SURPRISES AND SHOCKS IN STORE

Cricket is back with the element of shock and surprise. The IPL is reaching the final stages of the tournament and certainly it cant get any closer.The matches yesterday between RR & RBC and KPXI & CSK were quite contrasting.One game seemed a no match and the other went for an incredibly tight finish.Going to other matches played in the world Pakistan continued to amuse Australia with a 7 wicket win in the 20-20 match.Umar Gul proved quite a handy picking up four wickets and the afridi picked up three wickets making the Austraila crumble to 108.Their chase was handled by a gritty Kamran Akmal scoring a useful fifty.While somewhere in England,West Indies are staring at an innings defeat following on with 150 around in the first innings with Onions and Swann picking 8 wickets together and 39/2 in the second innings.England had earlier scored 377 with Bopara top scoring with 143 holding on with Swann.

Bangalore promised a lot before this no show with 3 consecutive wins and Rajasthan too were in good nick before this match.So it looked like the stage for was set for a great spectacle.Bangalore did the unexpected ,their famed batting collapsed to the guile of Warne's boys.None of them could settle in the middle and so they were no effective partnerships and ended up with a messy total of 106 which posed no challenge to Rajasthan.Rajasthan started cautiously but opened up and good knocks from N.Ojha and the middle order made their task like a walk in the park.suddenly Rajasthan looked set for a semifinal spot with 5 wins in their bag while RCB have to win all their matches from now to get a look in to the top 4.



Chennai were in gear already with three consecutive wins.Punjab had everything to play for to step up in the points table after their crashing defeat against Rajasthan.The match was rain affected but that didn't stop the intensity of the game at all.Hayden and Badrinath opened the innings.Badrinath was out for a duck but the in form Raina arrived.He was timing the ball like god and was blasting all the way.In the mean time Hayden continued his intimidating form.Raina was out soon after the Rain break with the match reduced to 18 overs.Dhoni joined the party.Hayden and Dhoni put on a 100 run partnership in hardly 7 overs with Dhoni scoring a quick fifty and Hayden missing a century by 11 runs.This propelled Chennai to 185 in 18 overs.Punjab was always in the hunt during the chase aided by fifties of Mahela,Katich and Yuvraj.Chennai were messy on the field and fluttered many.In a tight finish Chennai edged Punjab by 12 runs went ahead in top 4.Punjab were truly let down by their bowlers this time around.But the match nevertheless turned out to be a thriller.Quite good for cricket.