Chargers clinch a thriller against Challengers

Nagpur, Apr 12: Some tight bowling and lethal ground fielding by Deccan Chargers earned an important victory for them over Bangalore Royal Challengers at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium, Jamtha here tonight.
In their 13-run win, Harmeet Singh’s two wickets – including the wicket of Robing Uthappa – in the penultimate over, won the game for the home side. Pragyan Ojha, RP Singh and Ryan Harris too contributed with two wickets each while Andrew Symonds chipped in with a wicket.
For the visiting side, Rahul Dravid (49 off 34 balls) continued from where he left in the last innings for Challengers, finding gaps at his will and scoring all round the ground together with Jacques Kallis (27 off 37) – the highest run getter in the competition. Robin Uthappa in his 34-run innings hit three sixes and kept the hope of a Challengers’ win alive till the end.
Earlier, Rohit Sharma and Mohnish Mishra did the repairing job for Chargers by scoring 51 and 41 respectively after the initial storm created by Dale Styen whose three wickets for 18 runs almost done the job for his team. Anil Kumble and Vinay Kumar shared a wicket each for Challengers.
In reply, Bangalore’s innings started on the same note as Chargers, lost Manish Pandey on the first ball by Harris. He became the third golden duck of the night – Adam Gilchrist and T Suman were the other two in Deccan’s innings.
Dravid played all his favourite shots, square cut off Harmeet Singh, lofted shot over cover off Pragyan Ojha, square drive off Ryan Harris and delicate touches off Symonds.
But once he fell, none of the other batsmen could keep the asking rate down and crumbled under pressure thus gave away a thrilling victory to the home side.