IPL 2013: Pune Warriors crumble to 99/9 against Kings XI Punjab

Pune Warriors got off to a disastrous start in their first home match of IPL 6 after crumbling to 99 for nine against Kings XI Punjab in their 20 overs at the Subrata Roy Sahara Stadium.

Azhar Mahmood (third from left) picked up two wickets to thwart Pune Warriors © AFP (File Pic)

Pune: Apr 7, 2013
 
Pune Warriors India got off to a disastrous start in their first home match of IPL 6 after crumbling to 99 for nine against Kings XI Punjab in their 20 overs at the Subrata Roy Sahara Stadium.

Bad shots, spectacular catches and poor running between the wickets was what ruined Pune’s innings. The home side were put on the backfoot straight away, losing Manish Pandey in the very first over. And they never quite managed to recover after that. They were reduced to 38 for five within the first 10 overs and were staring down the barrel very early. Pune were missing the Twenty20 stalwart Yuvraj Singh in their line-up, who was out with a back strain, but the home team would not have anticipated such a collapse.
 
140 would have been a very competitive score on this track, which showed signs of getting slower as the game progressed. But at the halfway mark, Pune were struggling to even get to three figures. Ross Taylor and Abhishek Nayar were at the crease — the last recognized batting pair for Pune. The duo batted for about 20-odd deliveries and gave some hope to the partisan home crowd which had travelled far to the outskirts of the city to watch some good cricket from their team. However, they were to be denied in the 14th over, when Gurkeerat Singh pulled off a blinder at deep square-leg to send Taylor packing.
 
Mitchell Marsh stepped in at No 8 and gave a brief display of his batting credentials by heaving Praveen Kumar into the stands behind deep-midwicket. The Australian shared a 25-run seventh-wicket stand — the highest of the innings — with Nayar, but Ryan Harris came into the attack in the 17th over and cleaned him up.
 
Nayar, the most expensive Indian player purchased (at USD 600,000) in the recent auction, persisted till the end, scoring an unbeaten 25 off 26 balls and almost got Pune past the 100-run mark with some assistance from Bhuvneshwar Kumar. After hitting one boundary and sticking around with Nayar for three overs, the Uttar Pradesh lad was foxed by a slower delivery from Azhar Mahmood (two for 19) in the last over.

Rahul Sharma ran himself out on the last ball of the innings, trying to take a run that would have gotten Pune to three figures. Punjab would feel very confident going into the chase and would have to perform worse than Pune with the bat to lose from here.

Brief Scores: Pune Warriors India 99 for 9 (Abhishek Nayar 25*; Azhar Mahmood 2 for 19, Praveen Kumar 2 for 31) vs Kings XI Punjab.

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