Chennai: Chennai Super Kings registered their seventh consecutive victory as they defeated Kings XI Punjab by the margin of 15 runs at Chepauk, here on Thursday. Suresh Raina was the star of this sensational win as he scored his first century of Indian Premier League.
Raina shattered the Punjab bowlers with his seven fours and six sixes. Raina played till the end and helped CSK put up a huge total of 186 runs on the board. Punjab came back strongly in the match as Shaun Marsh scored brilliant 73 runs whereas David Millers scored 51 runs off just 26 balls. However, Mohit Sharma and Dwayne bravo also did a good job with the ball and restricted the opposition to 171 in their 20 overs. Sharma ended up with the figures of 2/31 whereas Bravo picked up three wickets in his final over to finish with 3/34.
Chasing the stiff target of 187 runs, Punjab lost their openers Luke Pomersbach and Mandeep Singh quite early and was reduced to 2/36 in first six overs. Mohit Sharma dismissed both the openers as he kept bowling wicket to wicket consistently. But Shaun Marsh and David Hussey stabilised the innings as they added 37 runs for the third wicket. Hussey departed after scoring 22 runs and Ravichandran Ashwin picked up his wicket. Dismissal of Hussey brought in-form David Millers to the crease.
Millers and Marsh kept scoring those singles with the odd boundaries to keep their side in hunt. They added 95 runs for the fourth wicket and brought the Kings XI Punjab very close to the victory. Marsh scored his first fifty in this year’s IPL and departed after scoring 73 runs off just 51 balls. Bravo dismissed him on the first ball of final over. Bravo went on to pick up two more wickets and ended up being the purple cap holder. Millers scored 51 off 26 balls and Punjab were restricted to 171 for the loss of six wickets in their 20 overs.
Earlier, Mike Hussey and Wriddhiman Shah gave a decent start to CSK and added 27 run for the opening stand. Shah departed after scoring run-a-ball 18. But hussy kept the momentum going and added 55 runs for the second wicket with Suresh Raina. It was Raina who blasted the Kings XI Punjab with his brilliant strokeplay. He started off slowly as he kept rotating the strikes with Mike Hussey. But after Hussey departed, he started taking toll on the bowlers and was getting boundaries with ease. He had a great time batting against Manpreet Gony and R Sathish whom he smacked for plenty in their two overs each. Meanwhile, MS Dhoni got run-out after adding just two runs to the total.
Raina didn’t stop hitting the boundaries and Piyush Chawla was hit for 22 runs off 13 balls that he bowled to Raina in his spell of four overs. Albie Morkel didn’t waste much time and started dealing in boundaries to push the scoring rate. They added 74 runs for the fourth wicket and cruised CSK to 186 in their 20 overs as Raina scored his maiden century of IPL. Raina took 53 balls to achieve this feat.