Match date - 24th April 2007
Kings XI Punjab won by 7 wkts
Over by Over Commentry
Pietersen's Royal Challengers have won the toss and decided to bat. Yuvraj would have liked to bat too, but if he chooses tactics as impulsively as he chooses sunglasses, that's not saying much.
1st over: Bangalore Royal Chal
lengers 6-0 (Ryder 4, Uthappa 0). All the runs off two deliveries, the third - sent through mid-on for four, and a couple from the last.
Wicket! Bangalore Royal Challengers 6-1 (Uthappa c Yuvraj b Pathan) Uthappa goes fishing for a wide 'un and just flicks it up to first slip. Kallis comes in.
2nd over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 12-1 (Ryder 4, Kallis 8 0). Kallis settles down immediately, hitting a six off his third delivery, spinning to hook the ball over square leg, and there's another couple off the following ball, hit in the same direction if not quite so hard. Or high.
3rd over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 32-1 (Ryder 24, Kallis 6). Jesse Ryder's started to swing, sending Bose's first ball past mid-off for four. And it didn't get any better for the lad, as Ryder got three more boundaries, 18 off the over.
4th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 39-1 (Ryder 25, Kallis 13). Abdulla comes on, and watches his first ball go for four. It improves from there, and there's only a couple of singles thereafter. Ryder and Kallis, by the way – you wouldn't want to bump into them down a dark alley. They are massive. Huge. The commentators are already making sarcastic remarks about their waist size.
5th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 47-1 (Ryder 32, Kallis 14). Pathan's back on from the other end. The first ball, a decent attempt at a yorker, is kept out. The second offers Ryder some width and he slashes it past square leg for four. After a couple of ducks, the Kiwi's settling nicely here. He even ran three off the fifth ball here, which required more athleticism than seemed likely
WICKET! Bangalore Royal Challengers 48-2 (Ryder b Abdulla 32) It's not a particularly clever delivery, but Ryder's already finished his stroke before it gets anywhere near him and in comes Pietersen.
WICKET! Pietersen OUT! Bangalore Royal Challengers 48-3 (Uthappa c Goel b Abdulla) Pietersen's second ball and a slower delivery leaves him flumoxed. He flips it up to silly mid-off.
6th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 49-3 (Dravid 1, Kallis 15). Two wickets, two runs – suddenly Bangalore's innings crumbles into crisis, and Pietersen's struggles continue. A clever bit of bowling by Abdulla for the Englishman's wicket, though. Maybe he'll invent a knee injury and fly home?
7th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 53-3 (Dravid 3, Kallis 16). The spin begins, Chawla coming on to totally destroy the RC's momentum. Four off the over, all singles.
8th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 62-3 (Dravid 6, Kallis 23). Yuvraj comes on, and his first ball is half-volleyed through the off-side by Kallis, just foiling Pathan's dive.
9th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 65-3 (Dravid 7, Kallis 25). It's like there are twice as many fielders out there as there were 10 minutes ago. Three singles off Chawla.
10th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 71-3 (Dravid 8, Kallis 30). Two dot balls to start the over, but the third flies past Jayawardene for four. Another dot ball and a desperate scrambled single - again to Jayawardene, brooding over the boundary – but it's another slow over. Cue the tactical time-out.
Seven and a half minutes of relative relaxation Crikey, there's a lot of typing involved in these over-by-over jobs. Make football minute-by-minutes seem like a siesta by comparison. So if I'm ignoring some of your emails (many of them about that Fake IPL Player blog – here at Guardian towers, we're already so all over this), sorry. I'll get there in the end. Probably. Wouldn't bet on it, mind.
So who's the worse Twenty20 cricketer, Flintoff or Pietersen? Can England get them both injured in time for the World Twenty20? Anyway, enough about us. Bangalore will be hoping to get as close as possible to 170, but they'll need Dravid and Kallis to stick out there for a while. Tom Moody, the Punjab coach, reckons there's a good chance of a run-out with these two out in the middle. Anyway, back to the action...
