By Suneer Chowdhary
The sluggish track, poor fielding and wickets after getting starts combined to give an engrossing but not necessarily a high-quality innings of 20 overs in the 64th game of the Indian Premier League between Chennai and Kochi at Chepauk.
Published: May 18, 2011, 09:41 PM (IST)
Edited: May 18, 2011, 09:41 PM (IST)
Wriddhiman Saha in action during his innigs of an unbeaten 46 © AFP
By Suneer Chowdhary
Chennai: May 18, 2011
The sluggish track, poor fielding and wickets after getting starts combined to give an engrossing but not necessarily a high-quality innings of 20 overs in the 64th game of the Indian Premier League between Chennai and Kochi at Chepauk.
In the end, Chennai, who had won the toss and opted to bat, ended up with 152 for five in their 20 overs thanks to an unlikely hero in Wriddhiman Saha. Saha’s 46 was their top-score, but most vitally, it came in quick time and was a busy knock.
Earlier, after a slowish start, Murali Vijay seemed to have got the measure of the pitch with three boundaries off RP Singh. The bowler clattered his stumps though, in the same over to pull back the scoring.
Suresh Raina also got a start but much like Vijay failed to capitalise and when Chennai’s most consistent batsman of the tournament, S Badrinath slammed a six and fell off the next ball to super catch from RP Singh, the Super Kings were 61 for three in the ninth over.
Parthiv Patel had a horrible night though. Leading the side first time in the absence of Mahela Jayawardene, he dropped Raina off the first ball that he had faced.
The ensuing result was a six, four and a six off successive balls from S Sreesanth. Sreesanth had his revenge of the very next ball when the batsman patted a full-toss to the mid-on fielder.
The look of horror and the fact that the wicket-keeper Patel did not even attempt running Michael Hussey out confirmed that the umpire had erred in giving the decision in favour of Hussey. The replays confirmed that Rudi Koertzen had been wrong.
And when, a couple of overs later, Wriddiman Saha offered a reasonably easy stumping opportunity for Parthiv Patel but was missed, it looked like it was going to be Chennai’s night. Not that the slip-ups ended there as Patel missed another stumping chance in the very next over to pull the bowling morale down.
Hussey manoeuvred the strike around but found the runs difficult to come. Partially, this was because of the slow track and there were only a couple of boundaries in his innings. His 37-ball 32 was ended when a Ravindra Jadeja-full toss was patted straight into the hands of mid-wicket.
In dire need for an acceleration-spree, Dhoni and Saha hit 13 off the 16th over from Muralitharan but Kochi came back with the wicket of the Super Kings’ captain next over.
Vinay Kumar conceded 14 off the penultimate over to turn the tide in favour of Chennai before Saha hit a six off the first ball of the 20th over to raise hopes of a score of 160. RP Singh did well to restrict the side to five singles off the next five deliveries and the Super Kings had got to a defendable 152 for five in their 20 overs.
Brief Scores: CSK 152 for 5 in 20 overs (Wriddhiman Saha 46*, Michael Hussey 32; Ravindra Jadeja 2 for 26, S Sreesanth 1 for 23) vs KTK
(Suneer is a Mumbai-based cricket writer and can be contacted at suneerchowdhary@gmail.com and Tweets here @suneerchowdhary)
