Raina’s half-century helps Chennai to IPL final
Chennai batsman Suresh Raina in action during their IPL match against Bangalore © Getty Images
By Suneer Chowdhary
Mumbai: May 24, 2011
Chennai Super Kings entered the final of the fourth edition of the Indian Premier League with a thrilling last-over win over the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the first qualifier at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.
Chennai looked behind the eight-ball through most part of their chase of 176 and ended up needing 58 off the last four overs, before turning the tables on their opponents to clinch the win with a couple of balls to spare.
Suresh Raina overcame cramps through most part of his innings to slam an unbeaten 50-ball 73 while MS Dhoni’s 19-ball 28 and Albie Morkel’s 10-ball 29 got the side home.
Chennai’s strategy in the tournament has always been to preserve wickets at the start of the innings before going hammer and tongs towards the end. However, for the second game in a row, they were pushed back with two early wickets.
Michael Hussey was dismissed in the first over of the innings, again to the bowling of Zaheer Khan. The ball nipped into the batsman who had failed to read it and he was caught plumb in front of the wickets. Only three balls later, Murali Vijay was unfortunate to be declared out lbw when the ball had pitched outside the leg-stump.
What these two wickets did was to stall the innings’ run-rate. At the end of the fourth over, Chennai were 16 for two, after the sixth, they had made only 25 and despite Daniel Vettori being greeted by a boundary of the very first ball that he sent down, Suresh Raina and S Badrinath had taken the score to just 36 for two after eight.
By the time the ante was upped, the asking rate had almost 12. Suresh Raina guided one through fine-leg to the fence while Badrinath clipped two full-tosses away to the fence in the ninth over.
A six followed in the next over off the bat of Raina but with the runs not exactly coming in the required volumes, the dismissal of one of the two was inevitable. Badrinath tried to loft A Mithun over the fence but only managed to spoon a catch to the sweeper cover.
MS Dhoni walked in but with only one run coming from Gayle’s first over, the asking rate had climbed to more than 13.
Raina finally exploded in the 13th over with a couple of sixes but Gayle conceded five off the next to pull the rate back. The Super Kings needed 66 in the last five overs but another superb Gayle-over saw him give away only four off the first five overs.
It was the last ball of that over that not only went to the fence but also changed things around for the Super Kings. It was a short ball that was pulled by Dhoni to the fence.
With Chennai needing 58 from the last four, Zaheer was taken for three sixes in his last over after having conceded only 11 in his first three. 20 runs came in that over but in the process, Zaheer also got the better of Dhoni to make things interesting.
The Super Kings failed to get under Gayle even in his fourth over and at a crucial stage in the match, just four came off his final over. With 33 required off the last couple of overs, all it needed was a reasonably stifling over to push Bangalore to a win.
Instead, Albie Morkel, sent in to replace Dhoni clattered two sixes off Aravind while Raina smashed another one to round off 21 runs in the penultimate over, setting up a potentially thrilling final over.
However, with the kind of form that the two batsmen were in, it took Raina and Morkel only four balls to hit those remaining 12 runs and clinch the win. Morkel finished it off with a six off Vettori.
Earlier, Chris Gayle’s early dismissal did nothing to stall Bangalore’s flow of runs. Virat Kohli saw to it that Bangalore were propped up to 175 for four in their 20 overs on the Wankhede pitch that had seen India chase down more than 270 in the World Cup final this year.
The Royal Challengers Bangalore lost Gayle early. He hit a flat six off the bowling of R Ashwin but was deceived by the slowness of the next ball and was out lbw.
Mayank Agarwal made up for the early loss of the danger-man by showing intent and going after the bowling when he got the chance to do so. He hit five boundaries in his 33-ball 34, but most importantly, he provided Kohli with enough support to kickstart his innings.
While AB de Villiers too hit a six off Shadab Jakati but departed in the same over, Kohli looked to batting like a dream. He made only 22 in his first 20 deliveries but once he got the move on, thers wasn’t too much looking back.
Luke Pomersback smashed an 18-ball 29 even as Kohli hit Ashwin for a six in the 16th before taking 19 runs off the second-last over of the innings from Albie Morkel to propel the side to 175.
His half-century came from 36 balls and he celebrated it by pumping a couple of sixes in the same over. He remained not-out on 70 that came off 44 balls and ensured that the Royal Challengers would set the opposition a near-invincible score. Ashwin was hit on his head from a scorching hit from Saurabh Tiwary which had him returning back to the pavilion for a check-up.
Bangalore will now face the winner of the game between Mumbai and Kolkata in the second qualifier for a place in the final.
Brief Scores: RCB 175 for 4 in 20 overs (Virat Kohli 70*, Mayank Agarwal 34, Luke Pomersbach 29; Doug Bollinger 1 for 20, Dwayne Bravo 1 for 28) lost to CSK 177 for 4 in 19.4 overs (Suresh Raina 73*, Subramaniam Badrinath 34, MS Dhoni 29; Zaheer Khan 2 for 31, Sreenath Aravind 1 for 32) by 6 wickets.
Man of the Match: Suresh Raina
(Suneer is a Mumbai-based cricket writer and can be contacted at suneerchowdhary@gmail.com and Tweets here @suneerchowdhary)