Chennai Super Kings Clinch A Thriller Against Delhi Daredevils

CSK 150-7 (Smith 34) beat
DD 149-9 (Morkel 73 no) by one run
2nd match, Indian Premier League in Chennai
Scorecard

Albie Morkel shook off the indifferent recent record to play a scintillating knock but failed to take his team across the line as Chennai Super Kings defeated Delhi Daredevils at MA Chidambaram stadium in the second game of the Indian Premier League by just one run.

Delhi Daredevils won the toss and chose to field.

The Chennai Super Kings got off to a bright start as Dwayne Smith (34) came off a poor World Cup campaign to smash three boundaries in the first over.

However, Brendon McCullum (4) who was dropped off the very first ball he faced at slips by Yuvraj Singh departed in the very next ball, Yuvraj getting a chance to redeem himself.

It was a story of swinging fortunes as DD stalled CSK’s flying start with two wickets in the power-play.

CSK blazed away to 50 in just five overs.

After Faf du Plessis (32) gave the innings more momentum, CSK couldn’t quite sustain it, losing wickets regularly.

Ravindra Jadeja (17) promoted up the order, proved to be a failed experiment as he consumed three overs for his contribution arresting the momentum.

MS Dhoni (30) in spite of two last over sixes looked rusty for most part striking at just 111.11. CSK only managed 150 eventually, scoring just 50 runs in their last eight overs.

For DD, Morkel (0-28) who took some stick in the first over, was expensive.

Both the leg-spinners, Imran Tahir (1-27) and Amit Mishra (1-21) were excellent but the pick of the bowlers was Australian speedster Nathan Coulter-Nile (3-30) whose double blow at the start of the game slowed CSK down.

Delhi Daredevils’ inexperienced batting line-up didn’t give the team a good start.

Ashish Nehra (3-25) picked two wickets of Chidhambaram Gautam (4) and Mayank Aggarwal (15) in one over before coming back in his third to pick Shreyas Iyer (7).

Kedhar Jadhav (20) promoted ahead of JP Duminy (5) and Yuvraj Singh (9) added 48 crucial runs with Morkel (73 not out) before offering a sitter to point.

However, Duminy’s plan to hold Yuvraj and himself back didn’t work out as both the top batsmen from DD departed in successive overs leaving Albie to handle a stuttering chase.

There was a clear ploy to bounce Yuvraj and it worked as he pulled one half surprised and totally out of position to give a catch to mid-on.

Morkel who became the most capped T20 player and is close to achieving the rare golden double of 3500 runs and 200 wickets kept the chase alive until the last ball, with a timely half-century, after he walked in at number three, even as he battled losing a lot of strength drenched in sweat.

DD which were favourites at one point when Yuvraj walked in fell behind in the chase needing 19 to win off Dwayne Bravo’s (2-36) last over.

Morkel almost did it for DD hitting a four and a six before needing a six off the last ball.

He smashed one to long off, falling couple of meters short off winning the game, his eventual strike-rate an impressive 132.72.

For CSK, Nehra was the pick of the bowlers while Ravichandran Ashwin (1-25) was economical.

The rest of the bowlers including Mohit Sharma (1-33), Ishwar Pandey (1-30) and Bravo chipped in with timely wickets.

© Cricket World 2015