Kings 11 Over

Punjabs hopes ends after Mishra hat-trick amp; Dhawans 95 give Deccan 82-run win

A win for Kings XI Punjab would have spiced up the final day of league fixtures,and given rise to a winner-takes-all clash between Mumbai and Kolkata for the final playoff spot. Instead,Deccan Chargers-with nothing to play for-hammered Punjab by 82 runs,in a match lit up by an unbeaten 95 from Shikhar Dhawan and a hat-trick for Amit Mishra.

Sundays clashes will therefore only serve to decide who among Bangalore,Kolkata and Mumbai will meet Chennai in the first qualifier and which two will go head to head in the first eliminator.

Having conceded nearly 200 after electing to field,Punjab needed skipper Adam Gilchrist,coming into this game on the back of a scintillating hundred against Bangalore,to fire. He did,but the other two danger men in the top three,Paul Valthaty and Shaun Marsh,didnt. Both were gone by the time Punjab had crossed 25.

Hope vanishes

Once Gilchrist,who had made 51 off 37,departed with just under 10 overs to go,Punjabs hopes vanished. Against a demoralised set of batsmen,on a wicket giving him plenty of purchase,Amit Mishra stormed into the breach. The leg-spinner,who was already Deccans highest wicket taker for the season,proceeded to hurry up the rungs to end the game in second place among the tournaments leading wicket-takers.

Mishras second IPL hat-trick his first was for Delhi,against the team he now represents,back in 2008 began with Ryan McLaren slogging him down deep midwickets throat.

The next ball saw him entice Mandeep Singh down the wicket with flight and beat with near-perpendicular turn. Victim number three was Ryan Harris,who opened his face and guided Mishra into a region that would probably have been vacant had the bowler not been on a hat-trick. He was,however,and second slip gobbled up the chance.

Gobbling up chances was precisely what Punjab didnt do during their time on the field. Their largesse began in the very first over,Valthaty putting down a skier from DB Ravi Teja at square leg off Praveen Kumar.

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Ravi Teja went on to make 60,surviving three more dropped catches by Piyush Chawla when on 24,and twice by Ryan Harris,on 37 and 58. Apart from Chawlas the bowler having to react quickly on his follow-through all were straightforward chances.

By the time Abhishek Nayar held on to a skyer to belatedly send him back,Ravi Teja had put on 131 for the first wicket with Shikhar Dhawan.

The left-handed Dhawans 57-ball 95 was a rare example of a batsman playing a dominant Twenty20 knock without clearing the fence repeatedly. Dhawan only hit one six,and instead scored the bulk of his runs with crunching drives down the ground- forcing Cameron White to jump out of the way of one particularly violent wallop between the bowler and mid off-and through cover and powerful sweeps off the spinners.