Deccan Chargers, IPL Champions 2009

Who could expect, that the teams which managed to grab the last two positions in the last season would be the finalists in the next one. IPL-2 Final held between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Deccan Chargers was qualified enough to be a perfect entertainer. People of Johanesburg experienced a suspense thriller, winning edge oscillating on either of the ends till the last over bowled. Virtually royal challangers had the opportunity to crack the game but couldn’t use it. Deccan Chargers beat the royals by  ’6 runs’.

Royal’s won the toss and Anil kumble elected to field first. Anil shocked the opponents with he himself opening the attack for the challengers. Anil started the proceedings especially for Gilchrist as he would be extremely dangerous if not stopped, and he was  delighted with the departure of Gilly at just the third ball of the innings. It was a mighty blow for chargers to loose the captain, a man in a great form at such an early stage of the game. Game proceeded at the rate of 6-7. Symonds was dropped at the slip by Rahul, right from the next ball symo started to crack out the ball. When he was turning out to be a threat, Anil chipped in and gave a break to the team by sending symonds back in to the dug. Anil made himself available whenever the batsmen started to stepout. He was successful too. He even took the pricey wicket of Rohit Sharma, star performer for the Deccans, Venugopal Rao lined up in the same over to kumble. Gibbs played a patient and a responsible innings and reached his 50 with sensational six. Team was able to grab 60 runs in the last  5 overs of the game. They ended up with 143 on board. For them it was quite good enough to challenge the challangers. Royals were relaxed as they’ve chased similar totals quite easily, they felt the cup was a couple of hours away from them.

RP Singh ‘the purple man’ provided the first breakthrough to the team in the form of Jaques kallis in the 4th over of the game. RP was stopped after this over and was saved for the last. Vander Merve took the chance and tried to hit everything that came in his way out of the park, didn’t even spared wickets . He broke the wickets by diving while taking a run in a trial to escape runout. Ojha was used at a cruical time in the 7th over and he was productive by removing Manish Pandey for just 4 . Challengers looked in some pressure as Chargers had the momentum by maintaining the required rate higher. Ross Taylor was driving away the pressure clouds with big hits. Deccans badly needed the wicktes at that point of time, which was presented by Symo. A magic over of symonds turned evrything into the Deccans way. He took Taylor and Virat Kohli in two consecutive balls. Harmit Singh believed to be the lucky charm for the Deccans, as they won all the games with him playing on their side. He proved to be more than just acting as a charm. Took the wickets of two match winners, Rahul Dravid and Mark Boucher and a brilliant catch in the deep of Vinay Kumar. It was last over, needed 14 runs which wasn’t an impossible task as Robin Uthappa and Kumble were in the crease. Uthappa was a man who could hit big. By that time he even had one. RP was the man with ball, experienced enough to ball at such pressure situations. It was a briliant over which took just 8 runs. Royal’s fell short by one big shot. Kumble was dissapointed with Uthappa’s attempt. He could have started to play an aggressive role a bit earlier in the game. Ultimately it was the Deccan’s day!!!

AWARDS: Vander Merve was give Maximum’s award, Anil Kumble was given the “Man of the Match” for 4 wickets in 4 overs with just 16 runs

Rohit Sharma was given the best under 23 citi player, which was decided by a panel of Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri and MAK Pataudi,

Adam Gilchrist was named Golden player of the Tournament for 496 runs and brilliant work behind the stumps and behind the team.

RP Singh was awarded Purple cap, Mathew Hayded was awarded Orange Cap, Punjab Kings XI was given the Fair play award.