The first ball of the third over, Sehwag tried to send Sreesanth to the moon. The thick edge flew miles up in the air, but only reached as far as mid-off. Yuvraj Singh, the safest pair of hands Indian cricket has seen, got under the ball with a few elegant steps to his left, pivoted a bit to adjust to the floodlights, and spilt the chance.

Two deliveries later, Gautam Gambhir edged an extravagant drive towards third man. VRV Singh saw the ball late, was slow off the blocks, and decided to stand back and take it on the bounce. The Delhi Daredevils had just been let off the hook and Sreesanth looked like he would cry.

Sehwag went on to smash a rain-interrupted, unbeaten 51 as Delhi reached 118 for four in their stop-start Indian Premier League encounter at the Ferozeshah Kotla on Saturday night.

If they hadn’t played such poor cricket at the start, the visitors might have blamed the conditions for their predicament. The second half (or the third bit) of the match got underway in surreal conditions; there was thunder and lightening and a classic Delhi duststorm to deal with. Empty cartons, long strips of plastic and other such rubbish flew across the stadium, provided a fitting backdrop for the chase, which rose from the wreckage of three early dismissals after Shaun Marsh, Yuvraj Singh and James Hopes had been dismissed by three sensational catches in the deep.

Punjab’s 94-3 in eight overs meant that they won the match with a six-run margin as per Duckworth/Lewis calculations when rain stopped play.

... contd.