Cricket

Chris Gayle has arrived. He smashed his way to his first IPL century, the second-fastest in this edition of the competition, and was the architect of Bangalore's victory over his former team, Kolkata. Gayle formed powerful partnerships with Tillakaratne Dilshan and Virat Kohli as Bangalore were untroubled in their chase of 172, winning by nine wickets. The pitch was proving to be tricky for the quicks and Kolkata opted to start with a spinner after having posted 171. Yusuf Pathan, who was battling a knee niggle, opened the bowling. After three good deliveries, Yusuf strayed on the leg stump and Dilshan cashed in with four through square leg. With that, the flood gates were opened. In the fourth over, Gayle had scored just three singles - while Dilshan had notched up 19 - when he was offered a full toss. He drove it down past the non-striker for the first of his 17 boundaries. It didn't matter what Bangalore tried after that. Jaidev Unadkat was dispatched with ...

Don't shake Paul Valthaty 's hand any time soon. You might just turn to gold. He followed up his century in Kings XI Punjab's previous game by surprising everybody with his split-finger slower balls, in the Dilhara Fernando mould, taking 4 for 29, the best figures by any Punjab bowler, and then - with a 47-ball 75 - made a mockery of a target he had himself kept down to 165. The turnaround for Punjab began with a good piece of fielding, and then a fortuitous lob off what should have been a leg-side wide. Until then Kumar Sangakkara and Shikhar Dhawan had put up a fine display of driving in a 75-run second-wicket stand, Deccan's best for any wicket this season, but both fell within three runs to send the hosts into rebuild mode for the best part of the second half of their innings. Deccan Chargers had reached 88 for 1 in the 11th over, and the set batsmen were just looking to open up further when a diving Shaun Marsh at extra cover made sure Sangakkara st...

Kolkata Knight Riders won by nine wickets and with nine deliveries to spare. It shouldn't have been that easy but Gautam Gambhir and Jacques Kallis starred in a supremely well-paced chase as Kolkata successfully hunted down a potentially tough 160-run target on a sluggish track in Jaipur. The first game-seizing moment of the chase came in the sixth over, bowled by Amit Singh. Kolkata were 44 for 1 from five overs and it was obvious that they had to fully utilise the new ball and the Powerplay on this slow track. It was an over that could have tilted the game either way: Amit tried to keep it tight, Gambhir took risks, two shots eluded palms of fielders in the off side but not by much, and Gambhir looted 18 runs. He flat-batted the first ball past the diving Ross Taylor at extra cover, slashed the third past the diving Abhishek Raut at point, glanced the fourth to fine-leg, and crashed the final delivery over mid-off. The second turning point was Gambhir's cont...

Two weeks ago, the crowd at the Wankhede was delirious though a fervently anticipated Sachin Tendulkar century didn't materialise. On Friday, the same crowd went home dejected despite Tendulkar crafting his first Twenty20 century, as Kochi Tuskers Kerala busted their party with one of the most memorable chases in IPL history. Two of the world's finest Twenty20 batsmen, Brendon McCullum and Mahela Jayawardene, constructed chalk-and-cheese half-centuries to power Kochi's pursuit of 183. Both perished to Lasith Malinga's deadly deliveries but Kochi, who had stumbled in the final stretch of their first two games, didn't slip up this time as Ravindra Jadeja and Brad Hodge muscled boundaries to finish the game with an over to spare. Tendulkar's effort checked off another item on his ever-shrinking to-do list, and Mumbai ran up a tall total without needing contributions from Rohit Sharma, Andrew Symonds and Kieron Pollard. It was then assumed that the bowl...

The IPL's northernmost franchise found a hero with roots in the south, as Paul Valthaty stunned Chennai Super Kings to clinch a maiden win for Kings XI Punjab this season after a disappointing performance in their opening game. Valthaty was a surprise promotion to the opening slot, instead of the regular Shaun Marsh, and he answered the call with a blistering start, keeping his team on par with the required-rate in the middle overs and surging again at the death to complete victory after achieving a spectacular century. At 27, with just one List A game and 13 Twenty20 matches, Valthaty had been on the sidelines of the Mumbai team on India's domestic circuit. His previous highest in the IPL was 6, but whatever he must have done at the practice sessions ahead of this game sparked a potentially career-changing turn of events. Punjab had been deflated at the end of the Chennai innings, after they had squandered the perfect start of two wickets off the first two ball...

Sachin Tendulkar added one more to his already bulging cap of feathers when he was named Wisden's leading cricketer in the world for 2010. Tendulkar enjoyed what was even by his standards an outstanding year in 2010, hitting over 1500 Test runs with 7 hundreds. He also went past the previously unthinkable mark of 50 Test match hundreds in 2010. In ODIs, he became the first batsman to hit the 200-run mark, doing it against the might of the South African attack. The master batsman, who began this month with what he described as his proudest moment when he helped India win the World Cup on his home ground in Mumbai, is the seventh recipient of the Wisden award. Unlike the winners of Wisden's coveted five cricketers of the year, it is possible to be named the world's best in the almanack more than once - and Tendulkar made it an Indian hat-trick, after Test opener Virender Sehwag took the honour in each of the last two years. Tendulkar's citation concludes:...