Johannesburg: Excellent work from Bangalore. They've set an achievable target. Deccan struggled on a slow track. Gibbs has batted the entire innings for 53 from 48 balls. He did not face one ball in the last over. Each time he called for two. Not sure what the logic of that was and that could very well come back to hurt Deccan. If they win then critics will say Gibbs did well to bat out the entire innings.
Bangalore have set themselves 144. Kumble looks confident of chasing it down. Didn't he bowl well? Four wickets in the final. Took out Gilchrist first over and then sent back Symonds when he was looking devastating. I'll be back shortly for the chase.
Bangalore skipper Anil Kumble dismsses Deccan captain on Duck in thrid ball of the first over in DLF IPL Final 2009.
Bangalore Royal Challengers captain Anil Kumble won the toss and chose to bowl against Deccan Chargers in the final of the second edition of the Indian Premier League at New Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg on Sunday.
Bangalore Royal Challengers and Deccan Chargers have retained the same playing eleven from the semi-finals.
Deccan, who finished rock bottom in 2008, have been enforcers from the start in IPL-2, looking a reformed outfit with Adam Gilchrist leading from the front. They seemed a little lost midway but their power-packed signings have won them the crucial moments.
Bangalore, seventh last year with their much-derided 'Test team', benefited from a change of guard midway.
With more or less the same team as last year, they have snubbed critics this time by rallying around Anil Kumble and scripting a remarkable tunraround in the late stages. They have relied less on individual heroics and instead found juniors and Test stalwarts rising equally to the occasion.
While Gilchrist single-handedly blew away Delhi Daredevils on Friday to take Deccan to the final, Bangalore's skillful run chase took them past Chennai Super Kings in the second semi-final on Saturday night.
Teams:
Bangalore Royal Challengers: Anil Kumble (c.), Manish Pandey, Jacques Kallis, Roelof van der Merwe, Rahul Dravid, Ross Taylor, Robin Uthappa, Virat Kohli, Mark Boucher, Praveen Kumar, R Vinay Kumar.
Deccan Chargers: Adam Gilchrist (c.), Herschelle Gibbs, Tirumalsetti Suman, Rohit Sharma, Andrew Symonds, Venugopal Rao, Azhar Bilakhia, Ryan Harris, Pragyan Ojha, Harmeet Singh, RP Singh.