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Mumbai Indians v Deccan Chargers, IPL 2012, Mumbai

Deccan lose close game, again

Posted By Anoop Dubey

April 30,2012

Mumbai Indians 101 for 5 (Rohit 42, Steyn 2-10) beat Deccan Chargers 100 (Dhawan 29, Duminy 25*, Malinga 4-16, Harbhajan 2-13) by five wickets

After their first win on Thursday following five consecutive losses, Deccan Chargers were back to being what they have been this IPL season - dismal and disappointing. Once again, a decent start proved to be a false dawn. Once again, they had only themselves to blame. On a greenish Wankhede pitch aiding fast bowlers, Chargers allowed Harbhajan Singh figures of 4-0-13-2. They contrived to lose regular wickets, hitting wide balls straight to fielders. And they did not have another bowler remotely in the class of Dale Steyn, who tormented the home batsmen nearly every delivery he bowled.

Not that Chargers did not try, initially at least. Their captain Kumar Sangakkara, with 83 runs in five games at a strike-rate of 95.40, sat out the game. Chargers made three more changes. Shikhar Dhawan and Parthiv Patel even managed to add 37 by the sixth over, which was not a bad start given the appreciable swing and bounce RP Singh was getting.

And then they fell apart. Six wickets went down in the space of 7.3 overs for 29 runs. Parthiv checked his drive to an RP slower delivery but ended up chipping it to mid-on. With Cameron White, JP Duminy and Daniel Christian available, Chargers sent Ishank Jaggi at No. 3. After looking clueless against pace for six deliveries, Jaggi tried to attack Harbhajan and found mid-off. White slashed his first delivery to third man; Christian was to cut his fifth straight to point.

In between, Dhawan, having watched his side implode, charged out to Harbhajan, only to be stumped for 29. It was to be the highest score by a Chargers batsman tonight. Harbhajan kept the pressure up, firing some in, tossing many up, and varying his pace.

Though Duminy tried to ensure Chargers at least played out their 20 overs, their lower order crumbled against Lasith Malinga by the 19th. It wasn't an easy pitch to bat on by any means but Chargers needed something truly special from Steyn to even challenge Mumbai Indians.

Steyn tried as hard as he could. He knocked back Richard Levi's stumps first ball of the chase with a pacy outswinger. He could have had Rohit Sharma four times in four deliveries, but the ball beat the outside edge each time. Steyn came back in the ninth over, with a forward short leg to Dinesh Karthik, who immediately nibbled one through to the wicketkeeper.