Kolkata scampered to a last minute victory over
Deccan on an
Eden Gardens pitch that resembled a minefield. Ishant Sharma exploited the bounce brilliantly sending Deccan captain
VVS Laxman back with a snorter. None of the Deccan batsmen could negotiate the bounce, as the ball spit and reared at crazy angles. It was only some last minute hitting by
Andrew Symonds, that saw Deccan to a respectable total of 110. While chasing Kolkata did not have it easy either.
Brendon Mc Cullum Kolkata's first match hero, discovered that it is one thing to hammer bowlers on a flat pitch, and another thing to survive, as he fell for just 5 runs.
The old wily fox
Chaminda Vaas made it a double sending back Ricky Ponting and Wriddhiman Saha. 21 for 3 it was game on, and VVS did not make things easier, by cutting off the run supply, while Vaas and Scott Styris made life difficult for batsmen. Saurav Ganguly survived, rode his luck before he fell. And when
Mohd Hafeez got out soon, Kolkata was in real trouble, and as if to compound the misery, we had high drama with lights conking out all of a sudden. Fortunately the lights were restored but it was still game on, with 22 of 20 balls. If it was
Mike Hussey who rode the spotlight in Mohali, here it was another Hussey, his brother
David, who turned out to be the hero of the day, playing a cool innings and taking Kolkata to victory. The Hussey family back home in
Australia would be surely proud.