Chennai: The Chennai Super Kings snapped out of their four-match losing streak after defeating the much fancied Royal Challengers Bangalore by five wickets.
Riding high on an uncharacteristically aggressive knock of 78 off 39 balls from opener Murali Vijay which included six massive sixes, the Super Kings successfully chased down RCB’s total with an over to spare. Vijay and Matthew Hayden gave Chennai an explosive start, mostly due to Vijay’s brilliance.
Hayden looked out of sorts and was stumped off Kumble’s bowling in the 7th over. Kevin Pietersen bore the brunt of Vijay’s new-found belligerent streak as he smashed the Englishman for two consecutive sixes. But Pietersen got his revenge after Vijay tried one too shots and holed out at long-on.
Vijay’s departure didn’t stop CSK from claiming a morale boosting victory, with Suresh Raina’s 45* seeing the home team through.
Opting to bat first, the Royal Challengers Bangalore got off to a decent start. After Manish Pandey departed after scoring just five, fellow opener Jacques Kallis made sure he reclaimed his Orange Cap with a gritty innings of 52.
Robin Uthappa (21,13b) came and quickly made his presence felt, but he too fell too early to make any significant impact. The Super Kings were successfully stifling the RCB middle order batsmen, with Shadab Jakati (2/17) and Muttiah Muralidaran (0/21) keeping things quiet.
Kallis could have provided a late flourish to the RCB innings but a mix up with Kevin Pietersen got the South African run-out.
The freshly arrived Pietersen did somewhat make amends scoring a breezy 23* off 14 balls, to add to Cameron White’s confident knock of 21*(13).
161 for the loss of 4 wickets is what the Challengers managed to score, which eventually turned out to be too diminutive a target to defend against a resurgent Super Kings Side.
No comments:
Post a Comment