Valiant Valthaty forces Delhi to blink

The scorecard will say Paul Valthaty hammered 62 to power Punjab to an eventually match-winning 170, but that's not even half the story. Through 50 balls of clueless flailing, Valthaty put on a display completely out of place in the beautiful setting that is Dharamsala. But again, that's only one half of the story. It's not every day that you score 62 off 50 balls against bowlers as skilled as Morne Morkel and Irfan Pathan. It didn't help Valthaty's cause that he has seldon played bowlers of such quality before the IPL. Full credit to the IPL's surprise hero for gutsing it out and waiting for Delhi to blink before firing them.

Initially Valthaty attempted on-the-up thumps, regardless of length, and often missed by ridiculously large margins. He later tried to counter the bounce with cuts, but rarely made contact. He then resorted to the pull, and it was soon evident why he doesn't play that shot too often. On the one occasion when he managed to middle the ball, Varun Aaron at fine-leg ran in too far, and the ball sailed over the boundary.

To Valthaty's credit, he refused to throw in the towel. He kept backing himself to play his big shots, irrespective of whether they came off. Eventually, they did when he found his match against James Hopes' trundle and ignited the innings with two violent sixes over the leg-side and an edged four through third man. Delhi had not dislodged Punjab's surprise package when they could, and they were about to pay for it. Valthaty exacted toll in a fashion that was devoid of grace, but boy was it effective.