Things just aren't going right for Pune Warriors in the fifth season of the Indian Premier League, as despite a new captain in Steven Smith and wholesale changes to the playing eleven, they slumped to yet another loss - this time to Royal Challengers Bangalore by 35 runs on Friday night. This was RCB's third consecutive win and they are now behind only Delhi Daredevils and Kolkata Knight Riders in the points table .
As was widely speculated, Sourav Ganguly was 'rested' for this match with Smith, who had led the Sydney Sixers to a tournament win in the inaugural edition of the Big Bash League, taking over the captaincy of the Warriors. Apart from Ganguly, Pune Warriors also left out Mithun Manhas, Ashish Nehra, Murali Kartik and Wayne Parnell; with Mohnish Mishra, Manish Pandey, Rahul Sharma, Krishnakant Upadhyay and Alfonso Thomas replacing them.
The start of the match was delayed for an hour after the toss because of rain; but once play got underway Chris Gayle continued his marauding form in IPL-5 as his attacking burst at the top of the order laid the foundation for RCB's total of 173 for 3, which was always going to be a daunting score to chase on the slowish pitch at Subrata Roy Sahara Stadium. Gayle took his time in the first couple of overs of the match to play himself in, but went into overdrive in the third over when he hit Upadhyay for two massive sixes.
The best was yet to come though from Gayle's bat and the hapless bowler to suffer at the hands of the attacking southpaw was Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who was hit for four sixes in the sixth over. The last of those maximums brought up Gayle's half-century from only 24 balls - the fastest of IPL-5; and his blitzkerig helped RCB score 66 runs in the Powerplay overs to leave Warriors' captain Steven Smith clueless and worried. Gayle's brutal hitting in that Kumar over brought back memories of April 17 when he had hit five consecutive sixes off Rohit Sharma in RCB's thrilling last-ball win against Warriors at Bangalore.
Man-of-the-Match Gayle scored 57 from 31 balls (3x4, 6x6) before Angelo Mathews had him well caught by Manish Pandey at the long-on boundary to give the Warriors a much needed breakthrough. RCB captain Virat Kohli (9) had yet another failure in IPL-5 when his leading edge flew straight to Smith at short cover with Rahul Sharma being the successful bowler.
At this stage, RCB was 97 for 2 after 12 overs and the Warriors had done well to pull back the scoring rate; but 30 runs came across the 14th and 15th overs as Tillakaratne Dilshan and Saurabh Tiwary took the attack to the Warriors' bowlers. Dilshan, who made a 44-ball 53, was content rotating the strike when Gayle was on the rampage, but gradually started playing his shots as well before he was run out by Alfonso Thomas on his follow through in the 18th over. Tiwary (36* from 30 balls) was surprisingly promoted ahead of AB de Villiers, and he struggled to time the ball for most of his innings. De Villiers finished RCB's innings in style with a six over long-on off Alfonso Thomas. Mathews (3-0-14-1) was the most economical of the Warriors' bowlers; but Kumar and Thomas conceded 86 runs in the eight overs they bowled between themselves.
The Warriors needed a good start in their chase of 174, but that wasn't to be as Zaheer Khan dismissed Mishra and Pandey in the first over to peg the hosts on the back foot.
And, when Michael Clarke (13 from 10 balls) continued to struggle in IPL-5, became Vinay Kumar's first victim of the match, the Warriors were struggling at 22 for 3 inside four overs; and the chase was all but over at this stage.
Robin Uthappa and Anustup Majumdar gave the Warriors a glimmer of hope with their well-paced partnership of 50 runs in 4.4 overs for the fourth wicket, with the former looking set to play his first big knock of the tournament. But, that wily old Sri Lankan spinner Muttiah Muralitharan had Uthappa (38 from 23 balls) stumped by de Villiers in the first over after the strategic time out, and this was the start of the end for the Warriors. Mathews was expected to play an important hand, but his stay in the middle was short-lived before he was stumped off KP Appanna's bowling.
Smith (24* from 25 balls) failed to accelerate the scoring, and with wickets continuing to fall at the other end, it was a 'mini-victory' of sorts for the Warriors that they weren't bowled out inside 20 overs. Muralitharan with figures of 4-0-16-2 showed yet again the reason batsmen the world over are mighty relieved that he has retired from international cricket. Zaheer (2-21) and Vinay Kumar (3-32) were also impressive as RCB continued their winning ways.
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