Thaindian News

Mohali, April 13 (IANS) Mumbai’s little-known Paul Vathaty scored an incredible century to lead Kings XI Punjab to a sensational victory, chasing a tough 189-run

target set by Chennai Super Kings in their Indian Premier League match at the packed Punjab Cricket Association (PCA) Stadium here Wednesday evening.

Vathaty’s breathtaking 120 off 63 balls saw Kings XI chase down the target with six wickets and five balls to spare.

The 27-year-old hit 19 fours and two sixes and stayed till the end to take the team home. A staggering 88 of Valthaty’s run came off just 21 balls. Adam Giclhrist (19), Sunny Singh (20) and Dinesh Karthik (21 not out) batted around him.

Vathaty’s gallant knock completely overshadowed the innings of Super Kings opener Murali Vijay (74 off 44 balls), who hit fours sixes, and that of Mahendra Singh Dhoni (43 off 20 balls).

Till now, Vathaty, who was in India’s U-19 World Cup squad in 2002, had played just one List A game and 13 Twenty20 matches. He has been languishing on the sidelines of the Mumbai team in the domestic circuit. But Wednesday night, Vathaty gave his cricketing career a fresh lease of life. His century was the first this season and 13th overall in IPL.

Vathaty made his IPL debut in 2009, playing for Rajasthan Royals.

He opened the batting with skipper Adam Gilchrist and gave a good start to KXIP. The two smashed 61 runs off 35 balls before Gilchrist was caught by Suraj Randiv off Albie Morkel in the sixth over.

Shaun Marsh was run out and Kings XI were two wickets down for 61 runs. But Vathaty was on a roll and hit the ball with power and timing. He got a life when he was dropped by Albie Morkel, who misjudged a regulation catch at mid-off. Vathaty had just 10 runs on the board then.

Karthik gave good support to Vathaty and they shared a 57-run stand fro the fifth wicket. Karthik finished the match by hitting the winning six over long-on and sparking celebration in the Kings XI camp and the packed stadium.

After winning the toss, KXIP skipper Gilchrist opted to field and Praveen Kumar gave them a flying start, taking two Super Kings wickets off the very first two deliveries of the innings. Srikkanth Aniridha was trapped lbw to a big inswinging delivery while Suresh Raina gave a simple catch at mid-wicket.

CSK, however, recovered well from the early blows and Vijay and S. Badrinath (66) stitched a strong partnership of 124 runs for the third wicket. Both the batsmen played shots in all corners of the stadium.

They scored at a fast clip, taking Super Kings to the formidable total, before Vijay was stumped by Gilchrist off Piyush Chawla.

Dhoni then held the innings and entertained the crowd with two sixes and four fours.

Dhoni’s helicopter shots with swift movement of his strong arms were a treat to watch.

Dhoni and Badrinath raised 64 for the fourth wicket as CSK belted 48 runs in the last four overs.