Page 247 - IPL1

But the competition did not turn out as Mallya had hoped.
Bracken ended up missing the entire tournament following
knee surgery, and Bangalore got off to the worst possible start,
blown away on the opening night of the tournament in the M
Chinnaswamy Stadium by Brendon McCullum’s world-record

158 not out for Kolkata Knight Riders - an innings that would
have destroyed any side on the day. Although they fought back
to beat Mumbai Indians in the Wankhede, with the gritty Mark
Boucher seeing the Royal Challengers home, the next three
games were all lost as pre-tournament fears that some of the
players were better suited to the less frantic environment of
Test cricket appeared to be borne out.

Some excellent bowling from the under-rated Praveen Kumar
and Zaheer Khan helped see off the struggling Deccan Chargers
by just three runs on a thrilling night in Bangalore, and a record
of two wins from their first five matches at least offered Dravid’s
men a chance of progress - assuming, that is, they strung a few
wins together.

But Taylor had by now joined up with his New Zealand team-
mates on their tour of England, robbing the middle-order of
some much-needed firepower, and not even the energy and
aggression of Steyn, and some eye-wateringly good innings from
Dravid - written off in some quarters as too one-dimensional
to succeed in the shortest form of the game - could prevent
Bangalore from losing each of their next five games. The home
defeat to Kings XI Punjab was particularly disappointing, with
only Dravid (66) and India’s Under-19 World Cup-winning captain
Virat Kohli (34) reaching double-figures. Crucially, five batsmen
were out for ducks as Bangalore made only 126 after batting
first. The next day they parted company with their CEO Charu
Sharma as they sought to remedy their poor form, but it did not
do them much good.

The next 11 days brought defeats to Kolkata Knight Riders, Kings
XI Punjab, Rajasthan Royals and Delhi Daredevils, and by the
time Bangalore rallied to beat Chennai Super Kings and, for the
second time in the tournament, Deccan Chargers, the boat had
long since sailed: the two victories, followed almost inevitably
by a nine-wicket thrashing at the hands of a revitalised Mumbai

Indians, were little more than consolations at the end of an
unexpectedly disappointing campaign.

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