Hodge's surge gets Kolkata to 153

PORT ELIZABETH,May 3 (Agencies): Brad Hodge's second half-century in two games took the Kolkata Knight Riders to an unexpected 153 as they looked for their second win of the tournament against Kings XI Punjab.

Hodge had to overcome a subdued start by the openers and he picked and chose deliveries to hit in the first half of his innings before throwing his bat at everything in the final overs.

The 21 runs off the final over could make the difference in the eventual result.

Through the game Punjab's bowlers hadn't bowled the sort of length that would tie the batsmen down.

They were lucky to have Kolkata cross 100 only in the 16th over but instead of bowling tight thereafter, they conceded full tosses and short balls - all of which Hodge sent to the boundary.

He reached his half-century off 36 balls in the penultimate over and saved the best for last.

Pathan bowled three over-pitched deliveries and went for 2, 4, 4 before a short ball was pulled for another four.

Hodge drove the fifth to long-on but only got a single as Morne van Wyk refused a second.

The two batsmen conferred before the final ball and van Wyk hit the full toss that followed over midwicket for a six.

But no one in their right mind would have bet on Kolkata crossing 150 when Brendon McCullum and Chris Gayle began the innings.

McCullum struggled to pick the gaps and Gayle, playing his final game, failed to build on his steady start.

However Punjab did not attack the out-of-form openers and it was as if both sides were waiting for the other one to make the first mistake.

Kolkata obliged there, courtesy Gayle, who pulled Yusuf Abdulla straight to Yuvraj Singh at mid-on and left the IPL with 171 runs at a strike-rate of 119.58.

The run-rate did not improve significantly even as Hodge joined McCullum at the crease.

Piyush Chawla's first over, immediately after the Powerplay, went for just two runs.

McCullum was painful to watch as he chose safety to get his numbers.

But when he had ground out 19 agonising runs off 31 balls he decided it was time to attack: he pulled a short and wide delivery off Chawla straight to Vikramjeet Malik at deep backward square-leg.

McCullum's dismissal acted like a spurt of energy - though only just - as Hodge and Sourav Ganguly rotated the strike and looked for loose deliveries to convert to boundaries.

Hodge pulled Yuvraj for two consecutive fours to midwicket and then hit Abdulla over his head for a six; Ganguly opened the face of his bat to guide a four to third man and then slogged a huge six off Chawla to square leg.

This six clearly boost Ganguly and he tried to attack every delivery after that.

It didn't work and three balls later Ganguly top-edged a sweep to Kumar Sangakkara for a 23-ball 22.

It was only when the in-form van Wyk walked in at Ganguly's dismissal that another 50 more runs began to look like a possibility.

However it was Hodge who took them there.