The Kolkota Knight Riders staged a remarkable fightback to stun the defending champions, the Deccan Chargers, in the opening match of the DFL Indian Premier League at the DY Patil Stadium in Mumbai on Friday. The Riders won by 11 runs.

The Knight Riders slammed 161/4 in their allotted twenty overs.

The Chargers suffered a mid-innings implosion as they plummeted from 99/1 in the twelfth over to 150/7 in twenty overs.

A five-star bowling performance by the Knight Riders contributed to their success.

The South African swing bowler Charl Langeveldt was arguably the pick of the attack, with 2/26 in four overs.

But the slow bowlers, Murali Karthik (1/17 in three overs), Brad Hodge (1/14 in two oves) and Angelo Matthews (1/27 in four overs) did a sterling job in the middle overs to frustrate and smother the big-hitters of the Chargers.

The Chargers were off to a flyer and had 88/1 after ten overs thanks to Adam Gilchrist (54, 35 balls, 3x4, 3x6).

Gilchrist had two let-offs, as Brad Hodge put him down at second slip off Ishant Sharma on 2.

Langeveldt missed a regulation chance at long-off with Gilchrist on 42.

But after Gilchrist’s departure, things went horribly wrong for the Chargers.

The complexion of the game changed quite dramatically when the Chargers lost three wickets in the space of nineteen deliveries as they plummeted from 99/1 to 116/4.

Gilchrist holed out to Manoj Tiwary on the mid-wicket boundary off Brad Hodge for 54.

Herschelle Gibbs, who started off slowly, then tried to straight-drive Langeveldt for a six but was caught at long-off by Angelo Matthews for 19 (24 balls, 2x4).

The big-hitting Australian Andrew Symonds top-edged Sharma to mid-wicket and departed for 5 as the Chargers slipped to 116/4 in the fifteenth over.

Rohit Sharma played a bizarre shot to long-off as he was caught by Hodge off Matthews for 13 (12 balls, 2x4).

Faced with an increasingly difficult task to score 30 runs in the final three overs, the Chargers failed to clear the boundary ropes.

Langeveldt bowled Chaminda Vaas in the penultimate over and only conceded four runs to thwart the champions.

The Knight Riders were able to recover to 161/4 after wobbling on 31/4, thanks to a remarkable rearguard-action by Matthews (65, 46 balls, 5x4, 4x6) and Owais Shah (58, 46 balls, 3x4, 3x6), who added 130 runs off 90 balls for the fifth wicket.

Joining forces on 31/4 after 5.1 overs, they took their time to resurrect the innings, and then went ballistic in the final five overs as they obliterated the attack by adding 69 runs.

Vaas, with 2/22 in three overs, was the pick of the attack, while Pragyan Ojha conceded nineteen runs in four overs.

Teams:

Deccan Chargers: Adam Gilchrist (captain), A Ashis Reddy, Anirudh Singh, AA Bilakhia, Herschelle Gibbs, Harmeet Singh, Ryan Harris, VVS Laxman, MR Marsh, MD Mishra, PP Ojha, DB Ravi Teja, Kemar Roach, R Sharma, Rohit Sharma, RP Singh, Dwayne Smith, TL Suman, B Sumanth, Andrew Symonds, Chaminda Vaas, Y Venugopal Rao, AS Yadav.

Kolkata Knight Riders: Sourav Ganguly (captain), VR Aaron, Ajit Agarkar, Ashok Dinda, Eklak Ahmid, Rohan Gavaskar, Chris Gayle, Brad Hodge, Iqbal Abdulla, Murali Kartik, HH Khadiwale, Charl Langeveldt, Brendon McCullum†, Angelo Mathews, Ajantha Mendis, CR Pathak, Cheteshwar Pujara, Wriddhman Saha†, Owais Shah, Ishant Sharma, LR Shukla, MK Tiwary, G Vignesh