Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakara scored important half centuries to help the Kings XI Punjab set impressive target of 175 for Deccan Chargers.
Deccan Chargers won the toss and Adam Gilchrist decided to field first. The Kings XI got off to a terrible start losing Shaun Marsh in the very first over as he was caught by Adam Gilchrist behind the stumps to give Ryan Harris the early break through.
Instead of fear from the early loss, Sri Lankan batsmen Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara remained calm and slowly built the foundations of a partnership which reached 86 before Sangakara was dismissed. He played a patient innings and scored a wonderful half-century. Sangakara played an ill advised reverse-sweep which caused the ball to loop up in the high to short fine leg where Pragyab Ojha took the simplest of catches.
The loss of Sangakkara left the Kings XI 87-2 with 8 overs remaining. Jayawardene was joined at the crease by Yuvraj Singh who was still looking to rediscover his form after a quiet tournament so far. Yuvraj's poor form continued as he took 12 balls to score 6 runs. While Jayawardene was in superb form at the other end smashing 5 consecutive boundaries of the bowling of RP Singh to bring up his half century.
Yuvraj finally found the boundary from the 15th ball he faced but the innings of Jayawardene allowed the pair to attack the Chargers bowlers in the last few overs scoring 76 runs from the last 5 overs to reach 174-3 which will give the defending championss a fiddly run chase.
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