Kings taste first success; demolish Mumbai by 66 runs

Yuvraj Singh, the captain of Priety Zinta owned Kings XI Punjab would be a relieved man as his team secured first win of the tournament, defeating another struggling team Mumbai Indians by a long chalk. Chasing a challenging total of 183, Mumbai could muster just 116 of their stipulated 20 overs as they failed to handle the excellent spells of Brett Lee in the beginning and rookie Chawla in the middle overs of the innings. Yuvraj, whose talent as a captain has been put to test in this tournament, finally came out with flying colours as he handled his famed bowling line-up with clinical precision. Though he could not display his batting prowess in the match, his one-handed catch to get rid of Shaun Pollock would remain in the memory of the audience who got their money’s worth throughout the match. Apart from the partnership of Bravo and Uthappa, Mumbai were never in the hunt during their run chase. Brett Lee gave Punjab team a perfect start as he took a fine return catch of Jayasuriya and then ran Luke Ronchi out on his follow-through.
Uthappa and Bravo tried to regroup their fragile batting line-up with a 40-odd run partnership, but once they got out the Mumbai team lost wickets in a heave, and ultimately managing just 116/9. Leggie Piyush Chawla, who had an insipid tournament so far, came up with a magnificent spell of 2/16 to help his team register their first win in the tournament. In fact, all the bowlers, be it Pathan (2/19), Lee (1/9) or Sreesanth (2/31) did their job with precision. Earlier, put into bat Sri Lankan stumper Kumar Sangakkara set the tempo for the Kings XI with a blistering 94 off just 56 balls to post a reasonably good total of 182. But he got little support from the other end as the next best score being 18 by Karan Goel and Yuvraj Singh.

Bhajji 'slaps' Sreesanth, makes him cry

Harbhajan Singh found himself embroiled in yet another controversy after allegedly slapping Kings XI paceman S Sreesanth during their Indian Premier League encounter on Friday. The Kings XI team, led by Yuvraj Singh, is reportedly planning to lodge a complaint against the off-spinner, who later apologised to the paceman in the dressing room of the Punjab team. BCCI vice-president Rajiv Shukla said the board would wait for the report from the team management before deciding on the future course of action. Harbhajan, leading Mumbai Indians side, allegedly slapped Sreesanth when latter said something to him which the off-spinner found offensive. The paceman was seen crying bitterly on the ground at the end of the IPL match, which his team won by 66 runs. While Harbhajan kept mum on the issue during the post-match conference, Sreesanth tried to play down the incident. "It is normal. Nothing serious happened. It is all in the game. I am fine. We will still be part of the national team," Sreesanth said before leaving from the stadium. As Sreesanth came to board the bus to return to the team hotel, waiting media mobbed him to listen to his version. Harbhajan though did not speak on the issue. "Can we have questions on just cricket," Harbhajan said when asked about what happened between him and Sreesanth. Mumbai Indians coach Lalchand Rajput also requested media to restrict their questions to just cricket. The winning captain Yuvraj Singh though was upset by the unsavoury incident and termed it "ugly". "This is really an ugly incident. You do not want to see such things off the field specially after such a win. I am pretty upset at what has happened. This is totally unacceptable," he said apparently criticising Harbhajan Singh. Yuvraj though said he did not know what actually transpired between the two. "I do not know what exactly happened but one does not want to see such things happening." Kings XI coach Tom Moody was also visibly upset by the incident and termed as "unacceptable" Harbhajan's behaviour. "At the end of the day, players shake hands. But today saw more that from Harbhajan and Sreesanth. It is unacceptable behaviour and I am sure officials will take of note. "The positive thing is that Harbhajan had a long chat with Sreesanth. But I am not sure what ramifications this incident will have," Moody said. Upset after his team's third successive defeat, the turbanator also looked unhappy with his teammates. "When you lose nothing seems to be okay. I won't bowl and bat for other people. They have to be captain of their own bowling and own bowling. I can not do other's job," he said angrily when asked if captaincy was tough. "I don't like losing. When you lose, you don't feel happy."