Kolkata Wins The Inaugural Match by 140 Runs against Bangalore :

Brendon McCullum gave IPL the perfect start that was expected of the first match of the much hyped tournament. On Friday at 8:00 IST the whole world with million of cricket fans all over the world saw the cricket changing for ever. Earlier in the evening thousands of people sitting in theChinnaswamy stadium and millions watching glued to their television watched a spectacular opening ceremony of the gala event with host of artists performing there but soon cricket took centrestage as the two former captains of India Ganguly and Dravid walked out for the toss.

                                       

The destiny played leveler in the match, as it eventually turned out Dravid won the toss but lost the match and Ganguly lost the toss but had it leveled by winning the match .

There were bollywood style razzmatazz,scurrying lasers, heart stopping cheerleaders and resplendent fireworks but the night actually belonged to Knight. The real fireworks were actually provided by him. Brendon McCullum played an innings which one seldom gets an opportunity to see these days. None of theBangalore’s Royal Challengers bowlers were spared from his wrath. Such was his marauding batting display that he hit 10 fours and 13 sixes to blaze to 158* coming of just 73 balls and in process taking his team Kolkata Knight Riders score to 222 in their stipulated 20 overs. But what came as a  real shock was the meek submission of the Royal Challengers. They were skittered out for a paltry 82.

Rahul Dravid would have rued about his desicion to bowl first on winning the toss in the second over of the match itself with Zaheer Khan proving expensive with 18 runs of his very first over. McCullum alone proved to be more than handful for the Royal Challengers by belting 158 of his team’s 222. No other Knights left any impression in batting. Ganguly coming on to open the innings with McCullum never looked comfortable and went cheaply for 10 but what mattered was the partnership of 61 that he put for the first wicket before he was caught at slip by Kallis of Zaheer Khan’s delivery. Ricky Ponting then made 20 before he too perishing of Kallis caught by P. Kumar but not before adding 51 runs for the second wicket. D Hussey could also not do much with the bat as he too fell cheaply for 12 caught by White of Noffke but from their Hafeez and McCullum made sure that no balls are further wasted on falling wickets and in process took their team’s total to 222.

Coming in to bat Royal Challengers looked bludgeoned even before the first ball was bowled. The score of 222 was never going to be easy to achieve but it was the manner in which Dravid and his team went about in chasing  the score that showed lack of game plan on their part. Moreover the Knight Rider’s bowlers were right on the track from the very first delivery. Ishant took the prized wicket of Rahul Dravid of the very first ball of his spell and since then the Bangalore team never seemed to get over the setback. How miserable was their performance could be imagined from the fact that the highest scorer for them was the extras with 19 runs.

For knight Riders, A Dinda took 2 wickets for 9 runs, Ishant took 1/7, Ganguly and L R Shukla too joined the party with 2/21 and 1/11 respectively. But the man who took away the accloades in the bowling department was the Indian veteran Ajit Agarkar who took 3/25.

by Tusar "Kolkata Wins The Inaugural Match by 140 Runs against Bangalore" was published on April 20th, 2008 and is listed in Uncategorized.