Super Kings seal another thriller
chennai — Chennai Super Kings chalked up their second successive win by beating Kolkata Knight Riders by five wickets in a thrilling Indian Premier League match on Tuesday.
CSK needing to score 17 runs in the last over with Dwayne Bravo (11 not out) and Ravindra Jadeja (11 not out) at the crease reached home with a ball to spare.
Vinay Kumar, who was hit for a six off the first ball by Bravo, was left distraught as Jadeja sealed off the match as he lofted Vinay over the ropes with four runs needed off the last two balls. Sam Billings had set up CSK with a fine knock of 56 off 23 balls.
Earlier, Andre Russell smashed an unbeaten 36-ball 88 to help Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) recover from early jitters and post a mammoth 202/6 in 20 overs.
There was unprecedented security at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium with a lot of traffic restrictions around the stadium and the arrival of the teams accompanied by tight surveillance. The toss for the game was taken at 7.43 pm, a delay of 13 minutes.
Coming to the game, KKR were reduced to 89/5 at one stage after being put in before Russell (1x4, 11x6) took the home team bowlers to the cleaners with some lusty blows.
The 29-year-old West Indian allrounder was at it from the word go and in the 19th over smashed compratriot Dwayne Bravo for three back-to-back sixes.
Russell was ably supported by skipper Dinesh Karthik (26 off 25 balls) and Robin Uthappa (29 off 16 balls) at the beginning.
For CSK, Shane Watson returned best figures of 2/39 while Harbhajan Singh (1/11), Ravindra Jadeja (1/19) and Shardul Thakur (1/37) also picked up wickets.
KKR lost two wickets in the form of Sunil Narine (12), and Chris Lynn (22) who failed to make the most of a reprieve when Deepak Chahar grassed a difficult catch off Harbhajan’s bowling.
Narine was sent back by Harhhajan with a tossed up delivery that the West Indian looked to slog down the leg side, holing out to Raina who ran from mid off to complete the catch.