IPL 2 Game 16: Gibbs Powers Chargers To Win Over Super Kings

The Deccan Chargers thought they were in huge trouble when Matthew Hayden got going. But that was until Herschelle Gibbs once again showed that he has now made it a habit to gatecrash IPL 2 parties, certainly a different take from the first IPL season.
Thanks to Fidel Edwards, the Hyderabad Deccan Chargers picked up Parthiv Patel without a run on board for the Chennai Super Kings. But Adam Gilchrist’s hopes of exploiting the pitch early by bowling first backfired as Hayden cut loose, much to Gilly’s dismay.

Hayden and Suresh Raina formed a destructive partnership, the former going to make forty-nine priceless runs. But just when the Chennai Super Kings were going great guns, once again it was Pragyan Ojha who struck to derail their train. Two wickets in the thirteenth over including that of CSK captain Mahendra Singh and Hayden himself, Chennai lost their way from 101 for two to leave themselves vulnerable at 165 at Kingsmead, Durban.
Perhaps facing a different opposition, the word vulnerable would not come into the picture. But facing a team that has won three out of three matches prior to this with Herschelle Gibbs in arguably one of the best phases of his cricketing career and Gilchrist proving to be a handful, that word would best describe the Chennai Super Kings given their rigidity not to alter their bowling line up despite the repeated inability to make the combination of Manpreet Gony, Joginder Sharma and Jacob Oram work.
The story did not prove much different from that feared. Gibbs and Gilchrist got stuck into the CSK bowling, Gilchrist in particular ruthless on the occasion. Even when he departed for forty-four, the score read sixty-seven runs in just under six overs and with Gibbs smashing sixty-nine runs and the likes of Dwayne Smith and Rohit Sharma proving handy batsmen in the finishing stages, the Deccan Chargers never really looked like they would lose, except perhaps when Hayden was going hammer and tongs.

IPL 2 Game 15: Kings XI Shred Royals Tag

IPL 2 Game 14: RCB Mess Up Against Daredevils

IPL 2 Game 13: Rain, Team Unrest Mar KKR Progress

IPL 2 Game 12: Charging to Down the Mumbai Indians

IPL 2 Game 11: RCB Fail to Get Past Kings XI

IPL 2 Game 10: KKR Hand Match to Royals, In Super Over as Well!

IPL 2 Game 9: Daredevils Dare to Race Past Super Kings

IPL 2 Game 8: Gilly Leads Chargers to Beat Royal Challenge

Cheerleaders: Running Wild and Free

IPL 2: No Respite from the Rain

IPL 2 Game 7: Mumbai’s Tie with Rajasthan That Never Got Underway

7 Minute Itch: Taking the Fizz Out of the Game