Beat KXIP by 10 wickets for their first IPl-6 victory
In this battle of two acclaimed wicketkeeper-batsmen, who have defined the role over the years, MS Dhoni came out triumphant against Adam Gilchrist as his Chennai Super Kings beat Kings XI Punjab by 10 wickets here at the PCA stadium on Wednesday.
Playing to a packed house, the visiting bowling attack, aided well by good fielding, saw off Kings XI for 138 runs in 19.5 overs. Dirk Nannes gave the initial breakthroughs and the rest followed, with Dwayne Bravo and Chris Morris cleaning off the tail. Michael Hussey, adjudged the man of the match for his unbeaten 86, and Murali Vijay were enough to chase down the target in 17.2 overs, Vijay making 50 as the hosts poor fielding also helped them.
After Dhoni invited the hosts to bat first, Dutchman Nannes’s opening delivery was treated by Mandeep Singh with a characteristic T20 disdain shown towards bowlers in this format. But after that boundary, Nannes hardly gave Mandeep and his skipper Gilchrist any chance to add to the scoreboard. The Australian did same to Ankit Rajput in the following over with two quick hits towards the ropes.
Nannes, however, was in a hurry to take revenge and he did so in his second over. Michael of the Hussey brothers was on microphone, chatting with the commentators, when Gilchrist played it towards deep. And, the fielding Australian was alert enough to play his part in the 41-year-old’s departure. Mandeep was the next one. It was the penultimate ball of the third over and Mandeep’s effort at a hook shot saw him setting up an easy catch for Bravo. With Gilchrist and Mandeep having contributed nine runs each, the Kings surely looked in trouble.
The younger of the two Husseys – David – came to their rescue. Manan Vohra looked good enough to give him company for some time but failed to add to his score of 16 and played out an easy catch for Michael off Ravindra Jadeja.
It was only in the 10th over that David got the crowd celebrating wildly as he hit the first and only six of the hosts’ innings. While the situation demanded him to bat through the innings, David could not negotiate an R Ashwin delivery in the 15th over and ended up starting a domino effect. The Kings XI score read 106, David having made 41 out of that, when Bravo caught him.
Morris, CSK’s $600,000 buy for the season and the only change in the match as Kings went in with an unchanged side, shared the rest of the spoils with his West Indian teammate Bravo.
The South African pacer, a Manchester United supporter, who got the chance to fly business class for the first time ever to join CSK squad on Monday, started by packing off Azhar Mahmood in the 17th over after Nannes caught Gurkeerat Singh off Bravo in the earlier one.
Bravo then accounted for Rajagopal Sathish and Piyush Chawla and Morris claimed Ryan Harris’ wicket. Praveen Kumar fell short of his crease as Dhoni hit the target to end Kings’ innings at 138 in 19.5 overs.
Murali Vijay and the elder Hussey started the chase with a confidence befitting the meagre target. Treading towards it slowly, it wasn’t until the seventh over that the opening pair gave the hosts a chance at a breakthrough. Michael guided Mehmood’s second delivery of the over towards mid-off, where Harris leapt at it and aimed the stumps at the bowler’s end. It took a fine dive from Michael for the decision to be left upon the third umpire, who gave the batsman the benefit of the doubt.
The duo then safely guided the side to 65 runs at the halfway mark. As the clean-hitting Australian went for the big shots his Indian partner stuck to safe singles. As a result Michael had reached his half-century in the 13th over, taking 36 balls for that and hitting eight towards the ropes, while Vijay was still at 31. Vijay, however, beat him to hitting the first six of the innings, off Sathish in the 16th over. Michael got his first six in the next over as Vijay reached his 50.
On the first ball of the 18th over, Michael hit his second six and followed it with a single to guide the visitors to a 10-wicket win here and their first one of this edition.
Brief Scores
Kings XI Punjab: 138/10 in 19.5 overs (David Hussey 41, Gurkeerat Singh 31; Dwayne Bravo 3/27, Chris Morris 2/27, Dirk Nannes 2/17 ) lost to Chennai Super Kings: 139/0 in 17.2 overs (Mike Hussey 86 not out, Murali Vijay 50 not out) by 10 wickets.