Mascarenhas massacres the Pune Warriors

An outstanding bowling effort from Dimitri Mascarenhas propelled the Kings XI Punjab to their first victory in this edition of the IPL as they beat the Pune Warriors by seven wickets at Mohali today. After bundling out the Pune Warriors for a paltry 115, the Kings’ XI romped home thanks to a diligent half century by Shaun Marsh.

Adam Gilchirst won the toss and on typical Mohali track, the Punjab bowlers made merry as the Warriors struggled to put bat to ball. Dimitri Mascarenhas could hardly believe his luck when found English bowling conditions in India and made use of it to bag a fifer. He bowled a tight line and made the ball do enough to nip out five Pune batsmen. Praveen Kumar, too, extracted swing and beat the bat on numerous occasions leaving Pune well short of what they would have aimed for.

The top order has been a problem for the Warriors so far, and it continued to do so as Ryder fell victim of mis-communication with his partner Sourav Ganguly. Ganguly began delightfully by striking three boundaries but the introduction of Mascarenhas had Ganguly back in the hut.

What followed was a batting collapse as none of the batsmen, except, Mithun Manhas could cope with some fine display of swing bowling. Manhas scored a patient 31 to hold fort and take Pune Warriors past the 100 -run mark. While nobody in the middle order failed to cross the 20 -run mark, the lower half failed to get into double figures.

Punjab’s chase also began disastrously as Ashok Dinda castled Paul Valthaty with the very first delivery of the innings. A partnership of 50 -run between the Aussie pair of Shaun Marsh and Adam Gilchirst steadied the run chase before Angelo Mathews sent back Gilchirst.However, Shaun Marsh stayed calm and played a sensible innings to guide the Punjab side to a comfortable victory. Marsh, back after a poor Australian summer, regained his flowing touch as he cruised to a 54 ball 64. He was, however, helped by Ashok Dinda when he dropped Marsh at 41.

The Pune bowlers failed to extract the same kind of swing and movement as the Punjab bowlers. Dinda, Nehra and Mathews bowled good lines but never had enough on the board to restrict the King’s XI Punjab.

The loss here breaks the winning momentum for the Pune Warriors before they face the mighty Chennai Super Kings at home. The King’s XI, however, would be rejuvinated after this victory and would be on a high as they take on the Kolkata Knight Riders.

Scores:

Pune Warriors 115 (19/20 ov)

Kings XI Punjab 116/3 (17.4/20 ov)

Man of the Match: Dimitri Mascarenhas