Deccan Chargers were crowned 2009 IPL champions following a thrilling win over Bangalore Royal Challengers in Johannesburg.
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The bottom two sides from 12 months ago served up a treat at the Bull Ring, as the game swung both ways throughout a pulsating 40 overs.
Herschelle Gibbs’ half century led Deccan to 143/6 from their 20 overs, but it did not look enough as Roelof van der Merwe and Ross Taylor threatened to cut loose.
However, Deccan kept chipping away with wickets and Andrew Symonds removed Taylor and Virat Kohli in successive balls to set up a six-run win.
Bangalore drew first blood in some style and it was a tactical masterstroke from Anil Kumble. Kumble had seen Adam Gilchrist take Delhi’s pace attack apart in the semi-final and opted to open the bowling with himself. The move paid dividends in the third ball, as Gilchrist came down the track and yorked himself, with the ball taking out leg stump.
A rash shot from Suman saw Vinay Kumar pick up a wicket to leave Deccan in real trouble and it could have got worse as Rahul Dravid shelled a simple slip catch to remove Andrew Symonds.
The Australian, who had made five when receiving a life, launched a fierce counter attack and threatened to take the game away from Bangalore.
Symonds had moved to 33 when Kumble brought himself back into the attack, again with success.
The leg spinner was a shade fortunate as a short ball should have been punished, but Symonds did not make contact and the ball spun off his thigh pad and into leg stump.
Rohit Sharma joined Gibbs and the pair put on 50 for the fourth wicket before Kumble returned to turn the game back Bangalore’s way once again.
He had Sharma caught on the fence at long off and Venugopal Rao became his fourth wicket when picking out Taylor on the boundary at cover.
Gibbs batted through the innings for 53 off 48 balls, but was starved of the strike in the later overs as Bangalore restricted them to 143/6.
Bangalore made a circumspect start to their chase and RP Singh made the breakthrough when Jacques Kallis pulled the ball onto his leg stump.
Van der Merwe was sent in with a licence to attack and he was undeterred by the departure of Manesh Pandey as he took the fight to Deccan.
The South African raced to 32 before becoming Pragyan Ojha’s second wicket, stumped by Gilchrist.
Dravid is usually the calmest of heads, but he executed a sweep to Harmeet Singh very poorly and lost his leg stump.
Taylor and Kolhi came together and put on 20 off 15 balls, but both fell in successive balls. Taylor picked out Rao on the fence at square leg and off the following ball Gilchrist produced a brilliant piece of glove work to have Kohli stumped down the leg side off Symonds.
Harmeet Singh returned to take the prize wicket of Mark Boucher and Bangalore’s chase fizzled out in the final overs as Deccan sealed an amazing comeback from the woes of 12 months ago.
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