Punjab's Fairy Tale

The task ahead of Kings XI Punjab is simple: beat Deccan Chargers by as big a margin as possible on Saturday. Mumbai Indians' sorry show against Rajasthan Royals has brightened Punjab's prospects, and provided them with windows of opportunity at both ends of the Net Run-Rate curve. Punjab are already ahead of Mumbai on NRR, and if they win by a big enough margin, they will leapfrog Kolkata as well, reducing the final league game into a shoot-out. If, on the other hand, Punjab win by a small margin, they will remain behind Kolkata on NRR, and will want Mumbai to either lose, or win by a margin huge enough to pull Kolkata to fifth on the table. All these permutations, however, will count for nought if Punjab lose against Deccan.

The possibilities are endless, and the situation calls for cool heads that can ignore the distractions and approach the game with uncluttered minds. In captain Adam Gilchrist and coach Michael Bevan, Punjab have just the men for the job. So far, Punjab's campaign has hurtled along like a chronic insomniac over-dosing on sleeping pills: with arguably the weakest side on paper in the competition, they have been through a three-match winning streak and a five-game losing run, followed by four successive wins. Can they hold it together for one last game?

The dark cloud in Punjab's horizon is that, if they can't pull off a big win today, Kolkata and Mumbai will know exactly what they need to do when they play their last game. The darker cloud - literally - is that a rain-out in Kolkata will knock out Punjab irrespective of Saturday's outcome. The silver lining is that the normally meek Deccan are further weakened by the absence of Kumar Sangakkara, and have little to play for at the end of a forgettable season. The hills in Dharamsala could witness an interesting duel today.

Sizzling Gilchrist conquers Bangalore

Adrenalin. Violence. And a lot of skill. The Dharamsala sky cracked with lightning and thunder but the real storm was witnessed from the bats of Adam Gilchrist and Shaun Marsh. Gilchrist rolled back the years to produce a delightfully aggressive century and Marsh unfurled a gem of his own as the pair constructed the highest partnership in a Twenty20 game, 206 runs, to help Kings XI Punjab terminate Royal Challengers Bangalore's winning streak. With this massive 111-run victory, Punjab are level on points with Kolkata Knight Riders and also, racked up their net run rate.

There are many big-hitting batsmen but most of them tend to club, bludgeon, tonk, heave and thump. Gilchrist, though, rarely plays an "ugly" shot. He makes eye-pleasing classical arcs with the bat and tonight was no different. Marsh captured the mood best: "It was a privilege to watch it from the other end," Marsh said.

Gilchrist made his presence felt in the chase too, diving to his left to take a stunner to dismiss Chris Gayle and derail the chase. Ryan Harris removed both Gayle and Virat Kohli, Praveen Kumar bowled his fifth maiden of the tournament, and Piyush Chawla bamboozled the lower-middle order with his googlies and legbreaks to grab four wickets but the night will be, as it should be, remembered for the carnage unleashed by Gilchrist the batsman.

He didn't start flowing until the seventh over, preferring to let Paul Valthaty play the role of aggressor. Gilchrist was on 2 off 9 deliveries, and Punjab on 30 for 1, when a short ball from Abhimanyu Mithun helped him kickstart his flashback. He swivelled to pull the white ball over the midwicket boundary to signal the beginning of the carnage. He then turned his attention to S Aravind, who had given only a solitary run from seven deliveries. He charged down the track to lift one over long-off and crashed another to the straight boundary. With Marsh collecting a six and a four, S Aravind leaked 21 runs in that eight over. The floodgates were well and truly open.

Kohli tried to the check the Gilchrist flood with the spin of Gayle. No luck, though, as he was swung for two huge sixes. It was in the 10th over, bowled by Charl Langeveldt, that Gilchrist really stepped up the violence in some style. He played the conventional and the short-arm pull to collect two sixes before he produced the longest six (122 metres) to complete the hat-trick. It was a knuckle-ball from Langeveldt but Gilchrist read it early and swung it way beyond the midwicket boundary. Langeveldt winced, Kohli stared into distance and the Punjab camp was agog with utter delight.

Bangalore's woes, though, were only to escalate from that moment as Marsh decided to weigh in with his own brand of aggression. He stamped his presence on the game in the 15th over, looting 30 runs off Johan van der Wath. It went for 6 6 4 4 4 6, as Marsh launched a stunning assault. Three fours sped to the extra-cover boundary, one six flew over midwicket, another sailed over long-off and the final six disappeared over the straight boundary.By the end it was difficult to keep count of the sixes as the scorecard kept racing ahead as though it was on steroids. It was a violent violent night in the hill-town inhabited by peaceful monks.