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An outstanding all round effort by the Deccan Chargers saw them beat the Pune Warriors by 6 wickets with 4 balls to spare in a bottom of the table battle in Navi Mumbai on Monday. Deccan did a great job of restricting Pune to a meagre total of 136 with Amit Mishra, Pragyan Ojha and Daniel Christian picking up 2 wickets apiece. They then chased down the target with relative ease with each of their top 5 getting to double figures and the opening pair of Sunny Sohal and Shikhar Dhawan sharing in a partnership of 67 which pretty much put the result out of sight early on.

Kolkata Knight Riders' consecutive defeats has given Pune Warriors a sniff of a chance of still making the play-offs, but even the most ardent of Pune fans will point out that such mathematical chances only really exist on paper. Perhaps more crucially for the Warriors, they have got their combination right in the last two games and with Sourav Ganguly in the side their batting line up looks safe from collapse. Though it has been all over for Chargers for a while, they do come into this game on the back of a morale boosting win against Mumbai, and Kumar Sangakkara would want to finish his IPL season on a high before flying out to England for national duty.

Sangakkara won the toss and decided to bowl in order to make use of the freshness in the wicket. Yuvraj Singh also wanted to bowl but looked forward to putting up a good total. Pune Warriors gave Mithun Manhas another chance whereas Dale Steyn was back for Deccan as they sacrificed Michael Lumb to bring him in.

JP Duminy had foxed the Mumbai Indians the other night and Sangakkara trusted him to do the same once again but the openers, Manish Pandey and Jesse Ryder, had other plans targeting him straight away. Sangakkara was quick to revert to the actual new bowlers, Dale Steyn and Ishant Sharma, who started very well. Steyn gave Deccan the breakthrough as Ryder (18) smashed the ball straight to Ravi Teja. The wicket put the brakes on the scoring as Pandey and Sourav Ganguly struggled to break free. Ganguly didn’t trouble the scorers as he just popped the ball into the air after struggling to connect for 5 balls. Pune had scored 39 runs in the powerplay and needed to a partnership to take them through to a respectable total.

Pragyan Ojha was handed the ball after the powerplay and Pandey hit him out of the park right away. But Ojha replied with a flatter one and knocked Pandey's stumps over, a promising innings ending for 23. The decent start given by the openers was ruined further as Amit Mishra stunned Pune with two wickets in as many balls. First he got rid of Robin Uthappa, caught and bowled for 4, and then bowled Mithun Manhas first ball with a wrong one. Suddenly Pune were 45 for 5 and Deccan were right on top of them.

The spinners were able to keep the batsmen quiet till Yuvraj decided to make use of the ball turning into him and smashed Ojha out of the park and followed it with a strong hit down the ground. But Yuvraj lost another partner as Callum Ferguson (11) played the ball straight to Duminy off his own bowling. Yuvraj though continued in the same flamboyant fashion as Pune headed into the final 6 overs.

Daniel Christian got Deccan the much needed wicket of Yuvraj Singh for 23, thus exposing the tail. The 100 of the innings came up in the 17th over as Pune tried to get themselves something to defend. Mitchell Marsh played a good hand and opened his innings with a six off Mishra. Marsh’s innings could have ended sooner if Christian hadn’t dropped a chance in the penultimate over. They needed a good last over to change things around and Marsh started brilliantly, hitting the first ball for a six, but Ojha got his revenge as he knocked Marsh over the very next ball. Marsh top scored for Pune with a vital 37 off just 28 balls. Wayne Parnell did his bit too, smashing a second six off the over which took the total to 136. Pune Warriors would have been happy to get something on the board after their awful start, but knew they needed to bowl exceptionally to keep themselves alive in the tournament.

Deccan had the perfect start to their chase cruising to 40 for no loss from the first 5 overs with negligible risk before Sunny Sohal and Shikhar Dhawan took a liking to Mitchell Marsh's medium pace, helping themselves to 17 runs from the final over of the powerplay. With just 80 runs required from 14 overs and all 10 wickets in hand, it was Deccan's match to lose.

And they almost did. Pune's super skipper Yuvraj Singh brought himself on immediately on conclusion of the powerplay and achieved the breakthrough in his second over beating Dhawan (21) in the flight and Uthappa doing the rest behind the stumps. The opening partnership had been worth 67. Rahul Sharma then struck in the following over to send Sohal back leg before for 34 and Deccan still had a job to do.

Yuvi surprisingly took himself out of the attack when Pune were on top, but the move appeared to work briefly as Mithun Manhas was able to slip in a couple of overs for just 7 runs. However, the former Delhi boy was given one over too many and Kumar Sangakkara and JP Duminy, who had been happy doing the consolidation job thus far took the part-timer for 12. The 100 came up in the 15th over and Deccan were under no pressure of chasing the runs down. But Rahul Sharma struck once again as Sangakkara walked after edging the ball to Uthappa. The Deccan skipper had contributed a quiet yet vital 25 (21b) to steer his side closer to victory.

At 108/3 with exactly a-run-a-ball needed, the Chargers were expected to cruise home. Straight out of the strategic time-out Daniel Christian drove Yuvi down the ground before Duminy smote a six later in the over. With 13 now needed for 3 overs Deccan should have won comfortably, but Duminy paid the price for playing across the line and was bowled by South African teammate Wayne Parnell for 23 (26b).

The over conceded just 2 runs but with 11 needed from 12, Yuvraj persisted with himself and the over cost Pune 7 allowing Deccan to cruise home in the end. The Deccan Chargers won with 4 balls to spare as Sangakkara signed off his campaign with a win.

The Pune Warriors are now officially out of the tournament but still have two games in which they can play spoiler. They play the Kolkata Knight Riders in Mumbai on Thursday and all eyes will be on Sourav Ganguly who will be up against his old side.

The Deccan Chargers enjoyed a great stay in Mumbai winning both their games here and would like to finish the season on a winning note in their last game against the Kings XI Punjab in Dharamshala on Saturday.

Teams:

Deccan Chargers: Shikhar Dhawan, Sunny Sohal, Bharat Chipli, Kumar Sangakkara(c & wk), JP Duminy, Ravi Teja, Daniel Christian, Pragyan Ojha, Amit Mishra, Ishant Sharma, Dale Steyn.

Pune Warriors: Manish Pandey, Sourav Ganguly, Jesse Ryder, Robin Uthappa(wk), Yuvraj Singh(c), Callum Ferguson, Mithun Manhas, Mitchell Marsh, Wayne Parnell, Rahul Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar.

Mini Scorecard:

Pune Warriors 136/9 in 20 overs (6.8 runs per over)
M Marsh 37(28) D Christian 2-13
Y Singh 23(17) A Mishra 2-26

Deccan Chargers 138/4 in 19.2 overs (7.13 runs per over)
S Sohal 34(28) R Sharma 2-25
S Dhawan 28(25) Y Singh 1-25

Deccan Chargers win by 6 wickets