WICKET! Bangalore Royal Challengers 73-4 (Dravid c Singh b Chawla 10) Dravid goes for the big one. Safe to say he didn't get it. It falls a good 10 yards inside the rope where Singh is arriving at pace to take the catch comfortably. This wasn't in the script.
11th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 74-4 (Taylor 1, Kallis 31). Ross Taylor comes in but hasn't done anything yet. Bangalore need someone to land some big punches fast.
12th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 87-4 (Taylor 2, Kallis 42). Kallis absolutely creams Yuvraj's first delivery (a long way) over mid-off for six, and the next two deliveries each bring a couple. 13 off the over, Bangalore's best for a while.
13th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 91-4 (Taylor 4, Kallis 44). Now Bopara has a bowl, and it's a nicely disciplined over too - all the runs come in singles, and there are only four of them. The last one was about that far from being called wide though.
14th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 105-4 (Taylor 13, Kallis 49). VRV Singh comes into the attack. His second ball is spooned by Taylor through where first slip would be for four, but if that was a fortunate boundary the next was not - a fine shot, played on the up and through the off-side in a flash. Kallis also has a bit of a go. 14 off the over.
15th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 118-4 (Taylor 19, Kallis 52). Chawla's back on, his first three overs having gone pretty well. Not this one, though. Kallis brings up his half-century by running a couple off the first ball. Taylor thrashes an enormous six. His best ball is missed by both Taylor and the wicketkeeper, and carries for four.
16th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 127-4 (Taylor 20, Kallis 60). Irfan Pathan comes on, and his first ball thrashed by Kallis over the bowlers's head and, with one bounce, for four. That's a 50-run partnership, off 30 balls. The last also goes for four, Taylor's shot marvellously controlled through gully.
WICKET! Bangalore Royal Challengers 134-5 (Kallis c Jayawardene b Abdulla 60) A third wicket for Abdulla tempts Kallis into a wild hook which looks an easy catch for precisely as long as it takes to fall out of the skies and into Jawardene's hands. Virat Kohli comes in.
17th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 136-5 (Taylor 25, Kohli 1). Three wickets for 14 runs from three overs, is Abdulla's figures here. Not very bad at all. Did for Kallis with a slower bouncer, and Bangalore RC need to put their foot down fast.
WICKET! Bangalore Royal Challengers 134-5 (Kohli c Bopara b Singh 2) No time for Kohli to get settled. He sends the ball flying straight down Bopara's throat at mid-on.
18th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 144-6 (Taylor 25, Kumar 2). Nine from the over, plus Kohli's wicket. This is running away from Bangalore.
WICKET! Bangalore Royal Challengers 159-6 (Taylor c Jayawardene b Abdulla 35) Taylor moves across his stumps before the fourth delivery comes in and has to improvise a shot which flies only to Jayawardene.
19th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 162-7 (Vinay Kumar 0, Kumar 13). The bad news: 14 runs from the over, two massive sixes. The good news: Taylor's gone.
WICKET! Bangalore Royal Challengers 162-7 (Kumar lbw b Pathan 13) First ball of the last over and Kumar's gone, lbw. By the way, there were two 15th overs. This is the last, obviously. And here's another...
WICKET! Bangalore Royal Challengers 162-8 (Pankaj Singh b Pathan 0) Pankaj Singh tries to hoik his first ball into the stratosphere, but completely misses it. His leg stump pays the price.
20th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 168-9 (Vinay Kumar 1, Kumble 5). Two wickets and no runs from the first three balls, six off the over. Not enough, you'd have thought.
Innings break Back in 20 minutes, then...
1st over: Kings XI Punjab 3-0 (Bopara 1, Goel 1). Kumar opens the bowling with a wide, in an otherwise unremarkable start.
