecutive century as Bangladesh clinched their first-ever series win over Pakistan with a commanding performance in the second ODI. Tamim and Mushfiqur Rahim - who both scored centuries in the first ODI - once again tormented Pakistan's below-par bowling attack, but the biggest factor in Bangladesh's win were their bowlers. Even though Pakistan recovered from 77 for 5 thanks to half-centuries from Saad Nasim and Wahab Riaz, a target of 240 didn't prove anywhere near testing. Bangladesh reached their target with nearly 12 overs to spare.
Tamim's first scoring shot was a blast from the past: a saunter down the pitch to Junaid Khan and a flat-batted wallop through the covers. In the sixth over, he had already cracked Rahat Ali for two fours when he got a full ball angling into his pads; deep square leg didn't have to run too far to his right to cut off Tamim's flick, but the timing was so good he didn't get anywhere near it even after putting in a desperate slide.
By the end of that over Bangladesh had already shaved 51 off their target. Tamim then took three fours off the last three balls of the ninth over, bowled by Saeed Ajmal, and did the same thing in the tenth over, bowled by Wahab Riaz, to bring up his half-century off 31 balls. The second four he hit off Wahab, a horizontal-bat swat past the bowler from halfway down the pitch, showed the kind of mood he was in.
By that point, Bangladesh's asking rate was under four an over, and Tamim eased into a less frenetic mood. Ajmal picked up his first wicket since his international return, bowling Mahmudullah in the 15th over to have Bangladesh two down, but that only brought Mushfiqur to the crease. Ajmal and Wahab kept him quiet initially, keeping him to only three runs from his first 15 balls, but he was only biding his time, waiting for a ball in his favourite slot: Ajmal delivered it, and he sank to his knees and slog-swept it for six. Two overs later, he hit Rahat for three successive fours, pulling him mercilessly when he dropped short, and he was batting on 25 off 25. Bangladesh now needed less than 100.
Pakistan's only respite came when a floodlight tower failed in the 30th over, causing a 15-minute break in play. It's unlikely they would have welcomed it, though. By that point, they must have been hoping for a quick finish and an early ice bath.
Pakistan batted first, hoping for conditions similar to the first ODI, but the ball didn't come on to the bat nearly as well, and the openers struggled against up-and-down bounce while putting on 36 in 7.1 overs. Azhar Ali, coming off a half-century in the first ODI, played and missed on a couple of occasions, but also played some sparkling shots through the off side including two fours in one Taskin Ahmed over.
Sarfraz Ahmed looked edgy right through his 11-ball stay, and played away from his body to nick Rubel Hossain's first ball of the match to first slip. The spinners took over from that point.
The odd ball gripped and turned sharply, and Shakib Al Hasan dismissed Azhar with one of these, causing him to connect poorly with a reverse-sweep and fall prey to a brilliant bit of anticipation from Mushfiqur Rahim behind the stumps. Another viciously spinning Shakib delivery, tossed up enticingly, beat Mohammad Rizwan's front-foot prod, caused him to overbalance, and led to prolonged deliberation from the third umpire over a stumping appeal. He gave it not out, but the batsmen were always aware of the threat of turn - this made the straighter one doubly dangerous, and the spinners made excellent use of it.
Arafat Sunny struck in the ninth over, skidding one through from his left-arm around angle to bowl Mohammad Hafeez as looked to force him off the back foot through the off side. In a mirror image of that dismissal, Nasir Hossain went around the wicket and slid one through Fawad Alam's attempted cut. Then Rizwan, with the near-stumping fresh in his mind, was lbw pressing forward and across to Shakib's slider. Replays showed the ball striking his front pad marginally outside the line of off stump, but Rizwan had failed to ask for a review.
The moment seemed to encapsulate a dazed and confused Pakistan, but Nasim and Haris showed they still had some smart, sensible batting left in their tank. Neither of them went out of their way to counterattack, even though Pakistan's run rate when they came together was well below four an over. They took 75 balls over the first 34 runs of their partnership, and Nasim was the slowpoke of the pair. At the start of the 34th over, he was on 17 off 51 balls and Haris on 33 off 49.
Mashrafe Mortaza brought himself back into the attack, and provided Nasim with width twice in a row. Both balls went for four. In his next over Nasim drove him crisply to the cover boundary. In between he jumped down the pitch and launched Sunny cleanly over long-off. Pakistan took 13 off Shakib in the 38th over, with Haris clouting him for a six over long-on, and the revival was firmly underway.
Wahab ensured it would continue apace, after a clever slower ball from Mashrafe ended Haris' stay in the next over. His recent innings have displayed both brawn and craft, and his first two boundaries showed both facets: a glide past short third man and a wallop through the covers, both in the same Rubel over.
Strike rotation was Pakistan's main focus from there till the 45th over, before Nasim signalled the shift of gears by crashing Taskin through extra cover. Wahab picked up four boundaries in the next three overs, including a slog-swept four and a whistling straight six off successive Shakib deliveries.
He hit another six in the final over, keeping a steady base and a still head to clout Taskin over the leg side and bring up his fifty. Wahab had failed to cross the mark in his first 37 ODI innings. Now he had made two in six.
Sunday, 19 April 2015
Saturday, 18 April 2015
IPL 2015 Matches 13 & 14
Delhi Daredevils 167 for 4 (Iyer 69, Duminy 54) beat Sunrisers Hyderabad 163 for 8 (Bopara 41, Duminy 4-17) by four runs
JP Duminy's all-round brilliance set the foundation of Delhi Daredevils' second win of the season but it still took remarkable presence of mind from Mayank Agarwal to close the doors on Sunrisers Hyderabad. The home team needed seven runs off the last two balls when Karn Sharma's slice was headed over the rope behind point, but Agarwal leapt and parried the ball back into play to deny Sunrisers four runs. That save more or less sealed the result.
That Sunrisers had managed to come so close was largely due to some late blows from Karn and Ashish Reddy, but they had already been put in an awkward position by Duminy. He had scored a 41-ball 54, one of the two key efforts that lifted Daredevils to their eventual 167, and his four key wickets were key in stalling Sunrisers.
Duminy removed both David Warner and Shikhar Dhawan in the seventh over, just after the two had taken 30 off the previous two overs. Those strikes changed the momentum. Duminy pulled it towards Daredevils even further in the 17th over when he removed both Eoin Morgan and Ravi Bopara. It was only the fifth time a player had managed a fifty and a four-wicket haul in the same game.
Batting was not easy on a tricky pitch. After their loss to Rajasthan Royals in their previous match, Sunrisers had asked the curator for a surface with more pace, but it wasn't to be. The new pitch behaved exactly the way the other one did, with ball sticking and the bounce unpredictable. Throughout the game, seamers often used their slower ones, there were plenty of edges, while Dhawan took a couple of blows around the rib cage.
Perhaps because of this unknown, Warner had said he wanted to bowl after Daredevils had opted to bat. As Agarwal edged to slip a rising delivery from Praveen Kumar, that decision seemed justified but Shreyas Iyer, after initial discomfort, showed that if a batsman was prepared to stick on, there were runs to be had.
Iyer punched Dale Steyn, who was playing his first game of the season, for a boundary through cover in the bowler's second over but was also lucky a couple of times as the edges evaded the fielders. Twenty-eight runs came in the first five overs but as Duminy held one end, Iyer went on the offensive, taking 12 runs off the sixth over, bowled by Praveen.
Iyer reserved special treatment for Karn's legspin, hitting the bowler for three sixes in the eight balls he faced off him, the last of which brought up his maiden IPL half-century, in 32 balls. That intensity manifested in the scores, as 52 runs came in the second five-over block.
Iyer was dismissed soon after as he was fooled by a slower delivery, but Duminy, who had been patiently watching from the other end took the mantle of scoring, hitting two fours and a six off Bopara, then hoisting Steyn over long-on to reach his half-century off 39 balls.
Such brilliance doesn't ensure a win at times. Ask Yuvraj Singh, who has done that all-round double twice before, but his side lost the match in both instances. Today, however, Duminy had two critical supporting acts - Iyer with the bat and Agarwal, in that last over, down at the boundary.
Kolkata Knight Riders 159 for 6 (Russell 66, Pathan 28*, Sandeep 4-25) beat Kings XI Punjab 155 for 9 (Bailey 60, Maxwell 33, Umesh 3-33, Narine 1-17)
Kings XI Punjab pacer Sandeep Sharma's controlled, incisive spell with the new ball had threatened to make a chase of 156 insurmountable for Kolkata Knight Riders, before Andre Russell's blunt-force innings took the defending champions to their second win of IPL 2015 after three games. Kings XI, meanwhile, have three losses from four games.
The victory margin of four wickets with a little more than two overs to spare may suggest a stroll, but that was hardly how things proceeded in the first half of Knight Riders' chase, when Sandeep had reduced them to 60 for 5.
He pinned Robin Uthappa lbw for 13 in the third over. In his next over, Manish Pandey chipped a catch straight to midwicket. Thisara Perera got the wicket of Suryakumar Yadav in the seventh over, and Sandeep returned with a double-wicket maiden that accounted for Gautam Gambhir and Ryan ten Doeschate. Within six balls, Knight Riders had slipped from 60 for 2 to 60 for 5. He got movement into and away from the batsmen and stuck resolutely to lengths.
There was a pattern to Knight Riders' innings - the impressive cast of big-hitters would take guard, smash a couple of boundaries and then walk back. While the wickets left them in a bind, the boundaries meant that Russell and Yusuf Pathan never faced an overtly steep asking rate.
