(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) Punjab?s third straight victory; balaji takes four wickets
glenn maxwell of kings xi punjab plays a shot against sunrisers. — kt photo by m. sajjad
kings xi punjab registered their third straight win in as many outings in match 9 of the uae phase of pepsi ipl 2014 on tuesday night at the sharjah cricket stadium.
this time they outsmarted sunrisers hyderabad (srh) by 72 runs thanks to another dazzling knock by glenn maxwell who soared high on a 43-ball 95 with five 4s and nine 6s.
again like on sunday maxwell was dropped early in his adventure on tuesday night.
srh choosing to field after winning the toss were pounded by the kxip batting line up which put up 193-6 in the 20 over allotment.
in their reply srh after being placed on 95-7 off 14.1 overs folded up at 121 in 19.2 overs with kxip’s first change medium pacer lakshmipathy balaji bagging three wickets in a miserly three-over spell early in the innings. balaji finished with an impressive 4-13.
for srh this was their second consecutive loss having lost to rajasthan royals during the weekend in abu dhabi. srh crawled to 54-4 from eight overs as the middle order struggled against both pace and spin.
earlier in the first innings srh could not contain the early flow of runs as kxip’s virender sehwag and cheteshwar pujara put up 51 runs for the first wicket till sehwag (30 from 22) holed out to deep long on where darren sammy pocketed the offer off leggie amit mishra’s second ball in his first over.
later the all leg spin combination of karn sharma and mishra put the brakes on the kings scoring rate. by the 10th over the scoreboard read a decent 77-1 after srh had to go through the agony of having dropped number three batter maxwell on the long off boundary off karn’s bowling the ‘villain’ for srh in the act being the normally reliable david warner.
the seasoned customer venugopal rao took a skier waist high hardly a feet or two from the boundary line at mid wicket to give sammy the wicket of pujara whose 35 off 32 was again of high utility value in the 11th over (86-2).
this brought to the stage the men continue to bombard the opponents in the league with their explosive batting.
maxwell and david miller did not disappoint the weekday crowd and in no time maxwell raced to his half ton mark in 20 balls. miller helped himself to a six meanwhile all so effortlessly executed as shikhar dhawan hands folded in disbelief and his brigade stood watching helplessly when the balls were retrieved from the stands and the boundary areas.
bhuvneshwar kumar provided a moment of relief when he ran in hard at deep midwicket to pouch maxwell off sammy in the 14th over but to the dismay of his fans and teammates he (sammy) was pulled up for a no-ball.
the 15th over strategic time-out had the kings on a high pedestal again at 152-2 as maxwell then on 79 from 29 balls and miller (9 n.o.) looked invincible at the crease. miller left for 10 caught by warner at long on off kumar in the 16th over (154-3).
dale steyn bowled an effective 17th to see the kings still stuck below the 170 mark (163-3).
maxwell finally fell for 95 from 43 balls caught by the dependable sammy this time at long off off mishra’s (2-56) final fourth over for the kxip’s scoreline to read 179-4. kumar’s fine effort for the evenings saw him claim three victims for 19 from his full quota of four overs.
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