2nd over: Kings XI Punjab 14-0 (Bopara 3, Goel 8). Punkaj Singh's first over is mainly notable because it saw Pietersen do something well, just about stopping Goel's off-side drive from reaching the boundary. A couple of wides mean the over went for 11 anyway
3rd over: Kings XI Punjab 18-0 (Bopara 5, Goel 10). The bowler, Praveen Kumar, looks to have turned an ankle trying an outlandish run-out. The physio tapes up his boot, which seemed fine – it's what was inside the boot that was struggling. He immediately cuts down his run-up. Uthappa leads a big appeal off the penultimate ball, which caught Goel's thigh-pad. Good decision.
4th over: Kings XI Punjab 29-0 (Bopara 11, Goel 14). I didn't mention the ads for Resolva weed killer. There are as many ads for that as there are for Emmenthal cheese. The thing is, I could do with some weed killer. There are weeds in my garden that are bigger than me. Emmenthal I can live without. Bopara gets the innings going with a fine four through deep square leg.
5th over: Kings XI Punjab 39-0 (Bopara 14, Goel 16). Jacques Kallis's first ball goes for four byes, and is called a wide. So that's five free runs. The wicket-keeper, Uthappa, could have stopped that. A shame, because the batsmen are scoring very slowly.
6th over: Kings XI Punjab 44-0 (Bopara 17, Goel 18). Before the over, Goel changed his bat. Vinay Kumar's first ball finds Bopara's leading edge, but it loops maddeningly out of his grasp. Just two boundaries, bouth fours, from the first five overs.
WICKET! Kings XI Punjab 52-1 (Goel run out 18) A really good throw from deep fine leg, and Goel's slightly half-arsed running, leads to a breakthrough for Pietersen's men. It was close though.
7th over: Kings XI Punjab 57-1 (Bopara 28, Sangakkara 1). From the first ball of the seventh over Bopara thrashes his first six, but just as the partnership looks to be getting going, it's broken.
8th over: Kings XI Punjab 61-1 (Bopara 30, Sangakkara 3). Pietersen's wheels out his part-time off-spin, and he should have got a wicket from it. Sangakkara skies the ball, which falls right into the hands of Rahul Dravid. But, right at the end, his hands move and the ball doesn't. A humiliation. Only four off the over, mind.
9th over: Kings XI Punjab 67-1 (Bopara 33, Sangakkara 7). Kumble comes on. Nothing happens. Six off it. Someone tries to sell me weed-killer. I could use some weed-killer, actually.
10th over: Kings XI Punjab 80-1 (Bopara 32, Sangakkara 19). Pietersen's second over isn't so good. Sangakkara sweeps for four and blasts a six off successive deliveries. At the half-way stage, Punjab are well in charge – they need less than nine an over off the last 10, with lots of wickets to play with.
11th over: Kings XI Punjab 84-1 (Bopara 34, Sangakkara 21). Sangakkara could have gone again, but Kallis's throw from the third man boundary isn't good enough and he just about makes his ground.
12th over: Kings XI Punjab 91-1 (Bopara 34, Sangakkara 26). Jesse Ryder has a go at bowling. He takes the pace right out of it, but gets his length bang on the money. The first five balls go for three, the last a nicely improvised four from the charmed Sangakkara.
WICKET! Kings XI Punjab 91-2 (Sangakkara c Pankaj Singh b Kumble 26) Sangakkara finally goes for it, and he finally goes – caught by Pankaj at long off
13th over: Kings XI Punjab 94-2 (Bopara 38, Yuvraj Singh 1). Kumble's bowling like a master and the asking rate has crept up to 10.7. Could Pietersen somehow end today without looking like an idiot?
14th over: Kings XI Punjab 103-2 (Bopara 44, Yuvraj Singh 4). Praveen Kumar comes back, having had to wait before bowling after receiving treatment to his ankle. Let's just say his over gives Setanta the opportunity to broadcast a lengthy interview with the world's least interesting ball boy, with Bopara's four the only highlight.