Russell settled in with a couple of swipes, but Knight Riders' final tilt at the target was set in motion in the 13th over, when Russell took 19 runs off Axar Patel, hacking two fours and a six off the first three balls. His brutal fluency at the crease allowed Yusuf Pathan the luxury of a slow start before he, too, managed to find boundaries. Their 95-run partnership, which lasted almost 10 overs, was broken only when the scores were tied.
Kings XI were stifled right from the start of their innings, after being put in. The top order of M Vijay, Virender Sehwag and Wriddhiman Saha struggled but the brisk stand between George Bailey and Glenn Maxwell provided some hope of a challenging total. The pair added 63 for the fourth wicket, with Maxwell looking promising after getting a reprieve on 13, but their chances of a massive total petered out quickly once he was dismissed.
The second half of Kings XI's innings sputtered along largely on Bailey's efforts even as wickets fell rapidly at the other end.
The Kings XI captain - by far their best batsman this season - stitched together a calm 60 off 45 before his dismissal in the last over of the innings. In a steady bowling performance, Sunil Narine had returns of 4-0-17-1, his first wicket in the IPL with a remodeled action.
JP Duminy's all-round brilliance set the foundation of Delhi Daredevils' second win of the season but it still took remarkable presence of mind from Mayank Agarwal to close the doors on Sunrisers Hyderabad. The home team needed seven runs off the last two balls when Karn Sharma's slice was headed over the rope behind point, but Agarwal leapt and parried the ball back into play to deny Sunrisers four runs. That save more or less sealed the result.
That Sunrisers had managed to come so close was largely due to some late blows from Karn and Ashish Reddy, but they had already been put in an awkward position by Duminy. He had scored a 41-ball 54, one of the two key efforts that lifted Daredevils to their eventual 167, and his four key wickets were key in stalling Sunrisers.
Duminy removed both David Warner and Shikhar Dhawan in the seventh over, just after the two had taken 30 off the previous two overs. Those strikes changed the momentum. Duminy pulled it towards Daredevils even further in the 17th over when he removed both Eoin Morgan and Ravi Bopara. It was only the fifth time a player had managed a fifty and a four-wicket haul in the same game.
Batting was not easy on a tricky pitch. After their loss to Rajasthan Royals in their previous match, Sunrisers had asked the curator for a surface with more pace, but it wasn't to be. The new pitch behaved exactly the way the other one did, with ball sticking and the bounce unpredictable. Throughout the game, seamers often used their slower ones, there were plenty of edges, while Dhawan took a couple of blows around the rib cage.
Perhaps because of this unknown, Warner had said he wanted to bowl after Daredevils had opted to bat. As Agarwal edged to slip a rising delivery from Praveen Kumar, that decision seemed justified but Shreyas Iyer, after initial discomfort, showed that if a batsman was prepared to stick on, there were runs to be had.
Iyer punched Dale Steyn, who was playing his first game of the season, for a boundary through cover in the bowler's second over but was also lucky a couple of times as the edges evaded the fielders. Twenty-eight runs came in the first five overs but as Duminy held one end, Iyer went on the offensive, taking 12 runs off the sixth over, bowled by Praveen.
Iyer reserved special treatment for Karn's legspin, hitting the bowler for three sixes in the eight balls he faced off him, the last of which brought up his maiden IPL half-century, in 32 balls. That intensity manifested in the scores, as 52 runs came in the second five-over block.
Iyer was dismissed soon after as he was fooled by a slower delivery, but Duminy, who had been patiently watching from the other end took the mantle of scoring, hitting two fours and a six off Bopara, then hoisting Steyn over long-on to reach his half-century off 39 balls.
Such brilliance doesn't ensure a win at times. Ask Yuvraj Singh, who has done that all-round double twice before, but his side lost the match in both instances. Today, however, Duminy had two critical supporting acts - Iyer with the bat and Agarwal, in that last over, down at the boundary.
Kolkata Knight Riders 159 for 6 (Russell 66, Pathan 28*, Sandeep 4-25) beat Kings XI Punjab 155 for 9 (Bailey 60, Maxwell 33, Umesh 3-33, Narine 1-17)
Kings XI Punjab pacer Sandeep Sharma's controlled, incisive spell with the new ball had threatened to make a chase of 156 insurmountable for Kolkata Knight Riders, before Andre Russell's blunt-force innings took the defending champions to their second win of IPL 2015 after three games. Kings XI, meanwhile, have three losses from four games.
The victory margin of four wickets with a little more than two overs to spare may suggest a stroll, but that was hardly how things proceeded in the first half of Knight Riders' chase, when Sandeep had reduced them to 60 for 5.
He pinned Robin Uthappa lbw for 13 in the third over. In his next over, Manish Pandey chipped a catch straight to midwicket. Thisara Perera got the wicket of Suryakumar Yadav in the seventh over, and Sandeep returned with a double-wicket maiden that accounted for Gautam Gambhir and Ryan ten Doeschate. Within six balls, Knight Riders had slipped from 60 for 2 to 60 for 5. He got movement into and away from the batsmen and stuck resolutely to lengths.
There was a pattern to Knight Riders' innings - the impressive cast of big-hitters would take guard, smash a couple of boundaries and then walk back. While the wickets left them in a bind, the boundaries meant that Russell and Yusuf Pathan never faced an overtly steep asking rate.
Russell settled in with a couple of swipes, but Knight Riders' final tilt at the target was set in motion in the 13th over, when Russell took 19 runs off Axar Patel, hacking two fours and a six off the first three balls. His brutal fluency at the crease allowed Yusuf Pathan the luxury of a slow start before he, too, managed to find boundaries. Their 95-run partnership, which lasted almost 10 overs, was broken only when the scores were tied.
Kings XI were stifled right from the start of their innings, after being put in. The top order of M Vijay, Virender Sehwag and Wriddhiman Saha struggled but the brisk stand between George Bailey and Glenn Maxwell provided some hope of a challenging total. The pair added 63 for the fourth wicket, with Maxwell looking promising after getting a reprieve on 13, but their chances of a massive total petered out quickly once he was dismissed.
The second half of Kings XI's innings sputtered along largely on Bailey's efforts even as wickets fell rapidly at the other end.
The Kings XI captain - by far their best batsman this season - stitched together a calm 60 off 45 before his dismissal in the last over of the innings. In a steady bowling performance, Sunil Narine had returns of 4-0-17-1, his first wicket in the IPL with a remodeled action.
Friday, 17 April 2015
1st Test Day 5 WI 295 & 350/7 drew with ENG 399 & 333/7d
West Indies
held on to draw the first Test on the day James Anderson became England's
leading wicket-taker in Test history.
James Tredwell, who took 4-47 in the first
innings, claimed the first wicket on the final day
Denesh Ramdin made an unbeaten 107 in his
previous Test against England, at Edgbaston in 2012
Jason Holder's previous highest
first-class score was the 52 he made on Test debut
James Anderson becomes England's highest
Test wicket-taker by removing Denesh Ramdin
1st ODI Bangladesh v Pakistan
Bangladesh 329 for 6 (Tamim 132, Mushfiqur 106, Wahab 4-59) beat Pakistan 250 (Azhar 72, Rizwan 67, Haris 51, Taskin 3-42, Sunny 3-47) by 79 runs
A partnership of 178 between Tamim Iqbal and Mushfiqur Rahim set up a total of 329, Bangladesh's highest in ODIs, and a 79-run win that backed up their claims of entering the series as favourites. A new-look Pakistan line-up, including two debutants and a captain-opener playing his first ODI in more than two years, made a good fist of the chase, but the pressure of a steadily mounting asking rate proved too much to handle. The win was Bangladesh's second against Pakistan, and their first since the 1999 World Cup.
Half-centuries from three of their batsmen, including the captain and one of the debutants, gave Pakistan reason to cheer, nonetheless. Strike rotation has been a major issue with their top-order batsmen in recent times, and Azhar Ali's innings promised change on that front. He played out a maiden against Rubel Hossain to start, but was busy thereafter, only seeing out 22 dots out of the remaining 67 balls faced. When the seamers bowled short, he was a picture of authority, standing tall to pull, cut or punch through the covers.
Azhar put on 52 with Sarfraz Ahmed for the first wicket and 89 with Haris Sohail for the third before he nicked Taskin Ahmed behind, trying to steer the ball to third man. At that point Pakistan needed 182 in 22.3 overs, with seven wickets in hand. They had brought it down to a typical Twenty20 chase on a good pitch, with the additional advantages of a batting Powerplay and ODI field restrictions, but they still needed a big effort to win it.
Rizwan got off the mark in ODIs with three successive fours off Abul Hasan - a back-foot punch through extra cover, a fierce cut to the right of third man, and a flick past midwicket - and kept the score moving briskly along, but wickets kept falling at the other end. Taskin struck again to remove Haris for 51, bending his back to extract pace and bounce and force the left-hander to miscue a pull to mid-on.
Pakistan needed 114 from 66 balls when Arafat Sunny struck the fatal blows. Fawad Alam, one of the stars of a similarly tall chase at this same ground last year, scooped a full-toss straight to mid-off. Saad Nasim, the other debutant, was bowled by an arm-ball while making room to cut. With the asking rate now close to 12 an over, there was only going to be one result.
Tamim's 135-ball 132 was his fifth ODI hundred and his first since March 2013. Mushfiqur cantered to 106 off 77, and it was his arrival at the crease that catalysed a shift of momentum that saw Bangladesh score 262 runs in their last 30 overs, after a sluggish start had left them 67 for 2 at the 20-over mark. Their stand was Bangladesh's highest for any wicket in ODIs, against any opposition.
