Delhi favourites in first semi-final

The Conditions After the way the two matches went yesterday on this ground, teams will be backing themselves to chase high totals if fielding first, and will look to post in excess of 170-180 if batting first. However, the pitch should have some wear and tear after two matches and the spinners could come into play towards the later part of the innings. The forecast for today is the same as yesterday: partly cloudy.

The Teams Hyderabad has lost both its league matches to Delhi, but the second one was a heart-stopping affair, that Rajat Bhatia stole from Hyderabad with his accurate bowling. However, now that it's come down to a one day perish or perform scenario, Delhi will not be taking any comfort from their previous two wins.

Deccan Chargers: They are the only team who have not won their last match going into the semi-finals. However, from this stage on it is a matter of stringing together two good performances is what they'll be telling themselves. And in Gilchrist, Gibbs, Rohit Sharma and Andrew Symonds they have the firepower to be able to deliver two knock-out punches in a row to any team. What has stood out in their losses though is the inability of more than 2 of these powerful hitters to fire together.

Delhi Daredevils: The timely return to form of Sehwag and Gambhir, makes Delhi look formidable once again. They had lost that aura, when the two dashing batsmen failed repeatedly, but now they are looking very dangerous. Their batting is comprised of Sehwag, Gambhir, AB de Villiers, Dilshan and Karthik - enough to post or chase any total. Their bowling has Nehra, Mishra, Nannes and the canny Bhatia - a nice mixture of attacking and containing bowlers. And with fielders like AB de Villiers, Dilshan and a reliable keeper in Karthik, they do look like the complete package. While Sehwag has always been a batsman who is one innings away from regaining form, the knock by Gambhir would have pleased Delhi more. Gambhir, as he has shown last year, is a batsman who keeps going once he is in good touch, and against Mumbai, Gambhir showed enough glimpses of his best form to worry all future opposition.

Contest to Watch

Dirk Nannes vs Adam Gilchrist - Nannes will be playing for the Netherlands in the World T20 Cup, but he'd like to remind the Australian selectors just what they've missed by not picking him, and there is no better batsman than Gilchrist for that. If Nannes can get the better of a marauding Gilchrist, he would have made his point.

Numbers Game:

3 - The number of batsmen Hyderabad have who have scored 300+ runs in the tournament. They are Gilchrist, Gibbs and Rohit Sharma. The only other team who has an equal number is Chennai. No other team has more than 2 such batsmen.

1 - The number of batsmen from the non semi-final making teams who make it to the top 10, in the list of the tournament's highest strike rates (min. 100 runs). The batsman in question is Yusuf Pathan who comes in at no. 10. Of the rest, Hyderabad have 3, and the Bangalore, Chennai and Delhi have 2 each.

Trivia:

Even though Virender Sehwag hasn't scored as many runs as he would have liked, whatever he's scored has been as fast as one would expect him to. He is his team's top batsman in terms of strike rate, and the third overall in the tournament (min. 100 runs)

Teams:

Delhi Daredevils (From): Virender Sehwag(c), Gautam Gambhir, AB de Villiers, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Dinesh Karthik(w), Mithun Manhas, Rajat Bhatia, Daniel Vettori, Dirk Nannes, Pradeep Sangwan, Ashish Nehra, Manoj Kumar Tiwary, Aavishkar Salvi, Vijaykumar Yo Mahesh, Glenn McGrath, Amit Mishra, Andrew McDonald, David Warner, Farveez Maharoof, Owais Shah, Paul Collingwood, Tejashwi Yadav, Umesh Yadav, Yogesh Nagar

Deccan Chargers (From): Adam Gilchrist(w/c), Herschelle Gibbs, Tirumalsetti Suman, Andrew Symonds, Rohit Sharma, Venugopal Rao, Azhar Bilakhia, Ryan Harris, Jaskaran Singh, Rudra Pratap Singh, Pragyan Ojha, Dwaraka Ravi Teja, VVS Laxman, Scott Styris, Harmeet Singh, Abhinav Kumar, Arjun Yadav, Chamara Silva, Chaminda Vaas, Doddapaneni Kalyankrishna, Dwayne Smith, Halhadar Das, Manvinder Bisla, Nuwan Zoysa, Paidikalva Vijaykumar, Sarvesh Kumar, Shoaib Ahmed

Bangalore victorious after Deccan collapse

A comfortable victory for Bangalore in the end then. Gilchrist and Gibbs started off in great fashion with the Chargers nicely placed at 85/2 at the halfway stage. Symonds and Gibbs seemed to have things in control before Gibbs' wicket sparked off the collapse that ultimately cost Deccan the match. This win has lifted Bangalore to third place on the table.

Manish Pandey: I got a chance to open the batting today and wanted to make the most of it, that is what I did. The wicket was nice to bat on, the ball came on nicely. I'll go back and see the replay. Importantly, we are into the Semis now, it's going to be an important day and we are looking forward to play well.

Kumble: It's a great thing for us, we started off well, string of bad losses and then we came back strongly, all credit to the boys, the way they responded has been fabulous. Brilliant hundred, Manish never really got an opportunity, so we thought of promoting him. Defending this total was brilliant. We're really happy to get into the Semis, we will back ourselves and try to play like we have done for quite sometime now.

Gilchrist: I think it was bad luck, mate. We weren't as sharp as we would have liked to be, we were outplayed. It would have been great to go into the Semis with a win but then, we need to freshen up for tomorrow. Anyone can beat anyone else on a given night, that is how the tournament has been, it can be one person doing well, it can be the whole unit. It all comes down to how you play on that particular day.

Manish Pandey is the Man of the Match for his brilliant hundred.

Interestingly, in their last 3 games, Bangalore have beaten the other three semi-finalists.

With today's victory RCB have won their last 4 games while DC have lost their last 2 games in a row.

Semi-final line up: Delhi v Deccan on Friday (22nd May), Bangalore v Chennai on Saturday (23rd May)