15th over: Kings XI Punjab 109-2 (Bopara 48, Yuvraj Singh 6). Another decent Kumble over: tight, in other words. You can't nurdle your way to 10 an over. Someone tries to sell me weed-killer. I could do with some weed-killer, you know.
16th over: Kings XI Punjab 128-2 (Bopara 67, Yuvraj Singh 6). Bopara boshes his way to a half-century, hitting Praveen Kumar's first delivery for six. Then the second goes for four, Kumar giving Uthapa all sorts of evils after it sneaks through. Then the fourth, a full-toss, goes for another six. This is the over Kings XI needed to put themselves back in charge, 19 off it.
17th over: Kings XI Punjab 141-2 (Bopara 69, Yuvraj Singh 17). Kallis comes back and goes for 13.
18th over: Kings XI Punjab 158-2 (Bopara 85, Yuvraj Singh 17). Jesse Ryder loses his discipline, with one really silly full-toss presenting Bopara with a gift-wrapped six, one of two this over. Challengers looked to be coming back into this a couple of over back, but their total's looking close now. And Bopara is the best Englishman in this competition. This has been a really clever innings. Brains and brawn.
WICKET! Kings XI Punjab 158-3 (Bopara c Ryder b Kallis 85) A slower ball, and Bopara's slog isn't quite good enough.
It's all over! Kings XI Punjab 173-3 (Jayawardene 1, Yuvraj Singh 30), 18.6 overs. "How do you reckon Bopara's been playing so far," asks Arun Venkataraman. Well, I'd say this was one late, loose but irrelevant shot away from being the perfect innings. Really well paced, and left his team on the brink of victory.
Final thoughts There might only have been two Englishmen here, but they'll be dividing the headlines between them. For Pietersen, disaster. He won the toss, but nothing went right after that. He got a two-ball duck as his team posted a barely-defensible target which they didn't come close to defending. His day was probably worse than Flintoff's. For Bopara, glory. A mature, composed, really intelligent innings, 85 off 59 balls. So points on the board for Kings XI Punjab, a game they looked likely to win from the moment Pietersen's wicket fell, two balls after that of Jesse Ryder.
Score card
The following is the scoreboard of the match between Bangalore Royal Challengers and Kings XI Punjab in the Indian Premier League (IPL) at the Newlands here Friday.
Bangalore Royal Challengers:
Jesse Ryder b Abdulla 32 (21 balls)
Robin Uthappa c Yuvraj Singh b Pathan 0 (1)
Jacques Kallis c Jayawardene b Abdulla 62 (46)
Kevin Pietersen c Goel b Abdulla 0 (2)
Rahul Dravid c Singh b Chawla 10 (13)
Ross Taylor c Jayawardene b Abdulla 35 (22)
Virat Kohli c Bopara b Singh 2 (3)
Praveen Kumar lbw b Pathan 13 (7)
Vinay Kumar not out 1 (1)
Pankaj Singh b Pathan 0 (1)
Anil Kumble not out 5 (3)
Kings XI Punjab won by 7 wkts
Over by Over Commentry
Pietersen's Royal Challengers have won the toss and decided to bat. Yuvraj would have liked to bat too, but if he chooses tactics as impulsively as he chooses sunglasses, that's not saying much.
1st over: Bangalore Royal Chal
lengers 6-0 (Ryder 4, Uthappa 0). All the runs off two deliveries, the third - sent through mid-on for four, and a couple from the last.Wicket! Bangalore Royal Challengers 6-1 (Uthappa c Yuvraj b Pathan) Uthappa goes fishing for a wide 'un and just flicks it up to first slip. Kallis comes in.
2nd over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 12-1 (Ryder 4, Kallis 8 0). Kallis settles down immediately, hitting a six off his third delivery, spinning to hook the ball over square leg, and there's another couple off the following ball, hit in the same direction if not quite so hard. Or high.
3rd over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 32-1 (Ryder 24, Kallis 6). Jesse Ryder's started to swing, sending Bose's first ball past mid-off for four. And it didn't get any better for the lad, as Ryder got three more boundaries, 18 off the over.