Though they didn't take any wickets early on, Pakistan's trio of left-arm seamers had kept Tamim and Soumya Sarkar quiet with their tight off-stump line. Tamim carved them away through the off side on the rare occasions when they gave him width, but Sarkar was edgy throughout his 36-ball stay.
Wahab Riaz broke the stand in the 14th over, moving quickly in his follow-through to beat Sarkar in a foot race and run him out at the batsman's end. Bangladesh were still two short of 50 at that point.
When Mahmudullah was bowled trying to manufacture room against Junaid Khan in the 20th over, their run rate was still below four an over. But with Shahid Afridi in retirement and Mohammad Hafeez still awaiting the results of tests on his action, they knew they could find a hole to exploit in Pakistan's attack - their lack of bowling depth.
From the 24th over to the 29th, Haris, Nasim and Azhar gave away 52 runs in 24 balls with their part-time spin. Pakistan could have lived with that had they taken their chances, but they didn't. Nasim dropped a caught-and-bowled off Tamim when he was on 47, and Junaid put down a sitter at mid-on to reprieve Mushfiqur, who miscued a big hit off Azhar's legspin when he was on 35.
The regular bowlers came back into the attack from the 30th over on, but the momentum was now firmly with Tamim and Mushfiqur. They picked up a four in every over from the 31st to the 34th, and Tamim had raced to 93 when Saeed Ajmal came on to bowl his second spell.
Returning to the side after a lengthy suspension spent correcting an illegal action, Ajmal had conceded only 11 runs in his first five overs. Bowling quicker than before with a noticeably round-arm delivery, he had maintained a constricting line while not deriving too much turn. Now he was bowling to two set batsmen. Mushfiqur greeted him with a slog-sweep to the wide long-on boundary. When Tamim got on strike, he sat on the back foot and steered Ajmal away wide of short third man. Two balls later, Ajmal speared one down the leg side, and Tamim merely had to deflect it wide of short fine leg to bring up his first ODI century since March 2013.
Every Pakistan bowler took punishment, but the seamers managed to finish with economy rates below six an over, largely because of their frugal first spells. Ajmal had no such luck. His seventh over went for 18, with Tamim hitting two fours and a big six over long-on. There was no respite even after Tamim's dismissal, as Mushfiqur slog-swept him for two sixes in his ninth over and late-cut him for successive fours in his tenth, bringing up his century in the process.
In all, Ajmal's last five overs disappeared for 63, and his figures of 10-0-74-0 were his worst in ODIs. He may have known his return to international cricket would not be easy, but he probably had not imagined it would go this badly.
A partnership of 178 between Tamim Iqbal and Mushfiqur Rahim set up a total of 329, Bangladesh's highest in ODIs, and a 79-run win that backed up their claims of entering the series as favourites. A new-look Pakistan line-up, including two debutants and a captain-opener playing his first ODI in more than two years, made a good fist of the chase, but the pressure of a steadily mounting asking rate proved too much to handle. The win was Bangladesh's second against Pakistan, and their first since the 1999 World Cup.
Half-centuries from three of their batsmen, including the captain and one of the debutants, gave Pakistan reason to cheer, nonetheless. Strike rotation has been a major issue with their top-order batsmen in recent times, and Azhar Ali's innings promised change on that front. He played out a maiden against Rubel Hossain to start, but was busy thereafter, only seeing out 22 dots out of the remaining 67 balls faced. When the seamers bowled short, he was a picture of authority, standing tall to pull, cut or punch through the covers.
Azhar put on 52 with Sarfraz Ahmed for the first wicket and 89 with Haris Sohail for the third before he nicked Taskin Ahmed behind, trying to steer the ball to third man. At that point Pakistan needed 182 in 22.3 overs, with seven wickets in hand. They had brought it down to a typical Twenty20 chase on a good pitch, with the additional advantages of a batting Powerplay and ODI field restrictions, but they still needed a big effort to win it.
Rizwan got off the mark in ODIs with three successive fours off Abul Hasan - a back-foot punch through extra cover, a fierce cut to the right of third man, and a flick past midwicket - and kept the score moving briskly along, but wickets kept falling at the other end. Taskin struck again to remove Haris for 51, bending his back to extract pace and bounce and force the left-hander to miscue a pull to mid-on.
Pakistan needed 114 from 66 balls when Arafat Sunny struck the fatal blows. Fawad Alam, one of the stars of a similarly tall chase at this same ground last year, scooped a full-toss straight to mid-off. Saad Nasim, the other debutant, was bowled by an arm-ball while making room to cut. With the asking rate now close to 12 an over, there was only going to be one result.
Tamim's 135-ball 132 was his fifth ODI hundred and his first since March 2013. Mushfiqur cantered to 106 off 77, and it was his arrival at the crease that catalysed a shift of momentum that saw Bangladesh score 262 runs in their last 30 overs, after a sluggish start had left them 67 for 2 at the 20-over mark. Their stand was Bangladesh's highest for any wicket in ODIs, against any opposition.
Though they didn't take any wickets early on, Pakistan's trio of left-arm seamers had kept Tamim and Soumya Sarkar quiet with their tight off-stump line. Tamim carved them away through the off side on the rare occasions when they gave him width, but Sarkar was edgy throughout his 36-ball stay.
Wahab Riaz broke the stand in the 14th over, moving quickly in his follow-through to beat Sarkar in a foot race and run him out at the batsman's end. Bangladesh were still two short of 50 at that point.
When Mahmudullah was bowled trying to manufacture room against Junaid Khan in the 20th over, their run rate was still below four an over. But with Shahid Afridi in retirement and Mohammad Hafeez still awaiting the results of tests on his action, they knew they could find a hole to exploit in Pakistan's attack - their lack of bowling depth.
From the 24th over to the 29th, Haris, Nasim and Azhar gave away 52 runs in 24 balls with their part-time spin. Pakistan could have lived with that had they taken their chances, but they didn't. Nasim dropped a caught-and-bowled off Tamim when he was on 47, and Junaid put down a sitter at mid-on to reprieve Mushfiqur, who miscued a big hit off Azhar's legspin when he was on 35.
The regular bowlers came back into the attack from the 30th over on, but the momentum was now firmly with Tamim and Mushfiqur. They picked up a four in every over from the 31st to the 34th, and Tamim had raced to 93 when Saeed Ajmal came on to bowl his second spell.
Returning to the side after a lengthy suspension spent correcting an illegal action, Ajmal had conceded only 11 runs in his first five overs. Bowling quicker than before with a noticeably round-arm delivery, he had maintained a constricting line while not deriving too much turn. Now he was bowling to two set batsmen. Mushfiqur greeted him with a slog-sweep to the wide long-on boundary. When Tamim got on strike, he sat on the back foot and steered Ajmal away wide of short third man. Two balls later, Ajmal speared one down the leg side, and Tamim merely had to deflect it wide of short fine leg to bring up his first ODI century since March 2013.
Every Pakistan bowler took punishment, but the seamers managed to finish with economy rates below six an over, largely because of their frugal first spells. Ajmal had no such luck. His seventh over went for 18, with Tamim hitting two fours and a big six over long-on. There was no respite even after Tamim's dismissal, as Mushfiqur slog-swept him for two sixes in his ninth over and late-cut him for successive fours in his tenth, bringing up his century in the process.
In all, Ajmal's last five overs disappeared for 63, and his figures of 10-0-74-0 were his worst in ODIs. He may have known his return to international cricket would not be easy, but he probably had not imagined it would go this badly.
IPL 2015 Match 12 MI V CSK
Chennai Super Kings 189 for 4 (Smith 62, McCullum 46) beat Mumbai Indians 183 for 7 (Pollard 64, Rohit 50, Nehra 3-23) by 6 wickets
Kieron Pollard and Rohit Sharma did their best to help Mumbai Indians set a challenging target for Chennai Super Kings, but a whirlwind opening partnership between Dwayne Smith and Brendon McCullum made a mockery of a 184-run chase. The six-wicket win at the Wankhede Stadium was Super Kings' third in as many games, even as their opponents suffered their fourth consecutive loss of the season.
That Mumbai posted a total as challenging as 183 was down to the knocks from Rohit and Pollard, who lifted the side after yet another top-order collapse. This time, it was Ashish Nehra's accurate bowling that left Mumbai reeling at 62 for 4 at the halfway stage.
Their partnership of 75 came off only 33 deliveries and played a large part in helping the home team add 121 runs in the last 10 overs.
That partnership paled in comparison to the onslaught by McCullum and Smith. By the time the the batsmen holed out in the deep to Harbhajan Singh in the eighth over, Super Kings had raced to 115 and the target was almost down to less than a run a ball for the remaining 12 overs.
The pair were at their harshest between the fourth and sixth overs. They combined to hammer ten fours and two sixes as the three overs fetched 61 runs. The bowler at the other end didn't matter - Lasith Malinda, J Suchith and Harbhajan Singh were each hit for four boundaries in their overs. The assault helped Super Kings raise the second-highest Powerplay tally in the IPL overall.
The highlight of McCullum's 20-ball 46 was the glide over the keeper off Pawan Suyal in the seventh over. McCullum was almost facing Parthiv Patel when he helped the ball over the fine-leg fence, bringing up the hundred for Super Kings.
Both batsmen fell within five balls but the stage was set for Super Kings to bring their batting depth into play and improve on their net run rate. Suresh Raina achieved the objective with a trademark cameo, helping Super Kings overhaul the target with 20 balls to spare.
