Chennai drub Punjab in Semifinal- 2
Chennai Super Kings drubbed Kings XI Punjab by nine wickets in a lop-sided contest here on Saturday night to storm into Sunday’s final against red-hot Rajasthan Royals.
After restricting Yuvraj Singh-led side to 112 for eight, Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s men cantered home thanks to a second-wicket stand of 102 runs between opener Parthiv Patel (51 off 48 balls) and Suresh Raina (55 off 34 balls) at the Wankhede.
The best chance for Kings XI, after a pathetic batting performance on winning the toss, was to strike early blows.
They managed to dismiss opener S. Vidyut cheaply for six to reduce Chennai to 14 for one but then the left-handed combination of Patel and Raina took control.
They made runs at a comfortable pace and raced past the finish line in 14.5 overs to complete a thumping victory.
Sunday’s summit clash for the top prize of $1.2 million between Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals, who had beaten Delhi DareDevils in equally comprehensive fashion by 105 runs in the first semi-final, would be held at the DY Patil stadium in Navi Mumbai.
Raina smashed four sixes on the way to his half century, one of them off James Hopes which went over the roof, besides striking four fours.
Earlier, Chennai pacers ripped apart the strong Punjab top-order and restricted them to a paltry total.
Everything went wrong for Preity Zinta’s side after captain Yuvraj opted to bat first on winning the toss and half their side was back in the dugout with only 40 on the board.
Poor batting coupled with some good seam bowling did the trick.
Man of the Match Makhaya Ntini and Manpreet Singh Gony rocked the high-flying Punjab side with a double strike each which reduced Yuvraj’s men to 34 for four in the sixth over.
Ntini started the domination when he had James Hopes caught behind chasing an outswinger for two.
Then Gony dismissed Kumar Sangakkara in similar fashion, caught by wicket keeper Parthiv Patel.
In a show of sportsman-ship, Sangakkara chose to walk. He seemed to have missed a drive off a ball from Gony, but walked off even though the ’keeper did not appeal at all.
Things became grimmer when captain Yuvraj pulled Gony, who bowled an excellent four-over spell for figures of 2 for 14, straight to Muttiah Muralidharan at wide mid-on to leave them gasping at 28 for three.
But the biggest blow was when South African pacer Ntini dismissed Punjab batting mainstay Shaun Marsh in his third over.
The left-handed opener from Western Australia attempted to pull a ball from wide of his stumps but only managed to get an under-edge that crashed on to the stumps to the absolute delight of the Chennai Super Kings players.
Down in the dumps, Punjab lost Irfan Pathan in a horrible mix up with Mahela Jayawardene who refused to respond to the former’s call run. The long throw from Ntini, who dived to stop a boundary, came handy for running out Irfan when he was stranded at mid-pitch.
Punjab, tottering at 40 for five at Pathan’s dismissal, lost their sixth wicket when Jayawardene tried to glide Albie Morkel and top-edged to Patel who grabbed his third catch.
At 45 for six there was a possibility of Punjab doing worse than what Kolkata Knight Riders had done (67 all out against Mumbai Indians on May 16 here).
This was averted with Wilkin Mota (25 off 26 balls) and Ramesh Powar (28 off 22 balls; 1×6; 4×4) leading the way by adding 35 runs for the eighth wicket.
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