4th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 39-1 (Ryder 25, Kallis 13). Abdulla comes on, and watches his first ball go for four. It improves from there, and there's only a couple of singles thereafter. Ryder and Kallis, by the way – you wouldn't want to bump into them down a dark alley. They are massive. Huge. The commentators are already making sarcastic remarks about their waist size.
5th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 47-1 (Ryder 32, Kallis 14). Pathan's back on from the other end. The first ball, a decent attempt at a yorker, is kept out. The second offers Ryder some width and he slashes it past square leg for four. After a couple of ducks, the Kiwi's settling nicely here. He even ran three off the fifth ball here, which required more athleticism than seemed likely
WICKET! Bangalore Royal Challengers 48-2 (Ryder b Abdulla 32) It's not a particularly clever delivery, but Ryder's already finished his stroke before it gets anywhere near him and in comes Pietersen.
WICKET! Pietersen OUT! Bangalore Royal Challengers 48-3 (Uthappa c Goel b Abdulla) Pietersen's second ball and a slower delivery leaves him flumoxed. He flips it up to silly mid-off.
6th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 49-3 (Dravid 1, Kallis 15). Two wickets, two runs – suddenly Bangalore's innings crumbles into crisis, and Pietersen's struggles continue. A clever bit of bowling by Abdulla for the Englishman's wicket, though. Maybe he'll invent a knee injury and fly home?
7th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 53-3 (Dravid 3, Kallis 16). The spin begins, Chawla coming on to totally destroy the RC's momentum. Four off the over, all singles.
8th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 62-3 (Dravid 6, Kallis 23). Yuvraj comes on, and his first ball is half-volleyed through the off-side by Kallis, just foiling Pathan's dive.
9th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 65-3 (Dravid 7, Kallis 25). It's like there are twice as many fielders out there as there were 10 minutes ago. Three singles off Chawla.
10th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 71-3 (Dravid 8, Kallis 30). Two dot balls to start the over, but the third flies past Jayawardene for four. Another dot ball and a desperate scrambled single - again to Jayawardene, brooding over the boundary – but it's another slow over. Cue the tactical time-out.
Seven and a half minutes of relative relaxation Crikey, there's a lot of typing involved in these over-by-over jobs. Make football minute-by-minutes seem like a siesta by comparison. So if I'm ignoring some of your emails (many of them about that Fake IPL Player blog – here at Guardian towers, we're already so all over this), sorry. I'll get there in the end. Probably. Wouldn't bet on it, mind.
So who's the worse Twenty20 cricketer, Flintoff or Pietersen? Can England get them both injured in time for the World Twenty20? Anyway, enough about us. Bangalore will be hoping to get as close as possible to 170, but they'll need Dravid and Kallis to stick out there for a while. Tom Moody, the Punjab coach, reckons there's a good chance of a run-out with these two out in the middle. Anyway, back to the action...
WICKET! Bangalore Royal Challengers 73-4 (Dravid c Singh b Chawla 10) Dravid goes for the big one. Safe to say he didn't get it. It falls a good 10 yards inside the rope where Singh is arriving at pace to take the catch comfortably. This wasn't in the script.
11th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 74-4 (Taylor 1, Kallis 31). Ross Taylor comes in but hasn't done anything yet. Bangalore need someone to land some big punches fast.
12th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 87-4 (Taylor 2, Kallis 42). Kallis absolutely creams Yuvraj's first delivery (a long way) over mid-off for six, and the next two deliveries each bring a couple. 13 off the over, Bangalore's best for a while.
13th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 91-4 (Taylor 4, Kallis 44). Now Bopara has a bowl, and it's a nicely disciplined over too - all the runs come in singles, and there are only four of them. The last one was about that far from being called wide though.
14th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 105-4 (Taylor 13, Kallis 49). VRV Singh comes into the attack. His second ball is spooned by Taylor through where first slip would be for four, but if that was a fortunate boundary the next was not - a fine shot, played on the up and through the off-side in a flash. Kallis also has a bit of a go. 14 off the over.
