Chennai: All-round Chennai Super Kings made short work of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), thrashing them by seven wickets in a lopsided Indian Premier League (IPL) encounter here on Tuesday. The victory saw the defending champions replace KKR at the top of the eight-team points table with 10 points from six matches. KKR, meanwhile, dropped down to second spot, having eight points from six outings. After being asked to bat first by home team skipper M.S. Dhoni, the visitors managed just 108/9, riding Andre Russell’s unbeaten yet uncharacteristic 44-ball 50.
Deepak Chahar (3/20) scalped three wickets and was well supported by veteran spinners Harbhajan Singh (2/15) and Imran Tahir (2/21). Chasing a paltry 109 for victory, Chennai were never in trouble as South Africa captain Faf du Plessis carried his bat with an unbeaten 43 off 45 balls, his innings studded with three fours.
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After the hosts lost Shane Watson (17) and Suresh Raina (14) inside the powerplay with Sunil Narine (2/24) taking both the wickets, du Plessis and Ambati Rayudu (21) stitched together a 46-run third wicket partnership, mostly scoring off singles. Once Rayudu was out, caught by Nitish Rana at short extra cover off Piyush Chawla, Kedar Jadhav (8 not out) joined hands with du Plessis to take the team over the line with 16 balls to spare.
Earlier, Chahar shaved off the KKR top order early as Chennai never allowed the visitors to get an upper hand. Chennai even kept Russell quiet as the big-hitting West Indian hit five fours and three sixes but never got into the groove. KKR never really got going and it looked like they would not cross the 100-run mark before Russell — struggling with niggles — hit Scott Kuggeleijn for one six and two fours as the purple brigade managed to get 15 runs off the last over. Russell was dropped when he was batting on 8 by Harbhajan which was a difficult chance. KKR were reduced to 24/4 inside the first five overs, largely due to Chahar who bowled a superb first spell of 3-0-14-3.
Kolkata knight riders
C Lynn lbw b Chahar ……………………0
S Narine c Chahar b Harbhajan …….6
R Uthappa c Jadhav b Chahar …….11
N Rana c Rayudu b Chahar ………….0
D Karthik c Harbhajan b Tahir ……..19
S Gill st Dhoni b Tahir ………………….9
A Russell not out ……………………….50
P Chawla st Dhoni b Harbhajan …….8
K Yadav run out …………………………..0
P Krishna c Harbhajan b Jadeja …….0
H Gurney not out …………………………1
Extras: (lb-1, w-3) ……………………….4
Total: (For 9 wkts) ……………………108
FoW: 1-6, 2-8, 3-9, 4-24, 5-44, 6-47, 7-76, 8-76, 9-79
Bowling: Deepak Chahar 4-0-20-3, Harbhajan Singh 4-0-15-2, Ravindra Jadeja 4-0-17-1, Scott Kuggeleijn 4-0-34-0, Imran Tahir 4-0-21-2.
Chennai Super Kings
S Watson c Chawla b Narine……….17
Faf du Plessis not out………………….43
S Raina c Chawla b Narine………….14
A Rayudu c N Rana b Chawla………21
K Jadhav not out………………………….8
Extras: (w 6, nb 2)……………………….8
Total: (3 wks, 17.2 overs)…………..111
FoW: 18-1, 35-2, 81-3
Bowling: Piyush Chawla 4-0-28-1, Prasidh Krishna 4-0-23-0, Sunil Narine 3.2-0-24-2, Kuldeep Yadav 4-0-16-0, Harry Gurney 2-0-20-0.
