Himanshu Shekhar/Zeecric.com

Centurion, May 21: Riding high on a scintillating century from Manish Pandey, Royal Challengers Bangalore defeated Deccan Chargers by 12 runs in SuperSport Park on Thursday.

The result meant Bangalore Royal Challengers qualify for semifinals along with Deccan Chargers and join Delhi Daredevils and Chennai Super Kings, who have already reserved thier berth.

MANISH PANDEY – who had a total of 134 runs under his belt of the twelve T20 games before the all important match against Hyderabad, carted bowlers all across the SuperSport Park and became the first Indian player to smash a century in the history of Indian Premiere League and that too after 115 matches played.

The fabulous 19-year-old Indian carried the bulk of scoring for his team as Hyderabad bowlers were just mesmerized under the assault. The career defining 73-ball stay at the centre of the Centurion in the end was marked with a message from the batsman himself when he remarked – “I proved it.”

Bangalore, who by then had sealed a semis-berth, were further bolstered by late assault from another Under-19 World Cup hero- Virat Kohli. Kohli scored 19 off 9 balls he faced as Bangalore clobbered 23 runs of the last over.

But, things did not start that well for Royal Challengers who struggled initially after losing Jacques Kallis (1) and Vaan der Merwe (23) early on. With 64/2 at the strategy break Bangalore looked like struggling to post a fighting total but in came Manish Pandey thunder storm and the strong crowd in Centurion did not mind being swept along by one of India’s rising star. In the end a broad smile on Anil Kumble’s face after the first innings did gave the indication that they were well on course for a victory with a to total of 170/4 under their belt.

Chasing the total, Hyderabad began in style with Adam Gilchrist and Herschelle Gibbs going great guns. The opening pair brought up Deccan’s fifty in just five overs and gave enough indication that the chase was on. But, Gilly’s departure at the score of 15 runs helped Bangalore bowlers come back in the match as Gibbs kept one end intact.

A fighting knock of 60 runs from 43 balls kept Hyderabad in hunt for a larger part of the first half of the innings. Gibbs innings was cut short by a tumbling catch in the deep square leg by none other than Manish Pandey off the bowling of Akhil.

The catch proved decisive as Andrew Symonds (18), Rohit Sharma (12) and Venugopal Rao (8) failed to stick in for a big one and see Hyderabad through to the winning podium.

In the end with 26 required off last over Deccan could reach to 138/6 and lost by 12 runs.
With the result, the semifinal lines are fixed as Deccan were set to face Delhi Daredevils while Bangalore would meet their southern counterpart Bangalore.

Teams:

Deccan Chargers (Playing XI): Adam Gilchrist(w/c), Herschelle Gibbs, Tirumalsetti Suman, Rohit Sharma, Andrew Symonds, Venugopal Rao, Azhar Bilakhia, Ryan Harris, Rudra Pratap Singh, Jaskaran Singh, Pragyan Ojha

Bangalore Royal Challengers (Playing XI): Jacques Kallis, Robin Uthappa, Rahul Dravid, Ross Taylor, Virat Kohli, Mark Boucher(w), Roelof van der Merwe, Praveen Kumar, Balachandra Akhil, Manish Pandey, Anil Kumble(c)