15th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 118-4 (Taylor 19, Kallis 52). Chawla's back on, his first three overs having gone pretty well. Not this one, though. Kallis brings up his half-century by running a couple off the first ball. Taylor thrashes an enormous six. His best ball is missed by both Taylor and the wicketkeeper, and carries for four.
16th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 127-4 (Taylor 20, Kallis 60). Irfan Pathan comes on, and his first ball thrashed by Kallis over the bowlers's head and, with one bounce, for four. That's a 50-run partnership, off 30 balls. The last also goes for four, Taylor's shot marvellously controlled through gully.
WICKET! Bangalore Royal Challengers 134-5 (Kallis c Jayawardene b Abdulla 60) A third wicket for Abdulla tempts Kallis into a wild hook which looks an easy catch for precisely as long as it takes to fall out of the skies and into Jawardene's hands. Virat Kohli comes in.
17th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 136-5 (Taylor 25, Kohli 1). Three wickets for 14 runs from three overs, is Abdulla's figures here. Not very bad at all. Did for Kallis with a slower bouncer, and Bangalore RC need to put their foot down fast.
WICKET! Bangalore Royal Challengers 134-5 (Kohli c Bopara b Singh 2) No time for Kohli to get settled. He sends the ball flying straight down Bopara's throat at mid-on.
18th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 144-6 (Taylor 25, Kumar 2). Nine from the over, plus Kohli's wicket. This is running away from Bangalore.
WICKET! Bangalore Royal Challengers 159-6 (Taylor c Jayawardene b Abdulla 35) Taylor moves across his stumps before the fourth delivery comes in and has to improvise a shot which flies only to Jayawardene.
19th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 162-7 (Vinay Kumar 0, Kumar 13). The bad news: 14 runs from the over, two massive sixes. The good news: Taylor's gone.
WICKET! Bangalore Royal Challengers 162-7 (Kumar lbw b Pathan 13) First ball of the last over and Kumar's gone, lbw. By the way, there were two 15th overs. This is the last, obviously. And here's another...
WICKET! Bangalore Royal Challengers 162-8 (Pankaj Singh b Pathan 0) Pankaj Singh tries to hoik his first ball into the stratosphere, but completely misses it. His leg stump pays the price.
20th over: Bangalore Royal Challengers 168-9 (Vinay Kumar 1, Kumble 5). Two wickets and no runs from the first three balls, six off the over. Not enough, you'd have thought.
Innings break Back in 20 minutes, then...
1st over: Kings XI Punjab 3-0 (Bopara 1, Goel 1). Kumar opens the bowling with a wide, in an otherwise unremarkable start.
2nd over: Kings XI Punjab 14-0 (Bopara 3, Goel 8). Punkaj Singh's first over is mainly notable because it saw Pietersen do something well, just about stopping Goel's off-side drive from reaching the boundary. A couple of wides mean the over went for 11 anyway
3rd over: Kings XI Punjab 18-0 (Bopara 5, Goel 10). The bowler, Praveen Kumar, looks to have turned an ankle trying an outlandish run-out. The physio tapes up his boot, which seemed fine – it's what was inside the boot that was struggling. He immediately cuts down his run-up. Uthappa leads a big appeal off the penultimate ball, which caught Goel's thigh-pad. Good decision.
4th over: Kings XI Punjab 29-0 (Bopara 11, Goel 14). I didn't mention the ads for Resolva weed killer. There are as many ads for that as there are for Emmenthal cheese. The thing is, I could do with some weed killer. There are weeds in my garden that are bigger than me. Emmenthal I can live without. Bopara gets the innings going with a fine four through deep square leg.
5th over: Kings XI Punjab 39-0 (Bopara 14, Goel 16). Jacques Kallis's first ball goes for four byes, and is called a wide. So that's five free runs. The wicket-keeper, Uthappa, could have stopped that. A shame, because the batsmen are scoring very slowly.