Just like their batsmen set up the chase in the Powerplay overs, the Super Kings bowlers set up the game in Mumbai's Powerplay. The hosts had a new opening pair in Parthiv Patel and Lendl Simmons, who replaced the injured Aaron Finch, but Parthiv was trapped in front of the wickets for a golden duck by Ashish Nehra off the fourth ball of the innings.
In Nehra's next over, Faf du Plessis pulled off a stunning catch to see the back of the dangerous Corey Anderson. When Simmons gave du Plessis catching practice off Ishwar Pandey, Mumbai had been reduced to 12 for 3.
If Mumbai's decision to make Rohit bat at No. 4 was not surprising enough, Harbhajan was sent in at No 5, ahead of Kieron Pollard and Ambati Rayudu. Harbhajan stemmed the fall of wickets with a 45-run partnership, before Rohit and Pollard set the up the innings. Between the 10th and 15th overs of the innings, Mumbai raced from 62 for 4 to 132 for 5, with Pollard and Rohit taking 26 runs off one Ravindra Jadeja over.
In the end, a score of 183 proved to be far from enough for the home team.
Kieron Pollard and Rohit Sharma did their best to help Mumbai Indians set a challenging target for Chennai Super Kings, but a whirlwind opening partnership between Dwayne Smith and Brendon McCullum made a mockery of a 184-run chase. The six-wicket win at the Wankhede Stadium was Super Kings' third in as many games, even as their opponents suffered their fourth consecutive loss of the season.
That Mumbai posted a total as challenging as 183 was down to the knocks from Rohit and Pollard, who lifted the side after yet another top-order collapse. This time, it was Ashish Nehra's accurate bowling that left Mumbai reeling at 62 for 4 at the halfway stage.
Their partnership of 75 came off only 33 deliveries and played a large part in helping the home team add 121 runs in the last 10 overs.
That partnership paled in comparison to the onslaught by McCullum and Smith. By the time the the batsmen holed out in the deep to Harbhajan Singh in the eighth over, Super Kings had raced to 115 and the target was almost down to less than a run a ball for the remaining 12 overs.
The pair were at their harshest between the fourth and sixth overs. They combined to hammer ten fours and two sixes as the three overs fetched 61 runs. The bowler at the other end didn't matter - Lasith Malinda, J Suchith and Harbhajan Singh were each hit for four boundaries in their overs. The assault helped Super Kings raise the second-highest Powerplay tally in the IPL overall.
The highlight of McCullum's 20-ball 46 was the glide over the keeper off Pawan Suyal in the seventh over. McCullum was almost facing Parthiv Patel when he helped the ball over the fine-leg fence, bringing up the hundred for Super Kings.
Both batsmen fell within five balls but the stage was set for Super Kings to bring their batting depth into play and improve on their net run rate. Suresh Raina achieved the objective with a trademark cameo, helping Super Kings overhaul the target with 20 balls to spare.
Just like their batsmen set up the chase in the Powerplay overs, the Super Kings bowlers set up the game in Mumbai's Powerplay. The hosts had a new opening pair in Parthiv Patel and Lendl Simmons, who replaced the injured Aaron Finch, but Parthiv was trapped in front of the wickets for a golden duck by Ashish Nehra off the fourth ball of the innings.
In Nehra's next over, Faf du Plessis pulled off a stunning catch to see the back of the dangerous Corey Anderson. When Simmons gave du Plessis catching practice off Ishwar Pandey, Mumbai had been reduced to 12 for 3.
If Mumbai's decision to make Rohit bat at No. 4 was not surprising enough, Harbhajan was sent in at No 5, ahead of Kieron Pollard and Ambati Rayudu. Harbhajan stemmed the fall of wickets with a 45-run partnership, before Rohit and Pollard set the up the innings. Between the 10th and 15th overs of the innings, Mumbai raced from 62 for 4 to 132 for 5, with Pollard and Rohit taking 26 runs off one Ravindra Jadeja over.
In the end, a score of 183 proved to be far from enough for the home team.
IPL 2015 Match 11 RR V SRH
Rajasthan Royals 131 for 4 (Rahane 62, Bopara 2-18) beat Sunrisers Hyderabad 127 for 5 (Kulkarni 2-9, Tambe 2-21) by six wickets
Late drama turned a one-sided canter into a last-ball finish, but Rajasthan Royals, the team that had dominated 95% of the contest, won in the end and preserved their perfect record for the season.
Two Mumbai bowlers set it up for Royals: Dhawal Kulkarni struck twice with the new ball to peg Sunrisers back early, and Pravin Tambe removed both Naman Ojha and Eoin Morgan after they had staged a recovery of sorts with a 52-run fourth-wicket partnership. The Sunrisers innings didn't take off at all after that, and a target of 128 should never have tested Royals' batting line-up.
But somehow, it did. For 18 overs, Royals made serene progress. And then, with 12 to get from 12 balls, the nerves set in. The half-centurion Ajinkya Rahane was bowled slogging at Trent Boult when Royals needed 10 off 9. The first four balls of Praveen Kumar's final over produced two inch-perfect yorkers, a near run-out, and a leg bye. With two to get from two balls, Stuart Binny drove Praveen to long-off to level the scores. On strike came James Faulkner, among the best finishers in the game.
The keeper came up, the field came in to save the single. Looking for another yorker, Praveen sent down a low full-toss. Faulkner, making himself room, carved it away to the cover point boundary.
Both Rahane and Sanju Samson played and missed against the new ball, and both survived close calls - Trent Boult seemed to trap Rahane plumb in front with a perfect left-armer's inswinger, only for the umpire to rule it not out, and Ashish Reddy dropped a tough chance off Samson when he miscued a pull off Praveen Kumar - but they kept chipping away at the target in a first-wicket partnership of 64. Steven Smith went early, for once, and Ravi Bopara picked up two wickets in a constricting spell of medium-paced cutters, but Rahane changed gears at just the right time for Royals.
Rahane sent a square cut off Bopara screaming away to the right of third man, and charged him in his next over to chip him wristily to the wide long-on boundary. A pulled four off Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the 18th over took him to 59, and left Royals 15 to get from 15 balls with seven wickets in hand. It should have been a stroll, but such is the nature of Twenty20 that they nearly lost it from there.
The pitch in Visakhapatnam was on the slow side, and there was plenty of grip on offer for anyone who bowled spin or medium-paced cutters. Tambe's wicket of Ojha illustrated this perfectly.
After drifting into a line just outside leg stump, a quickish legbreak spun past the outside edge and crashed into middle stump. Tambe nearly had Morgan stumped off a googly in his next over, but Samson didn't have to fret over his muffed effort behind the stumps for too long. Picking the wrong length to a reverse-sweep, Morgan was lbw next ball, a quicker, flatter googly from Tambe hitting his pad almost on the half-volley.
With two set batsmen dismissed, Sunrisers only managed a modest amount of acceleration towards the end of their innings, with Ravi Bopara and Ashish Reddy biffing 31 off the last 21 balls.
Having been put in to bat, Sunrisers had a mixed start from their openers. Shikhar Dhawan survived a nervy first over against Tim Southee's swing, and saw an outside edge fall just short of Smith at slip, and soon edged Kulkarni behind to fall for 10. David Warner, though, seemed to be carrying on from where he had left off against Royal Challengers Bangalore. He smacked three fours off Chris Morris off the first four balls he faced, and carved Southee for a big six over point.
Just when he looked like he might hurt Royals with a big innings, he was run out going for a misjudged single. Kulkarni then jagged one back to trap the crease-bound KL Rahul, and Sunrisers were 35 for 3, without too much batting depth to call upon.
Late drama turned a one-sided canter into a last-ball finish, but Rajasthan Royals, the team that had dominated 95% of the contest, won in the end and preserved their perfect record for the season.
Two Mumbai bowlers set it up for Royals: Dhawal Kulkarni struck twice with the new ball to peg Sunrisers back early, and Pravin Tambe removed both Naman Ojha and Eoin Morgan after they had staged a recovery of sorts with a 52-run fourth-wicket partnership. The Sunrisers innings didn't take off at all after that, and a target of 128 should never have tested Royals' batting line-up.
But somehow, it did. For 18 overs, Royals made serene progress. And then, with 12 to get from 12 balls, the nerves set in. The half-centurion Ajinkya Rahane was bowled slogging at Trent Boult when Royals needed 10 off 9. The first four balls of Praveen Kumar's final over produced two inch-perfect yorkers, a near run-out, and a leg bye. With two to get from two balls, Stuart Binny drove Praveen to long-off to level the scores. On strike came James Faulkner, among the best finishers in the game.
The keeper came up, the field came in to save the single. Looking for another yorker, Praveen sent down a low full-toss. Faulkner, making himself room, carved it away to the cover point boundary.
Both Rahane and Sanju Samson played and missed against the new ball, and both survived close calls - Trent Boult seemed to trap Rahane plumb in front with a perfect left-armer's inswinger, only for the umpire to rule it not out, and Ashish Reddy dropped a tough chance off Samson when he miscued a pull off Praveen Kumar - but they kept chipping away at the target in a first-wicket partnership of 64. Steven Smith went early, for once, and Ravi Bopara picked up two wickets in a constricting spell of medium-paced cutters, but Rahane changed gears at just the right time for Royals.
Rahane sent a square cut off Bopara screaming away to the right of third man, and charged him in his next over to chip him wristily to the wide long-on boundary. A pulled four off Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the 18th over took him to 59, and left Royals 15 to get from 15 balls with seven wickets in hand. It should have been a stroll, but such is the nature of Twenty20 that they nearly lost it from there.
The pitch in Visakhapatnam was on the slow side, and there was plenty of grip on offer for anyone who bowled spin or medium-paced cutters. Tambe's wicket of Ojha illustrated this perfectly.
