Match between the devil and the giant and all the stakes were favoring the Chennai Super Kings. Requiring 127 runs, Super Kings opening pair did half the job by scoring 60 runs. But the remaining 60 plus runs became too big a task for a team which boasts of giants like Dhoni, Raina, Badrinath and the ilk. But, due credit to Rahul and his team of ‘old boys’ who with sheer dedication and determination got themselves a pleasant win and a big smile on their faces. Royal Challengers trounced Dhoni’s Kings by 14 runs.
Super Kings started n a good note when their opening pair of Fleming and Parthiv Patel one half the battle for them by scoring 60 runs. Parthiv who made 24 runs was the first to go when he was caught and bowled by Kumble in the tenth over. Next to come in was skipper himself, Dhoni’s fans and the entire stadium was looking for MSD magic but the captain didn’t come out trumps with the bat and dissapointed everyone when he got out on four runs.
It was still looking as if Super Kings would be able to get through with their formidable batting line-up. Fleming who was looking in good form was next to go after topscoring 45 runs for the team. Fleming was Kumble’s second victim and next to go was Badrinath who was declared lbw on Kumble’s delivery.
Next three batsmen didn’t do much in acclerating or adding runs in the team’s scorecard. In the last over of the inning Kings needed 16 runs to win the game but a superb spell by Praveen Kumar restricted them to scoring the required runs and eventually defeating thm by 14 runs.
bangalore had won the toss and chosen to bat. Jaques Kallis and Shreevats Goswami opened the inning for their side. While Kallis was caught by Fleming on Gony’s ball after making 5 runs. Even Shreevats who had made a spectacular debut with half century in the team’s last match against Delhi Daredevils, couldn’t replay his magic. Gony’s delivery soon got better of him and the youngster was out after contributing paltry 10 runs. The score was just 22 runs and it was 5.3 overs.
Not even twenty more runs were made when Bangalore had lost two more wickets. Muralitharan caught Virat Kohli on the first ball of the ninth over. Kohli just added 10 runs. Last ball of the tenth over saw Misbah-ul-haq getting caught on Balaji’s ball. And, the team had only made 41 runs by then.
Skipper Dravid had Mark Boucher for company. However, fellow countryman Morkel made sure Boucher doesn’t stay for long and got him lbw on the last ball of the fifteenth over. Dravid who tried to play some good shots which reached for boundaries, made 47 runs off