IPL 2012: Warner's brutal ton demolishes Deccan Chargers

Delhi Daredevils defeat Decan Chargers by 9 wickets

Suyash Srivastava

Hyderabad: 187 looks like a stiff chase, but not when David Warner gets going. The little dynamite scored a 54-ball 109 and along with Naman Ojha (64 from 46) added record 189 runs for the second wicket and made a mockery of the Deccan bowling attack in front of their home crowd. Scorecard »I Points table »I As it happened» Deccan who played without Dale Steyn put up a formidable score of 187 runs on the board and despite of Delhi’s strong batting line up, it looked like a good score. Sehwag began the innings in style with a boundary towards long-off. But he perished off the very next ball as he hit the ball high in the air and White took a great catch at covers. Dhawan who bowled the first over had produced the major breakthrough. Naman Ojha was promoted ahead of Mahela Jayawardene and little did everybody know that Mahela wouldn’t be required to bat. In the same over bowled by Dhawan Warner scored two boundaries off the last two balls and he cleared his intentions pretty early. He smashed Ashish Reddy for two sixes and two boundaries in the last over of the fielding restrictions. Naman Ojha on the other end played a sensible innings where he often rotated strike and scored boundaries at regular intervals to relieve pressure off Warner. Warner reached his century off just 52 balls. It was his second IPL ton and fifth in T20 cricket. Ojha and Warner added 189 runs for the second wicket which was a record for Warner innings overshadowed two great innings played by Shikhar Dhawan and Cameron White. Dhawan (84 from 49) and White (65 from 40) added 126 runs for the second wicket to post a formidable total on their home turf. But all went in vain when Warner began his onslaught. Warner proved why he is the right man to fill the shoes of Kevin Pietersen with his blistering knock. Why did Deccan Chargers play without Dale Steyn or Rusty Theron remains to be a mystery as they added another loss to their humiliating IPL 2012 campaign. The Daredevils are once again the table-topper with 18 wins from 12 matches.