After drifting into a line just outside leg stump, a quickish legbreak spun past the outside edge and crashed into middle stump. Tambe nearly had Morgan stumped off a googly in his next over, but Samson didn't have to fret over his muffed effort behind the stumps for too long. Picking the wrong length to a reverse-sweep, Morgan was lbw next ball, a quicker, flatter googly from Tambe hitting his pad almost on the half-volley.
With two set batsmen dismissed, Sunrisers only managed a modest amount of acceleration towards the end of their innings, with Ravi Bopara and Ashish Reddy biffing 31 off the last 21 balls.
Having been put in to bat, Sunrisers had a mixed start from their openers. Shikhar Dhawan survived a nervy first over against Tim Southee's swing, and saw an outside edge fall just short of Smith at slip, and soon edged Kulkarni behind to fall for 10. David Warner, though, seemed to be carrying on from where he had left off against Royal Challengers Bangalore. He smacked three fours off Chris Morris off the first four balls he faced, and carved Southee for a big six over point.
Just when he looked like he might hurt Royals with a big innings, he was run out going for a misjudged single. Kulkarni then jagged one back to trap the crease-bound KL Rahul, and Sunrisers were 35 for 3, without too much batting depth to call upon.
Thursday, 16 April 2015
1st Test Day 4 WI 295 & 98/2 v ENG 399 & 333/7d
Gary
Ballance's century and a stunning Chris Jordan catch set up England's victory
push in the first Test against West Indies in Antigua.
Ballance hit 122, Joe Root 59 and Jos Buttler a rapid unbeaten 59 to help the tourists declare on 333-7.
Chasing a notional 438 to win, West Indies lost Darren Bravo for 32 late in the day as they closed on 98-2.
The obdurate Devon Smith, who added 83 with Bravo for the second wicket, will resume on 59 on the final day.
James Anderson failed to take a wicket in seven overs and remains one short of equalling Ian Botham's England record of 383 in Tests.
Ballance claimed England "couldn't be happier" with their position as they chase a first win in 10 Tests away from home.
But Smith demonstrated enough application in conditions that continue to favour the batsmen suggest England can expect a challenging fifth day.
There was minimal lateral movement for the England seamers in the 40 overs possible before the close.
The first wicket owed much to extra bounce extracted by Stuart Broad as Kraigg Brathwaite fended to short leg in teh second over, while England were thankful for Jordan's reactions and athleticism to end Bravo's resistance six overs before the close.
Driving at the part-time off-spin of Joe Root, Bravo edged to slip, where Jordan dived to his right to cling on almost after the ball had passed him.
Ballance's hundred - his fourth in nine Tests and his first overseas - was central to England adding 217 in 48 overs after they resumed on 116-3.
How's stat?! |
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| "Gary Ballance has scored four hundreds in his first nine Tests. Herbert Sutcliffe managed five, a record for England. Only two other players scored four: Andrew Strauss and Peter Parfitt." |
Compact and organised, he drove purposefully through the off side and rotated the strike well with Root as they extended their fourth-wicket partnership, worth 64 overnight, to 114.
Root, whose 83 was central to England's recovery in the first innings, had made 59 when he played on for the second time in the match as he defended Jason Holder off the back foot.
Ben Stokes's brisk 35 added impetus for England, although he perished in the first over after lunch giving the otherwise ineffective Sulieman Benn the charge.
Ballance, who went to three figures with a meaty drive down the ground, lifted Benn for six over long-on to take England's lead beyond 400, before swinging the same bowler to Jermaine Blackwood at deep mid-wicket.
The free-scoring Buttler continued to prosper as West Indies' motivation faded, adding 52 in 28 balls with Jordan before the latter's departure prompted the declaration.
Wednesday, 15 April 2015
1st Test Day 3 WI 295 v ENG 399 & 116/3
Stumps report: England have opened up a 220-run lead over the West Indies at the close of play on day three of their first Test in Antigua after reaching 116-3 in the second innings this evening.
Having bowled the West Indies out for 295 just before tea, the tourists began their second innings with a 104-run lead over the home side, but got off to a sluggish start in the evening session.
Jonathan Trott added just four before he was dismissed by Jerome Taylor, while captain Alastair Cook followed just a couple of overs later for 13, reducing England to 20-2.
Ian Bell made a confident start at the crease, but he failed to spot substitute fielder Devendra Bishoo at fine leg, resulting in a run out for the first-innings centurion.
The West Indies thought that they had Joe Root lbw late in the day too, reviewing a decision after the umpire gave the batsman not out off a Dinesh Ramdin delivery, but the review did not show enough to see the decision overturned.
Root and Gary Ballance looked settled in the middle as they brought up a 50-run partnership before stumps, reaching 32 and 43 not out respectively at the end of the day.
Tea report: England have bowled the West Indies out for 295 in the first innings of the first Test in Antigua this evening, bringing up an early tea on day three.
The home side resumed after lunch on 234-6, still needing 165 to match England's first-innings score, with Jermaine Blackwood looking to complete his first Test century.
He and Jason Holder started the session brightly, but the latter edged a James Tredwell ball to Gary Ballance to find himself heading off for 16.
Splitting the partnership just short of the 50-run mark allowed the tourists to race through the tail, with Tredwell dismissing Kemar Roach cheaply, before Jerome Taylor had a mix-up for Blackwood, allowing Stuart Broad to run him out for a duck.
Blackwood continued to race towards his maiden ton though and past the total with ease, finishing 112 not out off just 220 deliveries in his sixth Test match.
He was unable to add to his total further though as James Anderson forced Sulieman Benn to edge a shot to Joe Root at slip, ending the home side's innings.
Tredwell finished as the pick of the bowlers for England with figures of 4-47, while Anderson and Broad both finished with 2-67, leaving England with a 104-run lead ahead of the second innings.
Lunch report: England have reduced the West Indies to 234-6 at lunch on day three of the first Test in Antigua.
The hosts, who trail by 165, battled doggedly at the start of the morning session, but their resolve was undone when Shivnarine Chanderpaul was dismissed for 46 when he was caught by Ben Stokes off James Tredwell.
Jermaine Blackwood led the Windies' charge at the crease, passing his half-century following some poor England fielding.
However, the tourists made another breakthrough shortly before lunch as Dinesh Ramdin was caught behind by Jos Buttler off a Stuart Broad delivery for nine.
Blackwood (69 not out) and Jason Holder (seven) will resume out in the middle when play gets back underway.
Having bowled the West Indies out for 295 just before tea, the tourists began their second innings with a 104-run lead over the home side, but got off to a sluggish start in the evening session.
Jonathan Trott added just four before he was dismissed by Jerome Taylor, while captain Alastair Cook followed just a couple of overs later for 13, reducing England to 20-2.
Ian Bell made a confident start at the crease, but he failed to spot substitute fielder Devendra Bishoo at fine leg, resulting in a run out for the first-innings centurion.
The West Indies thought that they had Joe Root lbw late in the day too, reviewing a decision after the umpire gave the batsman not out off a Dinesh Ramdin delivery, but the review did not show enough to see the decision overturned.
Root and Gary Ballance looked settled in the middle as they brought up a 50-run partnership before stumps, reaching 32 and 43 not out respectively at the end of the day.
Tea report: England have bowled the West Indies out for 295 in the first innings of the first Test in Antigua this evening, bringing up an early tea on day three.
The home side resumed after lunch on 234-6, still needing 165 to match England's first-innings score, with Jermaine Blackwood looking to complete his first Test century.
He and Jason Holder started the session brightly, but the latter edged a James Tredwell ball to Gary Ballance to find himself heading off for 16.
Splitting the partnership just short of the 50-run mark allowed the tourists to race through the tail, with Tredwell dismissing Kemar Roach cheaply, before Jerome Taylor had a mix-up for Blackwood, allowing Stuart Broad to run him out for a duck.
Blackwood continued to race towards his maiden ton though and past the total with ease, finishing 112 not out off just 220 deliveries in his sixth Test match.
He was unable to add to his total further though as James Anderson forced Sulieman Benn to edge a shot to Joe Root at slip, ending the home side's innings.
Tredwell finished as the pick of the bowlers for England with figures of 4-47, while Anderson and Broad both finished with 2-67, leaving England with a 104-run lead ahead of the second innings.
Lunch report: England have reduced the West Indies to 234-6 at lunch on day three of the first Test in Antigua.
The hosts, who trail by 165, battled doggedly at the start of the morning session, but their resolve was undone when Shivnarine Chanderpaul was dismissed for 46 when he was caught by Ben Stokes off James Tredwell.
Jermaine Blackwood led the Windies' charge at the crease, passing his half-century following some poor England fielding.
However, the tourists made another breakthrough shortly before lunch as Dinesh Ramdin was caught behind by Jos Buttler off a Stuart Broad delivery for nine.
Blackwood (69 not out) and Jason Holder (seven) will resume out in the middle when play gets back underway.
IPL 2015 Match 10 KXIP V DD
Delhi Daredevils have secured a narrow five-wicket win over Kings XI Punjab in the Indian Premier League, hitting the winning runs in the final over of the match this evening.
The hosts won the toss and chose to bat first against Delhi, who came into the match with losses from both matches so far this season, and a 11-match losing streak stretching back to last season.
Murali Vijay was soon out though as he mis-cued off an Angelo Mathews delivery, but Virender Sehwah and Wriddhiman Saha soon built a partnership for the second wicket.
Their stand came to an end in the 14th over when Saha fell short of his half century, triggering a run of wickets in quick succession, which also saw Sehwag dismissed for 47.
