Chasing 148, Chennai Super Kings looked aggressive. However, Vijay Kumar did the first damage to Chennai Super Kings in their quest to victory. His first ball of innings' fourth over resulted in Fleming's wicket. Gilly took an easy catch behind the wickets to close his inning of 14 in 9 balls that included 3 fours. Undeterred Patel with Raina added 34 runs to the second wicket. But a Suresh Kumar delivery in the 9th over cut short this partnership. Patel before being caught by Afridi made 20. After 10 overs, the team scored 72/2.
It was here that skipper Dhoni took charge of the team. Leading from front he smashed some beautiful boundaries and added 55 runs in 41 balls with Raina. Deccan’s Ojha in the 16th over made a big breakthrough for his team when he got rid of Super Kings’ skipper. Gibbs’ catch put a full stop to his superb 37 in 25 balls (4 fours & 1 six). But before he left, victory was within the reach of Chennai.
Suresh Raina (54*) and Morkel (12*) completed the formality in style. Raina hit a big six to complete the required 148 on the second ball of the 20th over.
Earlier Deccan Chargers had a very slow start. The team lost two quick wickets with in five overs with score being just 18. The first to go was Herschelle Gibbs on the 2nd ball of the third over. Chennai Super Kings’ pacer Ntini threw a slower delivery to get rid of Chargers’ opener. He was taken on the boundary by third man L Balaji and could only make 8. The team could not recover from the shock and lost skipper Gilchrist on the 2nd ball of the next over. This time it was Goni on whose ball Gilly (5) was caught by Abhinav Mukund, again at third man.
However, the middle order came to the rescue at the right time. Venugopal Rao and S Styris played sensibly and took the team total to 57 in 10 overs. But a bowling change was all it took to break a strong partnership (42 runs). Muralitharan on his very first ball of the 11th over blew Styris’ (20) middle stump.
Venugopal did not stop here. In Teja’s company he added 76 crucial runs for the fourth wicket. With the way the two were batting it looked they would post somewhere near 180. However, fate had something else in store for Deccan Chargers. The third ball of 19th over removed Ravi Teja, who made a salient 40 off 28 balls, with four fours and a six. Mukund caught him on mid-wicket off Morkel’s bowling. Rao (46) was next to go, out on a brilliant run out in the very next ball. On the fifth ball Morkel clean bowled Arjun Yadav (0). Three wickets were down in a span of three balls, something Deccan would want the least. Singh however hit a six on the last ball to revive some hopes.
Balaji bowled the last over. The ghost of falling wickets came to haunt Deccans again. They lost Shahid Afridi on the fourth ball (1) caught by Raina on long off. Morkel took Singh’s (10) catch on mid-wicket on the last ball to wrap up Chargers’ inning. In the end, they made 147/8.
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