Capital punishment

NEW DELHI: It was a day when the boys went on to party long after big brother had left. Later on a Pigeon swooped in to peck away at those who tried to gatecrash.

Delhi Daredevils beat Royal Challengers by 10 runs to make more glaring the fact that perhaps the team from Bangalore has far too many players who are too old for the bustle of T20. In response to Delhi’s 191 for five, the Challengers fell short, managing 180 for five.

First the duo of Gautam Gambhir and Shikhar Dhawan proved to be a pair too prickly for the Bangalore team to handle. Then Delhi’s ace paceman Glenn McGrath scalped four to kill any chance that the Challengers had of challenging.

Virender Sehwag (24) gave up on the festivities early but the boys celebrated loud and long. In fact so long that Rahul Dravid’s long face was threatening to reach the ground. By the end of 14.5 overs, the scoreboard had been rocked by 13 fours and four sixes to sing out the tune of 151 for one.

After Viru went in the fifth over on account of a brilliant run out by Ross Taylor, Gautam Gambhir and Shikhar Dhawan had been having a ball. However, a ball later Dravid’s face perked up reasonably as Shikhar Dhawan gave him the opportunity to effect what may well be the catch of the tournament. At short cover off a full-blooded drive, Dravid reached low and grabbed the ball with one hand just inches above the ground. If Bangalore needed an inspirational moment to lift them out of the plummeting they were being subjected to then that surely was one.

When Dale Steyn had Shoaib Malik’s middle stump take a walk in the very next over and then followed by Jacques Kallis breaking Dinesh Karthik’s off stump with a yorker that had business written all over it, it looked that the moment that Bangalore had been waiting for to seemingly wake up and take command of this game had finally been crafted by the magic of that catch.

The team kept responding when in the next over (19) Gautam Gambhir’s mistimed pull gave Zaheer Khan a wicket as Praveen Kumar grabbed it joyfully at mid-wicket. Khan’s regular military pace and, even more importantly in this tournament, military line had also finally come good. Perhaps the last bit definitely needed a touch of magic to come about. His figures for the day read 4-0-42-1.

But Gambhir’s 86 from 54 balls before Khan caught him with a short one that reared real high, were a delight to watch and perhaps a fitting testimony to the plight of the Bangalore attack.

For his second consecutive match Glenn McGrath claimed a scalp in his very first over. Praveen Kumar’s inexperience perhaps was too much or possibly it was the nerves as he looked to play a legend across the line.

Finding Dhawan at the edge of the circle was perhaps the logical outcome. In his third over of the day, McGrath once again showed just why he was the terror of the Aussie bowling attack for so long. The second ball elicited a shoddy goodbye to the IPL from Ross Taylor as he gave Dhawan another bit of regulation catch practice at deep midwicket.