George Bailey and Axar Patel ran up the score in the final overs, leaving the Daredevils chasing a score of 166 for their first victory of the season.
Delhi's reply was aided by some sloppy bowling in the opening couple of overs, allowing Sumeet Agarwal to get on the offensive, smashing the ball to the boundary.
Shreyas Iyer took a little while to get off the mark, and found himself heading back to the pavilion just two deliveries after finally finding a gap.
Agarwal worked well with Yuvraj Singh at the crease though, soon reaching his 50 with a six in the 15th over, leaving Delhi needing 48 off the final five.
Yuvraj soon past the half-century mark too as the visitors closed in on their target, but both batsman were dismissed by Anureet Singh in the penultimate over, leaving the victory in doubt.
They needed just three off the final six deliveries though, and Mathews tied the scores before hitting a boundary to seal the win with one ball to spare.
Tuesday, 14 April 2015
1st Test Day 2 WI 155/4 v ENG 399
Stumps report: The West Indies have reached 155-4 at the end of day two in reply to England's 399 in the first Test match in Antigua.
James Anderson, playing in his 100th Test, had removed Devon Smith (11) in the afternoon session to help reduce the hosts to 84-2 at the tea break.
England kept the pressure on when play resumed, with Stuart Broad getting Marlon Samuels (33) caught behind before James Tredwell took his first wicket when Kraigg Braithwaite (39) fell to a stunning Chris Jordan catch.
At 99-4, the West Indies were staring at the possibility of a big first-innings deficit before Jermaine Blackwood (30*) joined Shivnarine Chanderpaul (29*) in the middle to halt England's momentum.
The tourists thought they had removed Blackwood when Alastair Cook claimed a fine catch at slip off the bowling of Ben Stokes, but a no-ball handed the batsman a second chance as the West Indies battled to the close of play to prevent England from taking control.
Tea report: James Anderson has moved nearer to becoming England's leading wicket-taker by removing West Indies opener Devon Smith during the afternoon session of day two of the first Test match in Antigua.
The 32-year-old, who is also competing in his 100th Test match, had Smith caught behind for 11 to move three wickets away from over-taking Sir Ian Botham's record of 383 dismissals.
Chris Jordan struck soon afterwards to take the wicket of Darren Bravo for 10 but thanks to Kraigg Brathwaite and Marlon Samuels, the home side recovered to 84-2 at tea.
England had earlier been bowled all out for 399 after losing their last five wickets for 48 runs.
Lunch report: A lower-order collapse has seen England bowled out for 399 on day two of the first Test against the West Indies in Antigua.
The tourists started the day on 341-5 before a flurry of wickets put an end to their innings.
Ben Stokes was removed by Jerome Taylor early on having made 79, while James Tredwell was sent back to the pavilion for just eight following a Jason Holder delivery.
Jos Buttler failed to make a single run in the 21 balls that he faced before Roach claimed his second victim of the day. Roach was among the wickets again two overs later when he bowled Stuart Broad for a duck.
However, a late rally by James Anderson and Chris Jordan helped England to beef up their score at the crease. Anderson hit 20 off 22 balls before he was dismissed by Samuels. Meanwhile, Jordan reached 21 not out when the final wicket fell.
James Anderson, playing in his 100th Test, had removed Devon Smith (11) in the afternoon session to help reduce the hosts to 84-2 at the tea break.
England kept the pressure on when play resumed, with Stuart Broad getting Marlon Samuels (33) caught behind before James Tredwell took his first wicket when Kraigg Braithwaite (39) fell to a stunning Chris Jordan catch.
At 99-4, the West Indies were staring at the possibility of a big first-innings deficit before Jermaine Blackwood (30*) joined Shivnarine Chanderpaul (29*) in the middle to halt England's momentum.
The tourists thought they had removed Blackwood when Alastair Cook claimed a fine catch at slip off the bowling of Ben Stokes, but a no-ball handed the batsman a second chance as the West Indies battled to the close of play to prevent England from taking control.
Tea report: James Anderson has moved nearer to becoming England's leading wicket-taker by removing West Indies opener Devon Smith during the afternoon session of day two of the first Test match in Antigua.
The 32-year-old, who is also competing in his 100th Test match, had Smith caught behind for 11 to move three wickets away from over-taking Sir Ian Botham's record of 383 dismissals.
Chris Jordan struck soon afterwards to take the wicket of Darren Bravo for 10 but thanks to Kraigg Brathwaite and Marlon Samuels, the home side recovered to 84-2 at tea.
England had earlier been bowled all out for 399 after losing their last five wickets for 48 runs.
Lunch report: A lower-order collapse has seen England bowled out for 399 on day two of the first Test against the West Indies in Antigua.
The tourists started the day on 341-5 before a flurry of wickets put an end to their innings.
Ben Stokes was removed by Jerome Taylor early on having made 79, while James Tredwell was sent back to the pavilion for just eight following a Jason Holder delivery.
Jos Buttler failed to make a single run in the 21 balls that he faced before Roach claimed his second victim of the day. Roach was among the wickets again two overs later when he bowled Stuart Broad for a duck.
However, a late rally by James Anderson and Chris Jordan helped England to beef up their score at the crease. Anderson hit 20 off 22 balls before he was dismissed by Samuels. Meanwhile, Jordan reached 21 not out when the final wicket fell.
IPL 2015 Match 9 MI V RR
Rajasthan Royals 165 for 3 (Smith 79*, Rahane 46) beat Mumbai Indians 164 for 5 (Pollard 70, Anderson 50) by seven wickets
A perfectly paced unbeaten 79 from Steven Smith anchored a chase of 165 and steered Rajasthan Royals to a seven-wicket win over Mumbai Indians. It was Royals' third win in three games and Mumbai's third loss in three. Once again, Mumbai's top order failed, and even though Corey Anderson and Kieron Pollard gave their innings an explosive finish, their sluggish start proved the difference between the two sides.
Royals kept wickets in hand through their chase, and built momentum steadily, with a 64-run second-wicket stand between Ajinkya Rahane and Smith laying the foundation for the final charge. When Rahane was dismissed, Royals needed 73 from 41 balls, with eight wickets in hand.
Deepak Hooda, promoted to number four, provided some of the impetus, lofting Shreyas Gopal for two massive sixes in one over, before Lasith Malinga took out his leg stump after spotting him walking too far across his stumps. This left 52 to get from 31.
At the fall of Hooda's wicket, Smith was on 35 off 31, and had struck two fours and no sixes. The change of gears was swift, and it happened in the 17th over.
Malinga speared his first two balls into the blockhole. The first one was straight and Smith walked across to clip him over midwicket. The next one was a bit wider to compensate. Smith opened his bat face and steered him past backward point. Fifteen came off that over and Royals were left needing 24 from 18 balls; they got home with five balls remaining.
Having chosen to bat, Mumbai were going well enough - 24 for 0 in the middle of the fourth over - when Aaron Finch, stretching for the final stride of a quick single, pulled up with what looked like a hamstring strain.
That stalled the momentum the openers had gathered; only four runs came off that over, and Parthiv Patel, coming back on strike after Unmukt Chand managed only one run off the first three balls of the next over, miscued a Dhawal Kulkarni slower ball straight to mid-off. When Rohit Sharma nicked a Stuart Binny outswinger to slip in the seventh over, Mumbai were 31 for 2, effectively 31 for 3, and their run rate had dipped below six an over.
By the 10-over mark they had lost Chand and were 45 for 3. Only one run came off the 11th over, bowled by Chris Morris, who kept cramping the left-handed Anderson for room, jagging the ball into him off the pitch and extracting awkward bounce on a couple of occasions to rap him on the handle and the gloves.
With some balls skidding through and others stopping on the batsmen, runs were looking extremely hard to get. But Anderson and Pollard stayed alert for the slower balls, ensured they maintained stable bases, and began finding the big hits. Both picked up sixes off James Faulkner in the 14th over, and the run rate climbed back above five an over.
The recovery seemed to have ended when Anderson mishit another Kulkarni slower ball straight to long-off in the 15th over, but replays showed the bowler had overstepped, just about. It was just the sort of luck Mumbai needed after injury to Finch, and they made full use of it. They were 83 for 3 after 15 overs; over the next five overs they came within two runs of doubling their score.
Tim Southee, bowling primarily length or just short of it, took the bulk of the punishment - his last two overs went for 36, with Pollard and Anderson hitting him for four fours and three sixes - but no one went unscathed. James Faulkner went for 17 in the 17th over, and Chris Morris, till then the pick of Royals' seamers, went for 15 in the final over.
Anderson kept his plans simple, clear his front leg and swing freely to hit down the ground and over the leg side. Pollard dealt in his trademark one-handed clubs and flat-bat swats down the ground, but also pulled of a couple of stunning flicked sixes.
Given the fact that the bowlers were generally looking to go full, and given both batsmen's power in the V, it was a little strange to see mid-off in the circle and fine leg back on the rope on a couple of occasions. By the end, though, Smith's batting would ensure his tactics became a distant memory.
Monday, 13 April 2015
1st Test Day 1 WI V ENG 341/5
Ian Bell’s 22nd Test century helped England out of a deep hole and firmly on to the front foot as they eventually dominated the opening day of the first Test against the West Indies in Antigua.
Joe Root also impressed in a vital stand with Bell, falling not far short of a century, while the recalled Ben Stokes showed signs of having his batting back in order with an exciting, and unbeaten, innings of 71 which included a mixture of style and power.
