Misers united: McGrath and Asif

Purists might object to the helter-skelter of Twenty20, but one of the joys of the IPL is the way fantasy can become reality. Ever wondered how Andrew Symonds and Shahid Afridi might fare in the same team? Simple: just buy them both at auction. Curious about the new-ball potential of Glenn McGrath and Mohammad Asif? Ditto.

It was the dream seam team which came out on top, providing a masterclass from both ends, with Farveez Maharoof - until he was collared late on by the pulsating Rohit Sharma - carrying on the good work at first change. You've heard of dibbly, dobbly and wobbly. Well, step forward niggardly, naggingly and give-away-nothingly.

But it was the pairing for the first time in the competition of McGrath and Asif that really got the aesthete's juices flowing. One, a retired 38-year-old, still shaking his head furiously at the slightest aberration and showing that there really is no substitute for targeting the top of off stump; the other, aged 25, languid, supple, flowing, and the man more likely than any in the game to emerge with McGrath's crown.

After the seven overs they bowled together at the start of the match, a Deccan Chargers top four containing Adam Gilchrist, VVS Laxman and Symonds had scraped together 34 runs for the loss of two wickets: McGrath had 4-1-22-0, Asif 3-0-11-2. Four of the runs McGrath conceded came from a Chinese cut by Venugopal Rao, and one of them might have been a wicket after Rao fortuitously top-edged a pull which somehow plopped to safety.

McGrath began immaculately to ensure he has now bowled two of the three maidens sent down in the IPL so far [the third, by Ishant Sharma, came on the Eden Gardens slag-heap], and his parsimony proved contagious. Asif, bowling with his right arm in a brace following elbow surgery, caught the bug, and although Gilchrist picked his third ball up for six - these things happen - he struck back soon after with a ball that ricocheted onto leg-stump as Gilchrist aimed to cut.

The delivery that got Laxman four overs later was more worthy of a wicket, jagging back at the last moment to turn Laxman's attempted whip through the leg side, so often a strength, into a fatal weakness. But it was the way the two bowlers fed off each other, like a pair of misers cackling over a piggy-bank, which truly stifled Deccan. "They gave us the start we wanted," Virender Sehwag said afterwards. "It allowed us to put them under pressure."

Maharoof, another McGrath prototype, was the ideal foil, removing Rao with the last ball of his first over, then snaring the big beast Symonds with the third delivery of his second as Dinesh Karthik pulled off a smart tumbling catch. After three overs, Maharoof had 2 for 10, and it required some ferocious - not to say precocious - hitting from Sharma to dent his figures.

This, though, might just be the most effective trio of seamers in the competition. If Delhi were made to look good by an inexperienced Rajasthan Royals side at the Feroz Shah Kotla on Saturday, then this was high-class seam bowling on a good pitch against a potentially headache-inducing batting line-up. Remarkably, the trio cost the Daredevils's owners, GMR Holdings, a not-very-grand total of US$1,225,000, which is less than Symonds - out for just 12 yesterday and mauled for 30 in an over by Sehwag - fetched by himself.

Sehwag, predictably enough, was named Man of the Match for his undefeated 94 off 41 balls, but without the control handed him for all but one of the 12 overs bowled by McGrath and his two sidekicks, he might never have thrown such caution to the wind. For all tonight's evidence, it really is a batsman's game.