6th over: Kings XI Punjab 44-0 (Bopara 17, Goel 18). Before the over, Goel changed his bat. Vinay Kumar's first ball finds Bopara's leading edge, but it loops maddeningly out of his grasp. Just two boundaries, bouth fours, from the first five overs.
WICKET! Kings XI Punjab 52-1 (Goel run out 18) A really good throw from deep fine leg, and Goel's slightly half-arsed running, leads to a breakthrough for Pietersen's men. It was close though.
7th over: Kings XI Punjab 57-1 (Bopara 28, Sangakkara 1). From the first ball of the seventh over Bopara thrashes his first six, but just as the partnership looks to be getting going, it's broken.
8th over: Kings XI Punjab 61-1 (Bopara 30, Sangakkara 3). Pietersen's wheels out his part-time off-spin, and he should have got a wicket from it. Sangakkara skies the ball, which falls right into the hands of Rahul Dravid. But, right at the end, his hands move and the ball doesn't. A humiliation. Only four off the over, mind.
9th over: Kings XI Punjab 67-1 (Bopara 33, Sangakkara 7). Kumble comes on. Nothing happens. Six off it. Someone tries to sell me weed-killer. I could use some weed-killer, actually.
10th over: Kings XI Punjab 80-1 (Bopara 32, Sangakkara 19). Pietersen's second over isn't so good. Sangakkara sweeps for four and blasts a six off successive deliveries. At the half-way stage, Punjab are well in charge – they need less than nine an over off the last 10, with lots of wickets to play with.
11th over: Kings XI Punjab 84-1 (Bopara 34, Sangakkara 21). Sangakkara could have gone again, but Kallis's throw from the third man boundary isn't good enough and he just about makes his ground.
12th over: Kings XI Punjab 91-1 (Bopara 34, Sangakkara 26). Jesse Ryder has a go at bowling. He takes the pace right out of it, but gets his length bang on the money. The first five balls go for three, the last a nicely improvised four from the charmed Sangakkara.
WICKET! Kings XI Punjab 91-2 (Sangakkara c Pankaj Singh b Kumble 26) Sangakkara finally goes for it, and he finally goes – caught by Pankaj at long off
13th over: Kings XI Punjab 94-2 (Bopara 38, Yuvraj Singh 1). Kumble's bowling like a master and the asking rate has crept up to 10.7. Could Pietersen somehow end today without looking like an idiot?
14th over: Kings XI Punjab 103-2 (Bopara 44, Yuvraj Singh 4). Praveen Kumar comes back, having had to wait before bowling after receiving treatment to his ankle. Let's just say his over gives Setanta the opportunity to broadcast a lengthy interview with the world's least interesting ball boy, with Bopara's four the only highlight.
15th over: Kings XI Punjab 109-2 (Bopara 48, Yuvraj Singh 6). Another decent Kumble over: tight, in other words. You can't nurdle your way to 10 an over. Someone tries to sell me weed-killer. I could do with some weed-killer, you know.
16th over: Kings XI Punjab 128-2 (Bopara 67, Yuvraj Singh 6). Bopara boshes his way to a half-century, hitting Praveen Kumar's first delivery for six. Then the second goes for four, Kumar giving Uthapa all sorts of evils after it sneaks through. Then the fourth, a full-toss, goes for another six. This is the over Kings XI needed to put themselves back in charge, 19 off it.
17th over: Kings XI Punjab 141-2 (Bopara 69, Yuvraj Singh 17). Kallis comes back and goes for 13.
18th over: Kings XI Punjab 158-2 (Bopara 85, Yuvraj Singh 17). Jesse Ryder loses his discipline, with one really silly full-toss presenting Bopara with a gift-wrapped six, one of two this over. Challengers looked to be coming back into this a couple of over back, but their total's looking close now. And Bopara is the best Englishman in this competition. This has been a really clever innings. Brains and brawn.
