Kings XI Punjab beat Delhi Daredevils : The Venue is Mohali, the home ground of the Kings XI. The Daredevils won the toss and elected to bat first on the Mohali wicket which invariably offers some assistance to the pace bowlers. VRV Singh exploited the maximum from the wicket and bowled brilliantly to end up with a spell of 3 wickets for 29 runs.
The Delhi Daredevils put up a very mediocre show as none of their batsmen could settle down against a formidable bowling attack of the Kings XI. Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag opened the innings.
Sehwag was the first to go as he got out LBW to a delivery from Irfan Pathan for an individual score of 6. Shikar Dhavan got out on duck with the team score 12/2. Gambhir tried hard to cosolidate the Delhi innings before he was caught by Yuvraj Singh off the bowling of Brett Lee for 18 runs scored of 14 balls.
Shoaib Malik too, contributed in bits as he made 19 off 17. The respite for the Daredevils came from the knocks of Manoj Tiwary, who played sensibly to make 39 from 34 balls and Dinesh Karthik who made 24 off 14.
In the concluding part of the innings Rajat Bhatia and Maharoof scored 17 & 18 respectively. The Daredevils thus managed to crawl upto a total of 158/8 in 20 overs.
In reply, the Kings XI paced their innings well, despite early blows as Karan Goel and Sangakara saw their way back to the pavilion with the score reading 11/2. A good partnership developed between Mahela Jayavardane and Simon Katich before Jayavardene left scoring 15 off 14 deliveries he faced. Katich on the other hand made a brilliant 75 from 52 balls.
The captain Yuvraj singh then took charge of the proceedings and guided Punjab to victory, remaining unbeaten on 40 off 29 which included 3 fours and 2 sixes. The Kings XI surpassed the target ending with 162/6 from 19.3 overs, winning comprehensively by 4 wickets.
Delhi lost their first game in the tournament while Punjab posted their second consecutive win.
Simon Katich was declared Man of the Match.
Yuvraj Singh picked up the award for the highest number of sixes.
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