Dhoni Heroics take Chennai into Semifinals
Till the last over of this big chase most cricket pundits would have felt Chennai was out of contention, but then Dhoni had other ideas and came to the party big time , with support from Albie Morkel, scored 45 runs in last 3 overs (2 balls to spare) to take chennai to a comfortable victory in the end.
Earlier Shaun Marsh plundered runs against Chennai’s fast men who couldn’t control the Kings XI batsman in a true pitch. Both Jayawardene and Sangakkara provided able to support to Marsh to take the team to a huge total of 192. Irfan Pathan also provided some pyrotechnics in the end. For Chennai R Ashwin bowled in a totally different pitch compared to his teammates containing and picking up wickets.
Kings XI Punjab innings (20 overs maximum) R B 4s 6s SR
DPMD Jayawardene c Tyagi b Morkel 21 8 2 2 262.50
SE Marsh not out 88 57 8 5 154.38
KC Sangakkara*† b Ashwin 33 24 5 0 137.50
Yuvraj Singh lbw b Raina 1 4 0 0 25.00
IK Pathan not out 44 27 4 1 162.96
Extras (lb 2, w 3) 5
Total (3 wickets; 20 overs) 192 (9.60 runs per over)
Chennai Super Kings innings (target: 193 runs from 20 overs) R B 4s 6s SR
M Vijay st †Sangakkara b Powar 13 11 2 0 118.18
ML Hayden c †Sangakkara b Powar 5 8 1 0 62.50
SK Raina c Goel b Theron 46 27 5 3 170.37
S Badrinath st †Sangakkara b Chawla 53 36 7 2 147.22
MS Dhoni*† not out 54 29 5 2 186.20
JA Morkel not out 14 8 2 0 175.00
Extras (lb 5, w 4, nb 1) 10
Total (4 wickets; 19.4 overs) 195 (9.91 runs per over)
Chennai started badly losing Mathew Hayden and Vijay soon after, but Dhoni made a wise decision to send Badrinath ahead of himself and the pair of Raina and Badri went about nicely setting up a platform for the final assault. But both Raina and Badri couldnt take it till the end, which needed Dhoni and Morkel to seal the deal.
Tags: Albie Morkel, Irfan Pathan, Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, S Badrinath, Shaun Marsh, Suresh Raina