England got off to an awful start when Jonathan Trott, returning to the international ranks for the first time since he left the 2013-14 Ashes series with a stress-related illness, was caught in the slips by Darren Bravo off the bowling of Jerome Taylor for a third-ball duck.
Worse would follow a handful of overs later when captain Alastair Cook (11), who could easily have been out in the second over, was bowled by Roach, somehow finding a narrow gap between bat and pad.
Fears of England embarrassment to start the series were further raised when Gary Ballance (10) became the third batsman to fall with the score on only 34, caught behind by Denesh Ramdin as he went fishing at a wide delivery from Jason Holder that could easily have been left alone.
But Bell and Root have clearly been England’s two best Test batsmen over the last couple of years, and they proved their class with a fourth-wicket stand that eventually reached 177 and started to take the day away from the home side.
Both batsmen took their time to build before the lunch interval, which arrived with England on 49-3 after 25 stodgy overs, but they soon found their range in the afternoon.
Runs began to flow, with the next 50 coming in just over 10 overs as the seamers struggled to breakthrough and Sulieman Benn struggled badly with his line and length.
Bell was the first to reach 50, coming off 96 balls and Root, who had been treated for a back issue, completed his half-century just before tea, which saw England on a far healthier 167-3.
Root had just about caught his batting partner when he fell for 83, a disappointing dismissal as Taylor induced a thick inside edge that caromed into the stumps – the Yorkshireman was clearly angry with himself as he walked off.
Bell’s scoring slowed in the nervous 90s, but a thick outside edge off Samuels past slip took him to three figures as he and a resurgent Stokes built another valuable stand.
Stokes had failed to score a run in his last three Test innings, but he played with great fluency after a lovely cut shot earned him his first four runs.
By now the momentum had completely turned from the opening hour, and England barely offered even the hint of a chance as Bell and Stokes closed on a quick hundred partnership, the Durham all-rounder reaching his 50 off 59 balls.
The cavalier Stokes was showing off his entire range of shots, with the Windies attack looking completely dispirited as the final overs ticked by and the runs piled up, Taylor in particular taking a beating.
Scoring continued to be easy, and it appeared Bell and Stokes would be back on Tuesday to continue their stand, but Bell's 256-ball vigil ended off the final ball of the 89th over when a fine seaming delivery from Roach found his outside edge and flew through to Ramdin.
James Tredwell came in as night-watchman but it was Stokes who safely saw off Holder's last over, and England will look to build a big score from the rest of their middle and lower order on Tuesday, with Stokes key to that as he seeks a second Test century.
IPL 2015 Match 8 RCB V SRH
Sunrisers Hyderabad 172 for 2 (Warner 57, Dhawan 50*, Rahul 44*) beat Royal Challengers Bangalore 166 (de Villiers 46, Kohli 41, Boult 3-36) by eight wickets
Half-centuries from David Warner and Shikhar Dhawan laid the platform for Sunrisers Hyderabad to cruise to a target of 167 and pick up their first win of the season.
They were aided by a dewy outfield, but Royal Challengers Bangalore would have known their total was never going to be good enough to test Sunrisers on a flat Chinnaswamy Stadium pitch.
Having been sent in, Royal Challengers were 93 for 2 in the 12th over of their innings, with Virat Kohli batting on 41, when two wickets in two balls from Ravi Bopara precipitated a slide that saw them lose their last eight wickets for 73 runs.
Royal Challengers were always going to struggle to defend 166, and a poor start from their seamers only made their task harder.
The first ball of Sunrisers' chase encapsulated the story that was about to unfold. Sean Abbott sent down a full-toss, and Warner simply met it with the full face of his bat to send it screaming away to the extra-cover boundary. By the end of the second over, Warner and Shikhar Dhawan had hit five more fours and a six, against Abbott and Harshal Patel's assortment of hit-me balls, and Sunrisers had shaved 36 runs off their target.
Warner was in a particularly punishing mood, and in the fifth over took two fours and a six off successive balls from Varun Aaron. The six was the shot of a man in the zone. Aaron saw Warner making room and dug it in short, getting the ball to rise over shoulder height, but Warner still managed to jump off the ground and uppercut the ball over the backward point boundary.
Royal Challengers introduced spin in the eighth over, which began with Sunrisers 73 for 0. Warner muscled a short ball from Yuzvendra Chahal over the leg-side ropes, but the legspinner had his revenge three balls later, when he trapped Warner lbw as he failed to connect with a sweep.
Williamson missed another sweep in Chahal's next over and ended up dragging his back foot out of the crease. The twin strikes could have stalled some of Sunrisers' momentum, but KL Rahul ensured that didn't happen.
He pulled Sammy for an authoritative four soon after walking in, and stepped out to Chahal and hit him fiercely to the straight boundary in the next over. By that point, Sunrisers had brought the equation down to 57 from 52 balls. With eight wickets in hand, Dhawan well set, and plenty of dew for the bowlers to contend with, there was only going to be one winner.
Dhawan, who had been content to ride in both Warner and Rahul's slipstreams, accelerated as he approached his fifty, hitting two massive sixes off Abu Nechim, a pull and a pick-up shot over backward square leg.
Royal Challengers weren't just beaten comfortably, with 16 balls remaining, they also suffered the anxiety of watching AB de Villiers hobble off the field with a twisted ankle, suffered while trying to stop a ball with his feet.
Interviewed between innings, Ravi Bopara said the Sunrisers bowlers had struggled to grip the dew-soaked ball too. If so, they did a pretty good job to cope with it.
They couldn't control every ball, and gave away their share of boundaries to AB de Villiers and Sean Abbott, but bowled a lot of good balls towards the end of the Royal Challengers innings, usually targeting the base of the stumps.
They took three wickets with yorkers in the last five overs, one from Ashish Reddy in the 16th over and two from Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the 20th.
In between, Trent Boult took out de Villiers, who sliced a wide one straight into sweeper cover's hands, and removed Abott and Harshal Patel in the same over, with well-directed short balls. In all, Royal Challengers lost their last six wickets for 41 runs, and their last five in the space of ten balls.
The total of 166 was far less than what Royal Challengers seemed set for during a breezy first-wicket partnership between Chris Gayle and Kohli. With the ball coming on beautifully and the outfield lightning-quick, both batsmen were able to find the boundary by simply pushing the ball into gaps.
Gayle fell in the sixth over, flicking Praveen Kumar straight to deep square leg, but Kohli was still batting fluently at the other end, and a spilled return catch from Karn Sharma in the ninth over may have raised Sunrisers' worries of having to chase an outlandish target.
But that wasn't to happen. Karn got rid of Dinesh Karthik, who picked the wrong ball to try and slog-sweep, and Bopara rattled Kohli's off stump when he tried to force him away through the off side.
Next ball, Mandeep Singh looked to flick a legcutter and got a leading edge to off. There didn't seem to be anyone in its way, until Warner flew to his right from short cover to pluck it one-handed. It wouldn't be his last eye-catching contribution of the day.
Half-centuries from David Warner and Shikhar Dhawan laid the platform for Sunrisers Hyderabad to cruise to a target of 167 and pick up their first win of the season.
They were aided by a dewy outfield, but Royal Challengers Bangalore would have known their total was never going to be good enough to test Sunrisers on a flat Chinnaswamy Stadium pitch.
Having been sent in, Royal Challengers were 93 for 2 in the 12th over of their innings, with Virat Kohli batting on 41, when two wickets in two balls from Ravi Bopara precipitated a slide that saw them lose their last eight wickets for 73 runs.
Royal Challengers were always going to struggle to defend 166, and a poor start from their seamers only made their task harder.
The first ball of Sunrisers' chase encapsulated the story that was about to unfold. Sean Abbott sent down a full-toss, and Warner simply met it with the full face of his bat to send it screaming away to the extra-cover boundary. By the end of the second over, Warner and Shikhar Dhawan had hit five more fours and a six, against Abbott and Harshal Patel's assortment of hit-me balls, and Sunrisers had shaved 36 runs off their target.
Warner was in a particularly punishing mood, and in the fifth over took two fours and a six off successive balls from Varun Aaron. The six was the shot of a man in the zone. Aaron saw Warner making room and dug it in short, getting the ball to rise over shoulder height, but Warner still managed to jump off the ground and uppercut the ball over the backward point boundary.
Royal Challengers introduced spin in the eighth over, which began with Sunrisers 73 for 0. Warner muscled a short ball from Yuzvendra Chahal over the leg-side ropes, but the legspinner had his revenge three balls later, when he trapped Warner lbw as he failed to connect with a sweep.
Williamson missed another sweep in Chahal's next over and ended up dragging his back foot out of the crease. The twin strikes could have stalled some of Sunrisers' momentum, but KL Rahul ensured that didn't happen.
He pulled Sammy for an authoritative four soon after walking in, and stepped out to Chahal and hit him fiercely to the straight boundary in the next over. By that point, Sunrisers had brought the equation down to 57 from 52 balls. With eight wickets in hand, Dhawan well set, and plenty of dew for the bowlers to contend with, there was only going to be one winner.
Dhawan, who had been content to ride in both Warner and Rahul's slipstreams, accelerated as he approached his fifty, hitting two massive sixes off Abu Nechim, a pull and a pick-up shot over backward square leg.
Royal Challengers weren't just beaten comfortably, with 16 balls remaining, they also suffered the anxiety of watching AB de Villiers hobble off the field with a twisted ankle, suffered while trying to stop a ball with his feet.
Interviewed between innings, Ravi Bopara said the Sunrisers bowlers had struggled to grip the dew-soaked ball too. If so, they did a pretty good job to cope with it.
