Kings Eleven Punjab (KXIP) vs Chennai Super Kings (CSK)
With no heart to post my thoughts on this match, my friend L Karthik has come forward with a write-up.
L Karthik
It was 4th match for Chennai super kings and their 2nd home game. Having lost their first home contest last Sunday, CSK was all geared to makeup for that loss. CSK were preferred side to win with history favoring a 5-0 lead against KXIP in IPL; on the other hand KXIP yet to put their name in Points table.
CSK squad considered one change from previous game by bringing in Manpreet Gony in the place of Joginder Sharma who displayed an ordinary bowling show in his previous opportunity. KXIP to do some damage control were forced to replace Bipul Sharma, Sreesanth and Adrian Barath with Ramesh Powar, Pacer Srivastava and Juan Theron. Raina the stand-in captain for CSK won the toss and invited KXIP to bat first, sighting the dew factor.
Albie morkel opened bowling for CSK against Ravi Bopara and irfan Pathan (promoted up the order following his scintillating performance against DC). Some tight bowling from Albie prevented KXIP from having a flying start and eventually resulted in Bopara loosing his wicket (expensive upper cut, edged to balaji in third man). Gony who supported Albie from the other end was struggling as irfan took him on for some special treatment. Gony’s awful fielding form continued by dropping Sangakara at third man misjudging the skier. Luckily for the home team it was not a costly miss as wild old fox had sangakara stumped very soon.
Balaji the home boy bowled some stump to stump line which made life difficult for even the settled batsmen on the crease. The fall of Irfan Pathan followed by Jayawardane, brought old friends kaif and yuvi back together on the batting pitch. Yuvi was in his Midas touch seeing the ball right and sending some boundaries, scoring a valuable 43 helping his team finish with 136 in their 20 overs for the loss of 8 wickets.
With everyone expecting a simple win from CSK they started their batting innings very slowly. Hayden and patel took their time to settle down to score some big shots. CSK looked very comfortable chasing 136 until they started loosing wickets (especially after Raina’s dismissal) panicking defeat. They needed 10 runs of final over bowled by irfan. Albie slashed first ball to four and then scrambled for 2 runs as irfan missed a run out chance. Score was leveled with 1 run to score in 2 balls with Aswin to bat. CSK missed this golden opportunity giving a dot ball, followed by Aswin’s wicket.
The match was tie and went to superover. CSK batted first and scored 9 in 4 deliveries as their batsman got out in pursuit of big runs. KXIP 10 to win with Murali to bowl. Jayawardane scored a big six in first ball setting up the match and Yuvi finished it in style.
It was a match in which both teams played some awful cricket. However viewers (especially CSK supporters) had our hearts in our mouth. As a CSK fan I was disappointed over the batting failure but as a cricket fan I cannot ask for more thrills. When the match ended it was 20 past midnight in India
1 comment:
Few words to add; It was a nail-biting finish and KXIP deserved this win after an awesome come back; fortunately for some, we were able to see Preity Zinta jumping up to the sky.
It was understandable how much it hurts CSK players to loose a match like this. However, CSK need some responsible batting from local boys, Perera to give a shot and ofcourse come back Dhoni.
Well done KXIP and All the best CSK.
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