Did the Kolkata Knight Riders deliberately lose their IPL match against the Bangalore Royal Challengers?

The Knight Riders scored 173. Till the 15th over of the Bangalore innings, Kolkata looked set to win. Then, it all fell apart.


Someone has brought to Modi's attention that the match might have been fixed, while the BCC! has brought to my attention that the match might have been fixed.

The amusing thing is that the reason explained in this article, for the match being potentially fixed, is that Brad Hodge was not playing and was sitting in one of the hospitality boxes.

What connection exactly does sitting in a hospitality box and match fixing have?

And while they're at it, i.e. investigating match fixing in the IPL, maybe they should pay some attention to last night's match as well - the one that Deccan Chargers lost to the Delhi Daredevils.



Well if scoring 52 runs of the final 4 overs to win a match cannot be achieved without some match fixing, then how can 7 wickets for 12 runs be?

And why stop there?

Investigate today's match as well.

Because it looked like some players of the Royal Challengers Bangalore had fixed the match and wanted to lose it.

While some of them pulled a Rashid Latif and snatched a victory from the Chennai Super Kings.

Go on, give the ACU, or whoever the anti-corruption lot are at the IPL, something to do.

So we are just one day away from the first test between England, and the team from Caribbean at Lords. To start with it will be interesting to see how the windies will adapt to the conditions in England and I have to say that till now they have not come out with good performances in the warm up games.


Windies have been further hampered by Gayle joining the team late as he wanted to play one more IPL game! well being the captain of your national team it does not look good.

As far as selection issues are concerned they are probably still debating on who will be the third seamer and in the race are Richardson, Baker, and Sammy and for the all rounder slot Bernard will likely fit in.

For England as we know that it will be the first game for Flower as a permanent coach and he would like to start on a good note. As far as the team is concerned it looks straightforward what with Panesar likely to miss out and Bresnan as well as Onions getting their first chance in tests. I am actually impressed by Onions as he can generate good pace from a short run up and gets late swing also he is reasonably accurate.

I do think that England are the favourites as the Windies team do not look well prepared. For England I expect Anderson to be the key as if there any swing he will trouble the top order. Strauss is in good form and of course KP is also there. It would be interesting to see how Bopara will play at 3 which has become the problem area for England.

For them their openers namely Gayle, and Simmons have to fire but Simmons's habit of closing his face off the bat and Gayle being struck in the crease early on may mean that if there is some movement bowlers like Anderson can trouble them but if they do get a good start then the strong middle order can come into play, of course both Edwards, and Taylor have to fire with the ball too.

Deccan Chargers 104-2 (Gibbs 43no, Sharma 36no) beat
Kolkata Knight Riders 101 (Hodge 31, RP Singh 4-22) by eight wickets
Scorecard


Adam Gilchrist led his Deccan Chargers side to an impressive eight-wicket victory over Brendon McCullum's Kolkata Knight Riders in the fourth match of the 2009 IPL in South Africa.

Gilchrist smashed 13 in 11 balls as his side made light work of chasing down a modest target of 102 to win inside 14 overs with eight wickets intact.

Herschelle Gibbs, in front of his home crowd, played a starring role backing up a fine catch to dismiss Kolkata's top scorer Brad Hodge for 31 with a typically belligerent innings of 42 not out in 26 balls, winning the match with a crunching four through extra cover

VVS Laxman (10) blasted a six and a four before being run out but Rohit Sharma kept the score moving along nicely, finishing on 36 not out with three fours and two sixes.

Kolkata's innings never got going as left-arm pacer RP Singh picked up four for 22 with slower bowlers Pragyan Ojha and Scott Styris grabbing two apiece.

Batting was not easy under lights on a damp pitch, but batsman after batsman gave their wickets away with only Hodge lasting for more than 20 balls in a massively disappointing display for the men in gold and black. They were blown away by an outstanding all-round display from the Chargers, resplendent in a new all-blue outfit for the new season.