They couldn't control every ball, and gave away their share of boundaries to AB de Villiers and Sean Abbott, but bowled a lot of good balls towards the end of the Royal Challengers innings, usually targeting the base of the stumps.
They took three wickets with yorkers in the last five overs, one from Ashish Reddy in the 16th over and two from Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the 20th.
In between, Trent Boult took out de Villiers, who sliced a wide one straight into sweeper cover's hands, and removed Abott and Harshal Patel in the same over, with well-directed short balls. In all, Royal Challengers lost their last six wickets for 41 runs, and their last five in the space of ten balls.
The total of 166 was far less than what Royal Challengers seemed set for during a breezy first-wicket partnership between Chris Gayle and Kohli. With the ball coming on beautifully and the outfield lightning-quick, both batsmen were able to find the boundary by simply pushing the ball into gaps.
Gayle fell in the sixth over, flicking Praveen Kumar straight to deep square leg, but Kohli was still batting fluently at the other end, and a spilled return catch from Karn Sharma in the ninth over may have raised Sunrisers' worries of having to chase an outlandish target.
But that wasn't to happen. Karn got rid of Dinesh Karthik, who picked the wrong ball to try and slog-sweep, and Bopara rattled Kohli's off stump when he tried to force him away through the off side.
Next ball, Mandeep Singh looked to flick a legcutter and got a leading edge to off. There didn't seem to be anyone in its way, until Warner flew to his right from short cover to pluck it one-handed. It wouldn't be his last eye-catching contribution of the day.
Sunday, 12 April 2015
IPL 2015 Match 7 MI V KXIP
Captain George Bailey stole the show as Kings XI Punjab recorded their first win of this season's Indian Premier League by beating Mumbai Indians by 18 runs at Wankhede Stadium.
Batting first, Kings XI made a solid start to their innings, with both Virender Sehwag and Murali Vijay looking in good touch in the early stages of the match.
The introduction of Harbhajan Singh made the difference as the Mumbai spinner dismissed both openers before Jagadeesha Suchith took the crucial wicket of Glenn Maxwell.
However, it was Maxwell's fellow Australian Bailey who made the key contribution of 61 not out from 32 balls to lead his side to 177-5 from their 20 overs.
Mumbai slipped to 25-4 in reply as the impressive Punjab attack, led by Mitchell Johnson (4-23), immediately piled the pressure on to back up what looked to be a par total.
Singh offered late resistance with a superb 64 from 24 deliveries, but Mumbai could only battle to 159-7 as they suffered a second successive defeat.
IPL 2015 Match 6 DD V RR
Rajasthan Royals 186 for 7 (Hooda 54, Rahane 47) beat Delhi Daredevils (Duminy 44*, Iyer 40) 184 for 3 by 3 wickets
Yet another IPL match was decided by sloppy fielding. Ajinkya Rahane's dropping of Angelo Mathews allowed Delhi Daredevils to post 184 when they looked like they might waste a good start, but Daredevils went a step further by missing youngster Deepak Hooda twice in two overs.
The youngest player in this IPL took them apart with four powerful sixes in his 25-ball 54, but when he fell Rajasthan Royals still needed 19 off 11. Imran Tahir, as did Amit Mishra, kept Daredevils alive with his variations, but Chris Morris and Tim Southee scored the required 12 off the last over to make it 11 defeats in a row for Daredevils, the joint-longest losing streak in IPL.
Royals shouldn't have been chasing this big a total after their spinners dragged Daredevils back from a good start. Mayank Agarwal and Shreyas Iyer both scored 40s, but Pravin Tambe and that man Hooda again applied the brakes with seven overs from 38 runs and one wicket.
However, as it has been happening far too often for a league that pretends to boast superlative fielding, the decisive moments in this match too were pieces of ordinary fielding. Angelo Mathews was 5 off 4 when he hit James Faulkner straight down long-on's throat. JP Duminy at the other end was struggling, Yuvraj Singh had got out seven balls ago, and at 145 for 3 in the 18th over Daredevils were threatening to post an underwhelming total. Rahane dropped him, and Mathews went on to score 27 off 14 that took Daredevils to 184, a score that should have ideally been too far for Royals after the way the host spinners performed.
Amit Mishra struck in his first two overs, sending back Steven Smith and Karun Nair, and Imran Tahir bowled the big overs to keep bringing Daredevils back with four wickets. However, at 107 for 4 in the 14th over, a third spinner should have played a part in another wicket. Yuvraj bowled three tight balls, the fourth produced indecision in the running, but Yuvraj failed to collect a throw right beside the stump. Had he broken the wicket coolly Hooda would have been out for 23 off 13.
In the next over, with the asking rate having scores two per ball, Hooda was forced to take risks.
He did so in his own unique way. With Jaydev Unadkat looking to bowl Yorkers outside off, Hooda kept shuffling across and took his back foot behind the line of the stumps to try to convert those into half-volleys. But so badly was Unadkat missing his yorkers Hooda slogged two low full tosses for sixes. The second of those should have been caught at deep midwicket, but Manoj Tiwary just parried it over.
This was when Tahir made Daredevils believe, beating Rahane with a wrong'un and hitting his stumps. Immediately Hooda snatched the advantage back with a big six over long-on.
With 36 required off the last three, Daredevils went to their two big bowlers first: Nathan Coulter-Nile and Tahir. In the 18th Coulter-Nile served a half-volley, and generally kept bowling outside leg from round the wicket. Three boundaries came off the over, two off edges, but now only 19 were required off the last two.
Tahir once again dragged Daredevils back. First Hooda hit a long hop straight down long-on's throat, and then Faulkner failed to read a wrong'un. In between, though, Morris slog-swept him for a six, and we were back to two a ball in the last over.
Daredevils went to international experience of Mathews ahead of Unadkat, but Mathews bowled the same angle when he decided to go round the wicket.
The fourth ball of the over was a leg-side full toss, which Morris helped away fine of short fine leg. Yet a good fifth ball meant Tim Southee, known for his sixes, needed two off the last ball. The strategy now left a bit to be desired.
Mathews bowled from round the wicket, and despite the angle taking the ball away he had no protection deep on the off side.
With that field Mathews had to bowl a leg-stump yorker, but he bowled an off-stump half-volley, which Southee drove wide of long-off to spark wild celebrations in the Royals camp.
Saturday, 11 April 2015
IPL 2015 Match 5 KKR V RCB
Royal Challengers Bangalore 179 for 7 (Gayle 96) beat Kolkata Knight Riders 177 for 6 (Gambhir 58, Russell 41*) by three wickets
Royal Challengers Bangalore kept losing wickets at one end. Chris Gayle kept hitting fours and sixes at the other. Even as Royal Challengers threatened to implode at 133 for 6 in a chase of 178, Gayle turned down a few singles and hit a few more sixes. Four short of a hundred, and with seven needed for victory, the man who prefers not to run ran himself out scrambling and diving for a rare second.
Royal Challengers still got home with an over to spare, such had been the impact of Gayle's seven fours and seven sixes in his 96 off 56.
Gayle was put down twice; the first was a tough chance for Morne Morkel diving forward at deep square leg with Gayle on 33. The second was a much simpler catch for the same fielder at the same position with Gayle on 63. Yusuf Pathan was the bowler to suffer on both occasions.
Before he dropped the match, Morkel had worked up testing pace and bounce to take out Gayle's opening partner Virat Kohli on the pull for 13. Morkel and Sunil Narine kept Gayle and Kohli quiet at the start, and the Kolkata Knight Riders spin army started to take toll on a helpful surface. Dinesh Karthik and Mandeep Singh fell trying expansive strokes against Yusuf Pathan to leave Royal Challengers 56 for 3.
AB de Villiers came in and targetted Knight Riders' newest mystery spinner KC Cariappa. The South African had already cracked five boundaries in 12 balls and Royal Challengers appeared to be back in the game when he walked past a flatter one from Cariappa. The asking-rate was almost 12 when Shakib Al Hasan's flight lured Darren Sammy to his fall in the 15th over.
Gayle had gone about his innings in typical fashion till now. He had been troubled by Narine's offbreaks, he had mishit a few, but he had also swung some deep into the stands. The over after Sammy fell, Gayle pulled and lofted Pathan for successive boundaries. It was the same over in which Morkel was to put Gayle down decisively.
Uncharacteristically, Gayle now started to push for twos. Abbott was run out off the first such attempt. Gayle responded by turning down singles off the next two balls, yorkers from Shakib. Forty-four needed off 21. Shakib missed the yorker twice in succession. Six and six more.
Gayle was properly cruising now. Narine was pulled and swept for consecutive fours and two runs taken off the third. With seamer Harshal Patel on strike for the last two balls of the over, Gayle pushed him to try and hit at least one for six. Harshal succeeded on the second attempt.
Gayle could have reached his century two balls later off Morkel had Manish Pandey not managed to jump at deep midwicket and throw a flat hit back in. He saw what had happened in the deep and tried to regain the strike but could not beat Pandey's throw. He had done enough to ensure, though, that Royal Challengers beat the defending champions.
That had looked improbable with the way Royal Challengers had gone in their season opener. Misfields, missed chances and overthrows in a nervy fielding performance had helped Knight Riders gallop to 177 for 6.
Gambhir and Robin Uthappa put on 81 upfront inside 11 overs, with the Knight Riders captain making it successive fifties at the start of the season.
Knight Riders were jolted by the fall of Suryakumar Yadav and Pandey off successive deliveries in the 17th over but Andre Russell an unbeaten 41 off 17 to propel them to what they thought was a good enough total.
However, probably no score is sufficient in this format if Gayle lasts as long as the 19th over of a chase.
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