JOHANNESBURG, May 17: Deccan Chargers paid the price for paying too much respect to an attack that did not deserve all of it. Even so, Rohit Sharma nearly pulled off another remarkable victory but it was too much to expect from the young man to do it all by himself for two days in a row as the Chargers went down by one run to Kings XI, chasing 135 to win.

The Chargers will now have to beat Royal Challengers Bangalore in their last league game to ensure their semi-final spot. Opener Herschelle Gibbs has to take a good part of the blame for slowing things down without reason in the middle overs.

With 43 required off three overs it looked all lost for the Chargers before Rohit brought it down to four off four balls. He was foxed by a slower one from Irfan Pathan and the tail could muster only two runs off the next three balls to leave Kings XI winners. Full credit to Pathan for keeping his nerves in the final over. A chase of 135 should have never tested the in-form line up of the Chargers after Kings XI were held down to 134/7. The usual approach when in pursuit of a below-par score was thrown onto the backburner. Adam Gilchrist started slowly against Brett Lee but smashed Pathan for 18 runs in the second over. Three deliveries were crashed behind point while one was deposited over deep mid-wicket.

The introduction of Ramesh Powar inside the powerplay proved to be a master stroke. Holding the ball back craftily, the off-spinner beat Adam Gilchrist in the air to have him stumped and off the very next ball, lured T. Suman into a drive where the curl beat the drive and shattered the timber.

With Gibbs struggling to find form, Kings XI slipped in a few quiet overs as the Chargers were pushed back. Gibbs fell to a good reflex catch by Piyush Chawla at point and shortly later Andrew Symonds was stumped by Kumar Sangakkara on the second attempt and Yuvraj Singh added the wicket of Venugopal Rao off the next ball to register his second hat-trick in the IPL. Earlier, Chargers gained ascendancy by not allowing the batsmen a free run against the new ball. Gilchrist struck to his plan of chasing even though the match was played on a different wicket. The surface looked true and the decision looked logical.

Ryan Harris and R.P. Singh hurried the batsmen with pace and lift. Sunny Sohal hit a six over third man but he was in little control and a wicket looked imminent.

With runs hard to come by and in lack of an alternate plan, Sohal tried to get smart and paid the price. His intended flick over fine leg was taken comfortably by Rohit. Luke Pomersbach joined Simon Katich. Fielding inside the circle was athletic.

It created some confusion in running and Pomersbach made the elementary mistake of running on a misfield.

It was a tough task for the batsmen. Yuvraj walked in with a big responsibility and also started well before Venugopal Rao got one to skid under his bat. Amidst all the chaos Sangakkara was going well.

A few crisp drives got the left-hander going. Wilkin Mota then rotated the strike wisely.