Gayle flops again

Chris Gayle's scratchy tournament continued as he limped his way to 14 at less than a run a ball. Gayle was subdued against the seamers but when the spinners came on, he looked to open up by using his feet. He wasn't very successful at it though. He gave Karn Sharma the charge and looked to chip over the on side but instead the ball ballooned off the toe of the bat to Parvez Rasool at short third man. Karn picked up a wicket off his first ball.

Yuvraj Singh fell to a catch at long-on for 21 off 25 balls, but threatened to exit more than once early in his innings. He was looking to free his arms against the spinners, and as he gave Rasool the charge, the ball just dropped short of Shikhar Dhawan at long-on. Two balls later, he slogged Karn and the ball dipped on Dale Steyn as he ran forward from deep midwicket. There was room for a third life when he checked his loft to long-off off Venugopal Rao and this time Aaron Finch ran forward and dived but couldn't catch it on the full. When Yuvraj did hit it cleanly, though, he found the fielder with precision.

There was total confusion in the running off the last ball of the Royal Challengers innings. Sachin Rana played and missed but the non-striker Mitchell Starc was keen on pinching a bye. Rana though hardly budged. The wicketkeeper Naman Ojha ran forward and broke the stumps at the striker's end after Rana had grounded his bat but by then Starc had already made it. Rather than relay the throw to the bowler Dale Steyn, Ojha decided to trek to the other end and break the stumps on his own.

Scooping Dale Steyn down to fine leg isn't the birthright of international players like AB de Villiers. Rana proved that he had the audacity to take him on too, as he walked across his stumps and chipped a full delivery over the short fine leg fielder. Had he missed that would have cannoned onto the middle stump. Steyn could only manage a wry smile, having tasted this treatment before in the tournament and his captain Darren Sammy offered a sympathetic smile to his best bowler.