Best Centuries In Successful Chases in IPL History

#4: Paul Valthaty (120*, 19x4, 2x6)

For: Kings XI Punjab

Against: Chennai Super Kings

Date: 13th April 2011

Valthaty acknowledges the crowd as he brings up his 100

Before 2011, few people would have even heard of Paul Valthaty, save for fans of the Rajasthan Royals, for whom he played a couple of games in 2009, or people who took a keen interest in the Mumbai cricketing circuit. Valthaty actually made the India's squad for the U-19 World Cup in 2002 with both Irfan Pathan and Parthiv Patel, but unfortunately suffered an injury against Bangladesh which kept him out for a significant period of time.

A primarily T20 player, having played just 5 first class matches for Mumbai, Valthaty was bought as an uncapped player by the Kings XI Punjab in the 2011 auction, with no one really taking notice of this particular move. He batted at number three in his first game for them, making just 6 as Punjab were bowled out for 112 against the Pune Warriors India. But he was promoted to open the innings in the next game against the defending champions, the Chennai Super Kings.

Valthaty's first involvement in the game saw him take a catch off Praveen Kumar's bowling to dismiss Suresh Raina, and leave the Super Kings reeling at 0-2 in the first over. However, Chennai recovered to post a competitive 188/4, riding on half centuries from Murali Vijay (74 off 43) and Subramaniam Badrinath (66* off 56), as well as a late blitzkrieg from MS Dhoni (43 off 20).

Chasing 189 was never going to be easy, especially against the IPL's best team, but, just over a year on from Jayawardene's heroics, Valthaty made it look ridiculously simple, caressing the ball through covers and smashing it over square leg with equal ease, and hitting 19 boundaries and 2 sixes on his way to an unbeaten 120 off 63 balls, getting his side over the line with 5 balls to spare.

Valthaty then followed up this innings with half centuries against the Delhi Daredevils and the Deccan Chargers, even picking up 4 wickets against the latter with his gentle medium pacers. However, even Valthaty's exceptional form could not help Punjab qualify for the playoffs, as they eventually finished fifth in the table.

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