WICKET! Kings XI Punjab 158-3 (Bopara c Ryder b Kallis 85) A slower ball, and Bopara's slog isn't quite good enough.
It's all over! Kings XI Punjab 173-3 (Jayawardene 1, Yuvraj Singh 30), 18.6 overs. "How do you reckon Bopara's been playing so far," asks Arun Venkataraman. Well, I'd say this was one late, loose but irrelevant shot away from being the perfect innings. Really well paced, and left his team on the brink of victory.
Final thoughts There might only have been two Englishmen here, but they'll be dividing the headlines between them. For Pietersen, disaster. He won the toss, but nothing went right after that. He got a two-ball duck as his team posted a barely-defensible target which they didn't come close to defending. His day was probably worse than Flintoff's. For Bopara, glory. A mature, composed, really intelligent innings, 85 off 59 balls. So points on the board for Kings XI Punjab, a game they looked likely to win from the moment Pietersen's wicket fell, two balls after that of Jesse Ryder.
Score card
The following is the scoreboard of the match between Bangalore Royal Challengers and Kings XI Punjab in the Indian Premier League (IPL) at the Newlands here Friday.
Bangalore Royal Challengers:
Jesse Ryder b Abdulla 32 (21 balls)
Robin Uthappa c Yuvraj Singh b Pathan 0 (1)
Jacques Kallis c Jayawardene b Abdulla 62 (46)
Kevin Pietersen c Goel b Abdulla 0 (2)
Rahul Dravid c Singh b Chawla 10 (13)
Ross Taylor c Jayawardene b Abdulla 35 (22)
Virat Kohli c Bopara b Singh 2 (3)
Praveen Kumar lbw b Pathan 13 (7)
Vinay Kumar not out 1 (1)
Pankaj Singh b Pathan 0 (1)
Anil Kumble not out 5 (3)
Extras (b 4, lb 1, w 3) 8
Total (nine wickets in 20 overs) 168
Fall of wickets: 1-6 (Uthappa, 1.1 overs), 2-48 (Ryder, 5.2), 3-48 (Pietersen, 5.4), 4-73 (Dravid, 10.3), 5-134 (Kallis, 16.3), 6-142 (Kohli, 17.4), 7-159 (Taylor, 18.4), 8-162 (Kumar, 19.1), 9-162 (Pankaj Singh, 19.2)
Bowling:
Ranadeb Bose 2-0-24-0
Irfan Pathan 4-0-35-3
Yusuf Abdulla 4-0-31-4
Piyush Chawla 4-0-19-1
Yuvraj Singh 3-0-28-0
Ravi Bopara 1-0-4-0
Vikram Raj Vir Singh 2-0-22-1
Kings XI Punjab:
Ravi Bopara c Ryder b Kallis 84 (59)
Karan Goel run out (Vinay Kumar/Uthappa) 19 (19)
Kumar Sangakkara c Pankaj Singh b Kumble 26 (18)
Yuvraj Singh not out 30 (17)
Mahela Jayawardene not out 1 (1)
Extras (b 1, lb 3, w 9) 13
Total (for three wickets in 19 overs) 173
Fall of wickets: 1-52 (Goel, 6.4 overs), 2-92 (Sangakkara, 12.3), 3-158 (Bopara, 18.1)
Bowling:
Praveen Kumar 4-0-36-0
Pankaj Singh 2-0-20-0
Jacques Kallis 4-0-51-1
Vinay Kumar 1-0-4-0
Kevin Pietersen 2-0-16-0
Anil Kumble 4-0-19-1
Jesse Ryder 2-0-23-0
Toss: Bangalore Royal Challengers, who chose to bat first
Points: Kings XI Punjab 2, Bangalore Royal Challengers 0
Umpires: Billy Doctrove (West Indies) and T.H. Wijewardene (Sri Lanka)
TV umpire: Simon Taufel (Australia)
Match referee: D. Govindjee (South Africa)
