AB Devilliers and Dwayne Smith - Two IPL Superstars on Super Sunday...

What a Sunday it has been... Two amazing matches and amazing chases... am speechless after watching the match..

De Villiers' innings has been a simply superb one.. 17 balls 47 with 5 fours and 3 amazing sixers... don't have words to express his innings... He totally destroyed his countryman Dale Steyn, the best bowler in the world... taking him for 23 runs in the 17th over to turn the match in the favour of Bangalore Royal Challengers.  Royal Challengers chased out a target of 181 set by Deccan Chargers thanks to the De Villiers carnage and Dilshan's innings at the top.

IPL Superstar: Amazing AB de Villiers' innings of 47 from 17 balls taking RCB to a great win over DC. Pics courtesy: AFP

AB de Villiers' innings has been the best I've ever seen in quite a while!!

Another amazing match between Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians... Dwayne Smith hit 6, 4 and 4 off the last 3 balls.... 14 of the last 3 balls.. Anyone would bet the bowling team to win the match but T20 game is quiet weird... anything can happen and that magical turnaround happened with Dwayne Smith hitting the 14 runs in the remaining 3 balls off Hilfenhaus.

 

IPL Superstar Dwayne Smith hits a winning 6, 4 and 4 of the last 3 balls to win the match for Mumbai Indians against the reigning IPL Champs CSK
Pics courtesy: AP Photo/ Rajanish Kakade

This has been an amazing day for IPL and T20 fans... two wonderful matches...  This years IPL has brought us quite a few amazing matches... looking forward for more such matches...

Amazing Morkel snatches victory for Delhi Daredevils

Amazing bowling performance from Morkel (this time from Morne Morkel and not his brother Albie Morkel) inspired a great win for the Delhi Daredevils against the Rajasthan Royals in the IPL 2012 match today.

 

IPL Delhi Daredevils' player Morne Morkel's inspired performance took them to an improbable victory over the Rajasthan Royals

Pics courtesy:  PRAKASH SINGH/AFP/GettyImages

Rajasthan Royals were chasing a target of 153 and were going along easily courtesy of another great innings by Ajinkya Rahane. Only 15 was required of 12 balls when Morne Morkel bowled a great penultimate over for the Delhi team giving away only 3 wickets and taking Hodge's prized wicket too.
Rahane tried hard but could score only 10 runs in the last over and Rajasthan Royals were beaten by only one run!!!

Today there was one another splendid bowling performance by Dale Steyn for the Deccan Chargers but it was for a losing cause. Steyn's hot bowling took Mumbai Indians by surprise as they found him too hard to handle. Steyn's figures of 2 for 10 doesn't show how well he has bowled. It should have been 3 for 9 but for a dolly catch miss by Amit Mishra.

 

Deccan Charger's Dale Steyn bowled an inspiring spell against the Mumbai Indians today

Poor Dale Steyn... he must be feeling that he got a raw deal by playing for Deccan Chargers.. his bowling spells should be winning matches but instead the rest of the Deccan Chargers team is giving it up so easily with many easy runs and dropped catches!!

Today's IPL Performances: Dale Steyn's bowling and Morne Morkel's penultimate over

Kevin Pietersen scores century number 2 in IPL 2012

We've got centurion number 2 in the IPL 2012 edition.... Kevin Pietersen, the swashbuckling English batsman scored his first T20 century against the Deccan Chargers to take his Delhi Daredevil's team to a great victory.
IPL 2012 witnessed its first century just three days ago in the form of Ajinkya Rahane's century.

Pietersen took just 64 balls to score the 103 run and hit 9 sixers in all. Pietersen also hit the winning runs in the form of his 9th sixer to take his score to 103 runs and remained not out.

 

Delhi Daredevil's Kevin Pietersen acknowledges the crowd after scoring his first T20 century against the Deccan Chargers in IPL 2012

 

Pietersen hit 9 sixers in his amazing century making it the second century in the IPL 2012 after Ajinkya Rahane scored the first one

Pics courtesy: MANAN VATSYAYANA/AFP/Getty Images

Kevin Pietersen mentioned that his first T20 century will be his favourite one too... and said its an amazing feeling to score century in this form too.

Looking forward to some more centuries this year.. My next bet would be Gayle.. he might not be far behind.. :)

Gayle sixers.. stay away from them :)

IPL 2012 edition got a Gayle special.... 5 sixers in an over by Royal Challenger's Chris Gayle against Pune Warriors' spinner Rahul Sharma.. it was a special innings which took Royal Challengers to an improbable victory in the last over... courtesy another beautiful innings by AB de Villiers in the end.....

