T20 Cricket News

Jacques Kallis scored his sixth half-century in 10 innings this season and, along with Virat Kohli, helped staged a spectacular comeback from a middle-over stutter that cost Royal Challengers Bangalore three wickets for eight runs. The two added 95 in 8.4 overs, and that after they put on just 24 off the first 23 balls of their association.

If Deccan Chargers were still wondering why they found themselves in the bottom quarter of the table, this innings served as a study. They bowled well in the first 14 overs to take charge, but went for 92 runs in the last six, doubling the score at the 14-over mark. Kohli and Kallis went berserk in the absence of yorkers and abundance of length balls, and Deccan's tournament economy-rate in last six overs became worse, at 11.44 an over. Next-worst is 9.89.

On a pitch that helped quick bowlers, Pragyan Ojha and Andrew Symonds had kept the runs down and struck big blows in the middle overs, forcing Bangalore into rebuilding mode. After Deccan put Bangalore in on a greenish pitch, Ryan Harris got little support from Harmeet Singh, RP Singh and Mitchell Marsh in the initial stages. Despite Harris' two overs for just five runs and Manish Pandey's wicket, Kallis and Rahul Dravid took Bangalore to 46 by the end of the Powerplay. Ojha and Symonds, though, introduced immediate brakes with three wickets in the next three overs, including the massive ones of Robin Uthappa and Ross Taylor.

Kallis, 32 off 23 then, improved his strike-rate almost unnoticed, and he was enjoying the pace of the pitch, scoring through glances and upper-cuts. One of those upper-cuts, an incredible shot played almost from leg-stump line, off Harris in the 15th over, signalled the start of the assault.

Symonds came back in the 17th over, bowling length to Kohli who showed he could dabble in the power-hitting business too. Two sixes and two fours came in that Symonds over, one of them hit the roof of the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. RP came back to bowl short at a gentle pace to Kallis and went for back-to-back boundaries. Later in the over he gave Kohli length, and was lofted inside-out for another six. Same was the story with Marsh and Harris, who finished off, and despite the wickets of Kallis and Kohli, Bangalore finished with two muscled sixes off the last two balls by Cameron White.

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