[1]On Saturday, Pune Warriors recovered from two successive defeats to beat the form team of the tournament – the Delhi Daredevils – at the latter’s own turf.
It took lusty hits from the in-form Kiwi bad boy Jesse Ryder and some age-defying cricket from their 40-year-old skipper Sourav Ganguly to overpower Delhi, a feat achieved by only one other team this season thus far.
While that result may have showed that Delhi are still very much beatable, only a brave man will bet on Pune when the two sides clash in their return leg here on Tuesday.
Man for man, the Daredevils blow the hosts out of the water with their batting depth. Skipper Virender Sehwag, Kevin Pietersen, Mahela Jayawardene and Ross Taylor form a strong top four and trouble for Pune is that all are in relatively good form.
It takes only one of them to fire to push Daredevils to a potentially match-winning score or hunt down a tall score.
Even at Kotla, up against the Warriors’ highest total of the season, Virender Sehwag and Kevin Pietersen were going strong in a threatening partnership, making a mockery of every Warriors bowler, and had added 71 runs in five overs.
It was then that Ganguly brought himself on, having last bowled in IPL 2010. The gutsy bowling change worked, and Delhi eventually fell 20 runs short.
While Daredevils will rue that loss, they will draw comfort from the fact none of the other regular bowlers troubled them much, and also know what to expect if Ganguly opts to bowl again.
Delhi have won four of their six matches so far and so have Pune, but having played one match more than Delhi. So the winner will go clear of the other on points at the end of this match, which could prove vital in the final play-off standings.
Pune will hope Ryder and Steven Smith continue to bear the team’s batting burden, like they have so far.
Ryder is in the top-five run getters list this season.
Links:
[1] http://archive.asianage.com/24pune2jpgcropdisplayjpg-611