 

IPL 2012 - Chris Gayle hit 5 sixers off Rahul Sharma's over

Chasing 183 for victory after Pune Warriors posted a challenging score of 182 for 6, Chris Gayle started slowly but then quickly shifted gears to score five sixers in one over of Rahul Sharma who has got the best economy rate in IPL. Royal Challengers Bangalore came back into the game courtesy of the Gayle-storm innings but his wicket shifted the match in Pune Warriors. But, AB de Villiers and Saurabh Tiwary scored 24 runs of the final over by Ashish Nehra to snatch an amazing victory.

 

De Villiers celebrates after taking RCB to an improbably victory against Pune Warriors in the IPL 2012 edition

Pics courtesy: Manjunath Kiran/AFP/Getty Images

One of the five sixers that Gayle scored off Rahul Sharma hit a girl spectator and broke her nose. But thankfully, she was quickly taken to Vijay Mallya's hospital and treated quickly for a fracture.  Gayle and Mallya visited the injured girl at the hospital and made her happy. She was even given a free tickets for RCB's  Bangalore matches.

I hope there wouldn't be any more freakish injuries due to the Gaylestorm :) Its best to avoid those hits...
Love watching Chris Gayle's hits.. looking forward to more sixers from Gayle. 

Centurion Ajinkya Rahane - IPL 2012 gets its first century

IPL 2012, the fifth edition, got its first century today in the form of Ajinkya Rahane of Rajasthan Royals who scored a swashbuckling century against Bangalore Royal Challengers at the Chinnaswamy stadium in Bangalore.

 

Ajinkya Rahane of Rajasthan Royals scored the first century of this IPL 2012 against the Royal Challengers Bangalore

Pics courtesy: Manjunath Kiran/AFP/Getty Images

Ajinkya Rahane showed his class and temperament during this innings as he initially settled down to build partnership with Dravid and then took over the responsibility of hitting some quality shots with Owais Shah who supported him with a quickfire 60. Atlast the Royals amassed a total of 195 runs in their 20 overs, a score which the Royal Challengers found difficult to chase and they folded out for 136 runs.

 

IPL 2012 saw its first century by Rajasthan Royal's Ajinkya Rahane who scored an unbeaten 103 off 60 balls with 12 fours and 5 sixes

Pics courtesy: Manjunath Kiran/AFP/Getty Images

Enroute to his first IPL century, Rahane also smashed six consecutive fours off an over of S Aravind, which is a first in Twenty20 history. Ajinkya Rahane ended up wioth an unbeaten 103 off 60 balls with 12 fours and five sixes.

I hope the selectors would've taken a note of this innings and the one before where he narrowly missed his century.... These innings were of supreme quality stroke making and deserves to be rewarded with a longer run in the Indian squad.

Albie Morkel blitz - CSK beats RCB

What an incredible match it was!! Chennai Super Kings vs Bangalore Royal Challengers.... This was the match of the tournament so far by a huge margin....

Chasing a target of 208 set by the Bangalore Royal Challengers, I thought it was out of their reach when they were requiring 43 runs in the last two overs with Dhoni just getting out. Who would have thought that an over from Virat Kohli with Albie Morkel just coming in would cost 28 runs!! Amazing finish from Albie and Bravo...

 

Albie Morkel's blitz in the end took Chennai Super Kings to an improbable win against the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the IPL 2012 tournament

Chris Gayle went all guns blazing in the first half for the Royal Challengers with Virat Kohli giving good support. But, a responsible innings from Du Plessis and supported by Dhoni set up the finish for Albie and Bravo...

 

Ravindra Jadeja of CSK is ecstatic after scoring the winning runs against the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the match of the IPL 2012 so far

 

 

IPL Superstar for Chennai Super Kings Faf du Plessis played an important role in CSK's win over RCB in IPL 2012

Turning Point: Albie Morkel's 19th over burst for 28 runs of Virat Kohli's medium pace bowling.

It was an important victory for the Chennai Super Kings and Dhoni as they can't afford to lose 3 out of 4 matches and languish at the bottom of the table.

 

IPL season 5 - Match of the tournament so far - Captains Dhoni and Vettori in the presentation ceremony after the CSK's incredible win over RCB

Pics courtesy: AFP and Getty Images

As for the Bangalore Royal Challengers, they do have a great team and hope they do well in their remaining matches.