Frankly speaking, this match was not Kolkata v/s Delhi. It was more of Delhi A v/s Delhi B. Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag, both originally from Delhi, were playing against each other this time. SRK was also present there, who again is born and brought up in Delhi, now lives in Mumbai and is the owner of the IPL team from Kolkata- interesting. Well, another feature to look out in this match was Irfan Pathan v/s Yusuf Pathan. Unfortunately, they didn't face each other's bowling or batting, but Yusuf Pathan was caught by Irfan Pathan at long on.
The match started off slowly, with Irfan Pathan showing some amazing skills with in-swingers. He ended up being the most economical bowler of the match with a crucial wicket of Jacques Kallis ( 4 overs 16 runs 1 wicket ). KKR's batting was pretty much ordinary and not living up to the strength on paper. Manoj Tiwary was the only one who made an impact with 61 not out, leading KKR to 148 in their 20 overs. I really liked Irfan Pathan today, he surely reminded me of the time when he took that hat trick against Pakistan in a Test Match. He was able to swing almost every delivery. Morne morkel had to bear to burnt on the other side with 42 runs in his 4 overs. Everyone was skeptical with the score, but nonetheless it was competitive enough.
Delhi's batting started off well, but they lost Warner early. Sehwag was looking in good touch, before hitting an awkward short ball to fine leg for an easy catch. The middle order was never very stable, and crumbled very quickly, reducing Delhi to 85/6. Venugopal Rao did what he does best - reviving the innings. His fours and sixes almost led Delhi home, but the wickets kept falling at the other end. After Venu got run out by some fantastic athleticism shown by Brett Lee of his own bowling, there was no ray of hope left. Kolkata won the match by 17 runs, which brought them to the second spot with 8 points, again behind the mighty Mumbai Indians.
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