TheSportsCampus

Chennai Super Kings qualified for the play-offs with an 11 run win over Kochi Tuskers Kerala at Chepauk on Wednesday. Chennai now have every chance to finish in the top two which will give them a distinct advantage going into the finals. Chennai once again failed to really fire with the bat with Wriddhiman Saha getting them out of jail with brilliant 46, enabling the hosts to post a par score of 152. Their bowling though continued to show that they can defend any total at home, restricting the Tuskers to 141 despite an unbeaten 51 from Brad Hodge.

It was Kochi Tuskers' last chance to stake their (albeit slim) claim on a play-off spot and they were up against the mighty Chennai Super Kings who hadn't lost a game at home all season. Chennai's great batting line-up has delivered whenever required, but an off-day could well have opened the door for an upset win.

MS Dhoni won the toss once again and had no hesitation in batting first. Chennai persisted with the same side that played in their last game, meaning another opportunity for Dwayne Bravo to hit his straps before the knock-out rounds. Mahela Jayawardene had left for English shores on national duty and a new captain was to be appointed. Parthiv Patel was given the privilege to lead the side and on a great occasion against his former team. Jayawardene's absence meant Muthiah Muralitharan could finally be brought back into the playing 11. Vinay Kumar and Kedar Jadhav were fit again and were back into the side.

Chennai started cautiously as RP Singh and Sreesanth maintained an excellent line to the openers. Murali Vijay tried to provide some momentum to the innings, hitting 3 boundaries off an RP over but Singh got his revenge cleaning Vijay(16) up with a perfect yorker. Kochi could have had their second had Parthiv not dropped Suresh Raina on the very first ball he faced, Sreesanth the unfortunate bowler (as usual).

Murali started with a fantastic 1 run over as Kochi built up pressure on the two batsmen in the middle. Raina finally got hold of Sreesanth and smashed him for 16 runs from the first three balls of the 6th over. He tried to hit the next one out of the ground too but couldn't get a full toss away and was out after scoring 19 off 13 balls. An action-packed powerplay brought 41 runs to Chennai but Kochi had managed to strike twice.

Raina’s wicket helped Kochi keep the batsmen quiet for a while and Subramaniam Badrinath was especially struggling to cope with some short pitched stuff from R Vinay Kumar. Badrinath tried to cut loose at the other end, smashing Brad Hodge out of the park, but his aggression was short lived as RP Singh pulled off a magnificent catch on the boundary and Badrinath departed for 13.

Umpire Rudi Koertzen helped Chennai with an awful decision when Michael Hussey had clearly edged the ball to Parthiv but Koertzen turned down the appeal. The Super Kings were strangled by some quality spin bowling and Hussey only managed to hit his first boundary in the 12th over. Parthiv’s day went further downhill as he missed a routine stumping when Wriddhiman Saha danced down the track to Ravindra Jadeja. Parthiv was getting nothing right as he missed another stumping, this time of Michael Hussey when he was on 25. Two missed chances could have ruined the day for Kochi but they needed to put it behind them quickly in this so very unforgiving of formats.

Saha hit a six off the first ball after the second timeout, but Jadeja managed to finally get rid of Hussey for 32 runs off 37 balls. Captain Cool MS Dhoni replaced Mr. Cricket, and started in typical style forcing a boundary towards mid-wicket with immense power. Saha was well set and he punished Murali with a massive six down the ground. Dhoni though was unable to make a relevant contribution today as he was dismissed for 9 with Parthiv finally hanging on to one.

The Tuskers outfielding had been rather brilliant today as they saved plenty of runs in the field. An expensive penultimate over from Vinay Kumar though took Chennai close to 150 and they finally finished with 152. Saha did his reputation no harm scoring an unbeaten 46 off just 33 balls. Albie Morkel couldn’t get going today and finished with 13 off 10 balls. Both side were likely to be happy with their performance thus far, and the game hung beautifully in the balance asking to be won.

Ravichandran Ashwin had the new ball in his hands once again and he got rid of Parthiv (6) in the 3rd over to give Chennai an early breakthrough. Brendon McCullum decided to take on Doug Bollinger and hit two consecutive boundaries to give the run rate a temporary lift. Ashwin continued to tighten things up and the crowd got right behind him. Gyaneshwar Rao, making use of the fielding restrictions, scored some important runs in the last over of the powerplay taking the score to 40 for 1 and Kochi looked well on course on their quest of chasing down 153.

A decent partnership looked forthcoming between Rao and McCullum but it wasn’t to be as the former was sent packing almost immediately after the power play. At 45 – 2 things were delicately poised for both teams with Chennai having the advantage of tackling the new batsman Brad Hodge. Both the men from the southern hemisphere were nudging the singles which kept the scoreboard ticking and ensured that Kochi had wickets in hand when the slog overs came along. The dawdling tactic though went horribly wrong when Brendon McCullum was knocked over by Shadab Jakati for 33. One felt that the New Zealander would enter his bombing zone once the last 5 overs started looming but it wasn’t to be and Kochi with little batting left required 63 off 30 deliveries.

Kochi needed at least a boundary in each over, but the big hits weren't forthcoming. Jadeja finally managed to connect and hit Bollinger for a four and six in the same over. But it was too much for even him as he popped the ball into the air with 38 still required from the last 2 overs. Hodge hit two sixes taking 19 from the penultimate over leaving an exact number of runs required from the final one. However, the brilliant Bollinger was miserly as ever, leaving Kochi 11 runs short. Brad Hodge played a good hand of 50 but it wasn’t enough to take his side home.

Chennai have reserved a spot in the play-offs for themselves with this result and go to the top of the table. They have one game remaining against the Royal Challengers Bangalore which might be the potential decider for which team finishes in the top 2.

Kochi were unable to finish the season on a high but they have an excellent side and some great Indian talent to build on. They had their moments in the tournament but weren’t consistent enough to qualify for the play-offs. They will look forward to next season and where they could stake a genuine claim as title contenders.

Teams:
 

Kochi Tuskers: Brendon McCullum, Owais Shah, Brad Hodge, Kedar Jadhav, Parthiv Patel(c & wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Gnaneswara Rao, Vinay Kumar, Muthiah Muralitharan, RP Singh, S Sreesanth.

Chennai Super Kings: Murali Vijay, Michael Hussey, Suresh Raina, MS Dhoni(c & wk), Albie Morkel, Subramaniam Badrinath, Dwayne Bravo, Wridhiman Saha, Ravichandran Ashwin, Doug Bollinger, Shadab Jakati.

Mini Scorecard:

Chennai Super Kings 152/5 in 20 overs (7.6 runs per over)
W Saha  46*(33) R Jadeja 2-26
M Hussey  32(37)  S Sreesanth 1-23

Kochi Tuskers 141/5 in 20 overs (7.05 runs per over)
B Hodge 51*(42) R Ashwin 1-16
B McCullum 33(37)  S Jakati 1-23

Chennai Super Kings win by 11 runs

File Photograph Copyright