Kolkata clinch cliffhanger by five runs

Kolkata: Having already experienced a cliffhanger between Delhi and Chennai during the day, it made for a perfect build-up for the rematch featuring Kolkata and Bangalore, the sides who set the stage up for the Indian Premier League.

It didn't go down to the last ball — Ishant Sharma bowled a brilliant final over — but two dot balls as Kolkata prevailed by five runs at the Eden Gardens here on Thursday.

Needing 34 runs from the last two overs, Mark Boucher, who scratched around early on in his partnership with Cameron White (30) as the duo got Bangalore back in the match, took it upon himself as White was run out on the first ball of the penultimate over. But despite taking 15 runs from the next four balls, the South African wicketkeeper-batsman denied a single to Praveen Kumar off the final ball to keep strike.

Boucher (50 not out) started the final over off Ishant in fine fashion as he hoicked the first ball to the boundary but refused another single next ball. The Indian speedster kept his nerve as Boucher didn't get the big shot, condemning Bangalore to their sixth defeat in eight games.

Man of the match Sourav Ganguly swung the pendulum back for his side with the ball. His three overs costed just seven runs which included the wicket of Rahul Dravid, while Ishant Sharma picked up another which included an outstanding spell at the death. But it was stupendous fielding from both sides which set a new fielding benchmark in the competition.

Two fantastic run outs got Bangalore the upper hand in the match, as Kolkata were restricted to 129-7 in the first rain-curtailed encounter of the IPL, before the Sourav Ganguly led side took the standards to an unheralded high in the field.

The early loss of Shivnarine Chanderpaul prompted Karnataka’s veteran batsman J Arunkumar (22) to launch an assault on Umar Gul in the fifth over of play, before Brad Hodge sensationally stopped a skimmer at point and threw the stumps down. But it was a long forgotten man from the cricketing circles who made the capacity Eden Gardens crowd stand up and take notice.

Tatenda Taibu, the diminutive former Zimbabwe captain playing his first game in the tournament, was not donning the gloves behind the stumps. Fielding at mid-on in the fourth over, he pulled off an astounding save. Hit firmly to his right, for a small man, Taibu ran huge steps before diving parallel to the ground to keep it down to one what would have been a sure boundary.

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