Friday, April 18, 2008

Kolkata crush Bangalore by 140 runs in IPL opener


Kolkata Knight Riders recorded a massive victory of 140 runs over Bangalore Royal Challengers in the inaugural match of the Indian Premier League here at the Chinnaswami Stadium on Friday.

Set an improbable target of 223 runs in 20 overs, Bangalore batsmen were seen in trouble right from the beginning and the whole team was bundled out for 82 in 15.1 overs.

None of their batsmen could enter into double figure except Praveen Kumar, who made 18 runs and remained not out.

However, it was interesting to note that Bangalore’s highest scorer was not any batsman but ‘Mr. Extras’, who contributed 19 runs with eight leg-byes and eleven wides.

From Kolkata Knight Riders, pacer Ajit Agarkar was the most successful bowler with three wickets for 25 runs while Ashok Dinda and captain Sourav Ganguly claimed two wickets each for nine and 21 runs, respectively.

Earlier, Rahul Dravid, captain of the Bangalore Royal Challengers won the toss and opted to field but his decision went wrong when the Kolkata batsmen severely punished his bowlers to amass a huge score of 222 runs for three wickets in the allotted 20 overs.

However, this was one man show as Kolkata’s opener Brendon McCullum hammered an unbeaten 158 off just 73 balls with 14 big sixes and nine fours.

This is the highest individual score by any batsman in Twenty20 cricket.

No other batsman made any significant score as Ricky Ponting (20), Michael Hussey (12) and captain Sourav Ganguly(10) went back to pavilion one after another.

Mohammad Hafeez from Pakistan was unbeaten on five.

Zaheer Khan, A. Noffke and Jacques Kallis claimed one wicket each.

Geo Super gave the live coverage of the match as it obtained the exclusive telecast rights for showing all matches of the tournament, which will continue till June 8.

The commencement of IPL has taken the entire world of cricket by storm. IPL is literally a cricket league but this is in fact the beginning of a revolution which will change the history of cricket.

The opening ceremony was a blend of fireworks, stilt walkers, aerial gymnasts, performers in a bubble and some Bollywood glitter with the presence of Shah Rukh Khan, also the co-owner of the Kolkata team.

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