IPL: Pune Warriors Rest Ganguly; Still Lose

Royal Challengers Bangalore kept their chase for the top four position on track as they outclassed Pune Warriors at the Subrata Roy Sahara Stadium in Pune. The home team made large cale changes to their team to try to look for a favourable result, including dropping/ resting their beleagured captain - Sourav Ganguly. That made little difference though, as they once again got walloped.

Gayle and Dilshan once again set the pulses racing at the top of the order with an eighty run partnership. Gayle smashed six huge sixes in his innings on 57, during the course of which he put his hands on the Orange cap. Dilshan supported him with an innings of 53. Kohli failed yet again, but Sourabh Tiwary finally made a contribution and ensured the good start was not wasted, and took his team to 173. Angelo Matthews was the only bowler to have some sort of control on the batting, as the young attack looked largely clueless.

Zaheer Khan inflicted immediate damage on the Warriors' chase as he got two wickets inthe first over itself. Mohnish Mishra and Manish Pandey being the affected party. Clarke joined them inthe pavilion soon enough. Uthappa and the impressive Anustup Majumdar stitched a useful partnership but the introduction of Muralitharan ended all hopes of a come-from-behind win. Pune ended their innings 35 runs short of the target. Zaheer and Murali were the pick of the bowlers picking two wickets each for 21 and 16 runs respectively.

With this loss Pune seem hot on the heels of Deccan in the race for the last position.