IPL: 5 best last over finishes from IPL 2009

#3 Kings XI Punjab vs Deccan Chargers (17 May 2009)

Irfan Pathan bowled a superb final over to win the match for Kings XI Punjab against Deccan Chargers.

After escaping with an unlikely victory from the jaws of a defeat against Kolkata Knight Riders, the Deccan Chargers were involved in another humdinger of a match against Kings XI Punjab on 17 May 2009 at New Wanderers stadium in Johannesburg.

Put into bat by Adam Gilchrist, Kings XI Punjab scored a modest total of 134/7 in their 20 overs, on the back of Kumar Sangakkara's half-century and a quickfire 17 runs off just 11 balls by Irfan Pathan down the order. For Deccan Chargers, RP Singh was the most successful bowler as he picked up 3 wickets for just 26 runs in his 4 overs.

Chasing 135, Deccan Chargers lost wickets at regular intervals courtesy of a hat-trick by Punjab skipper Yuvraj Singh and were reduced to 110/5 in 18 over with Rohit Sharma waging a lone battle and required 25 runs from the last 2 overs to win the match.

The penultimate over bowled by Brett Lee, saw Deccan Chargers slipping further as Ravi Teja was run out of the 2nd ball. But, Rohit Sharma did not give up and counter-attacked by smashing Brett Lee for a six and a four of the 5th and 6th ball, thereby taking 14 runs from the penultimate over to reduce the equation to an achievable 11 runs of the final six balls.

With Rohit Sharma still at the crease and Deccan Chargers firm favorites to score 11 runs of the final over, Punjab skipper Yuvraj Singh brought on his most trusted bowler Irfan Pathan to bowl the final over.

Rohit Sharma scored six runs off the starting two balls of the final over and with the 3rd ball going for a wide, increasing the pressure on Irfan Pathan as 7 runs were conceded of his starting 2 balls, with Deccan Chargers now requiring just run a ball 4 runs of 4 balls to win the match.

But, Irfan Pathan kept his cool and dismissed Rohit Sharma with a slower delivery of the very next ball for 42 runs thereby giving a huge blow to Deccan Chargers. The dismissal of Rohit Sharma meant that Deccan Chargers tailenders now needed to score 4 runs off 3 balls to win the match, which they failed to do as Irfan Pathan dismissed RP Singh of the penultimate ball, and conceded just 2 runs of the final ball to help Punjab escape with a thrilling one-run win.

Brief Scores:

KXIP – 134/7 (20) – Kumar Sangakkara 56(43), Yuvraj Singh 20(18), RP Singh 3/26(4)

DC – 133/8 (20) – Rohit Sharma 42(26), Herschelle Gibbs 26(37), Yuvraj Singh 3/13(4)

Man of the Match – Yuvraj Singh