Chargers hold off Bangalore challenge
Dale Steyn's outstanding bowling performance for the Royal Challengers Bangalore was of no consequence as the Deccan Chargers upstaged their fancied opposition to record a shock 13-run victory in the DLF Indian Premier League in Nagpur on Monday night.
All revved-up and charging in as he has never done before in the competition, the 26-year-old South African fast bowler, who is ranked No.1 in the world by the ICC, left a trail of devastation in his first two overs of his four-over spell soon after the Deccan Chargers were asked to bat.
Though he finished with astonishing figures of 4-0-18-3, his team failed to cross the line as they were bowled out for 137 in reply to the Deccan Chargers 151-6.
The lanky South Africa, who has been generating speeds of 150-plus km/h at the best of times, ripped out the heart of the Deccan Chargers top order batting and left them in shreds.
"The ball was coming out just too nicely. Everything about my bowling was just great in that period and I was all pumped up," he said.
His first wicket was that of Adam Gilchrist, who was shocked into following Steyn's fourth delivery and was caught behind by Robin Uthappa.
Then Tirumalasetti Suman, who scored an unbeaten 78 and then a classy 55 in his previous two innings, couldn't get away from a rising delivery and was caught at short square-leg by Ross Taylor.
Each disappeared without any movement on the huge scoreboard.
Steyn was on a hat-trick but bowled a poor delivery to finish his opening over like this: 1-0-1-2.
It was time for rebuilding but South Africa's Herschelle Gibbs has shown on late that he does not have that word in his vocabulary. He almost gave it away immediately - the first ball from Vinay Kumar was pulled to Taylor at short mid-wicket and the Kiwi dropped a simple catch.
Notwithstanding what had happened and the fact that his side were reeling, the flamboyant Gibbs, who struck a six in Kumar's over, clipped Steyn for a boundary but the Titans man had the better of his Cape Cobras batsman two balls later - bowled through his defence and gone for 12 (14-3).
It was another missed opportunity for Gibbs to rescue his side from complete disaster.
Fortunately for the Deccan Chargers, contributions from Rohit Sharma (51), Monish Mishra (41), Andrew Symonds (19) and Ryan Harris (13) made their scorecard look respectable.
That 151-6 was an attainable target given the strength of the Royal Challengers batting line-up. Though they lost Manish Pandey (0), Rahul Dravid and Jacques Kallis (27) added 74 for the second wicket to put their side back on track.
But after these two men went - Dravid on 49 and Uthappa making 34 - the Royal Challengers batting crumbled to 137 all out with Harmeet Singh (2-24), Harris (2-34), RP Singh (2-21) and spinner Pragyan Ojha (2-22) killing them off with some superb bowling.