Durban: Chennai Super Kings registered their second win of the ongoing Champions League Twenty20 defeating Yorkshire by four wickets in a Group B encounter played at Kingsmead, Durban. CSK needed to score 141 runs to win and some good performances in the middle-order took them over the line. Both CSK and Yorkshire were out of the contention for the semifinals spot before the match started.
Suresh Raina, who was leading the Super Kings on Monday, won the toss and chose to bowl first on a pitch that looked a little damp. Yorkshire openers, Andrew Gale and Adam Lyth played cautiously and ensured that the team does not lose early wickets. The first wicket went down in the sixth over when Gale was caught by Bollinger of the bowling of Albie Morkel.
In the next over Lyth got out to Hilfenhaus and Yorkshire lost their third wicket with the score at 43. David Miller (28) and Gary Ballance (58) then got together and stitched a good partnership. They added 78 runs for the fourth wicket. Ballance who has a reputation of being a clean striker was the dominant of the two partners and played some tremendous strokes in his innings.
Bollinger broke the partnership taking the wicket of Miller, Ballance on the other end continued with his hard hitting and hit as many as five sixes in his innings. Yorkshire in the end did well to reach a score of 140.
Chennai have had brilliant starts in the previous two matches but their openers couldn’t repeat the feat this time. Both Faf du Plessis and Murali Vijay got out trying to play attacking strokes and Chennai were 26-2 in the fifth over.
S Badrinath has been Chennai’s crisis man and he once again showed his worth in the team. Being promoted in the batting order, Badrinath (47) along with Suresh Raina (31) took the innings forward. They added 48 runs for the third wicket and took Chennai out of a bad position.
After the fall of Raina’s wicket, skipper Dhoni walked into bat and started middling right from the first ball. Dhoni looked in a hurry and brought the required run-rate down.
Badrinath and Dhoni added 43 runs to the total before Iain Wardlaw got both of them bowled. Chennai lower middle-order batsmen ensured that there were no panic situation as Chennai chased down the target with one over to spare.
Brief Score:
Yorkshire 140/6 (Ballance 58, Bollinger 2-16)
Chennai Super Kings 141/6 (Badrinath 47)
By Indian Sports News Network