JOIN USKings XI stay in hunt for a berth in semifinal
Pathan, who picked up two wickets for 22 runs during the Delhi Daredevils innings, blasted three sixes in his 11-ball unbeaten 21 and along with Kumar Sangakkara (43 not out off 47 balls), guided Punjab through with five balls balls to spare.
This was a match Kings XI Punjab needed to win to keep their semifinal hopes alive but chasing 121 for victory they put themselves into all sorts of trouble and at one point it looked their bowlers good work would come to nought.
The Punjab pace trio of Brett Lee (3/15), S Sreesanth (2/20) and Pathan vindicated skipper Yuvraj Singh’s decision to field first by restricting the marauding Delhi Daredevils batsmen to 120 for nine.
With the wicket keeping low and slow the Delhi batsmen struggled and had it not been for the 50 runs partnership between Dinesh Kaarthick and Mithun Manhas, they would have been in even more trouble.
Top-scorer Karthik, who scored 32 off just 29 balls, and Manhas, who came up with 26 off 25 balls fell in quick succession trying to clear the boundary.
Lee, who gave away seven runs in his first over, bowled a superb spell, giving away just eight in his next three and picking up three wickets.
Sreesanth and Pathan too joined in with two wickets each that put the spanner in Delhi’s innings.
But 121 was not an easy target as Punjab found out much to their dismay.
Simon Katich (20), Sunny Sohal (3) and Luke Pomersbach (9) departed with just 35 on board.
Sohal’s leg stump was sent cartwheeling by an Ashish Nehra (1/6) beauty with AB de Villiers picking up a great catch at slip to remove Pomersbach off Farveez Maharoof, who finished with two wickets for 29 runs.
Yuvraj (18 off 31) was lucky after he was put down at slip by Gautam Gambhir off Nehra for zero.
He added 53 runs for the fourth wicket with Kumar Sangakkara but perished chasing a widish delivery.
And with the run rate mounting, it was left to Sangakkara — he hit six fours — and Pathan to finish off the job.
SCORE BOARD
DELHI DAREDEVILS:
Gautham Gambhir (run out) 8,
Virender Sehwag c Sangakkara b Lee 9,
Tillakaratne Dilshan c Yuvraj Singh b Sreesanth 10,
AB de Villiers c Yuvraj Singh b Sreesanth 11,
Mithun Manhas c Sohal b Mota 26,
Dinesh Kaarthick c Mota b Pathan 32,
Fervez Maharoof b Lee 3,
Daniel Vettori c Sohal b Pathan 1,
Rajat Bhatia c Chawla b Lee 0,
Pradeep Sangwan (not out) 5,
Ashish Nehra (not out) 1.
Extras (LB-7, W-7) 14. Total (for 9 wkts, 20 overs) 120.
Fall of wickets: 1-19, 2-20, 3-46, 4-51, 5-101, 6-104, 7-111, 8-111, 9-116.
Bowling: Brett Lee 4-1-15-3, Irfan Pathan 4-0-22-2, Piyush Chawla 3-1-16-0, S Sreesanth 4-0-20-2, Ramesh Powar 3-0-20-0, Yuvraj Singh 1-0-14-0, Wilkin Mota 1-0-6-1.
KINGS XI PUNJAB:
Sunny Sohal b Nehra 3,
Simon Katich c Karthik b Maharoof 20,
Luke Pomersbach c de Villiers b Maharoof 9,
Yuvraj Singh c Sehwag b Sangwan 18,
Kumar Sangakkara (not out) 43,
Irfan Pathan (not out) 21.
Extras (LB-2, W-3, NB-4) 9. Total (for 4 wkts in 19.1 overs) 123.
Fall of wickets: 1-22, 2-35, 3-35, 4-88.
Bowling: Ashish Nehra 4-1-6-1, Pradeep Sangwan 4-0-42-1, Ferveez Maharoof 4-0-29-2, Daniel Vettori 3.1-0-15 -0, Rajat Bhatia 3-0-22-0, Tillakaratne Dilshan 1-0-7-0.