Chennai Super Kings beat Royal Challengers Bangalore by 13 runs in an Indian Premier League match at the Chinnaswamy Stadium on Monday.
It was the Chennai team’s fourth straight win in as many matches and the Bangalore team’s third defeat in four matches. Chennai are now the only unbeaten team in the competition and palpably, lead the standings after four round of matches.
Chasing 179 to win, Bangalore made a sedate start before an 89-run second-wicket partnership between Wasim Jaffer(50) and Ross Taylor (53) put them on course. Jaffer and Taylor’s half centuries were the first two by the Bangalore team in the competition.
However, once Jaffer departed, Bangalore kept losing wickets at regular intervals and came up short.
Jacques Kallis(14), Mark Boucher(4) and Virat Kohli (12) all fell in a bid to accelerate while captain Rahul Dravid added another duck to his Twenty20 resume as the Royal Challengers collapsed like a pack of cards.
Earlier, skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni [Images] joined Michael Hussey to exhibit some lusty hitting as their fourth wicket stand of 95 took the Chennai Super Kings to a competitive score of 178 for five in 20 overs.
Electing to bat first, Dhoni (65) gave ample demonstration of his class superseding his Aussie partner as the two consolidated the position after the Super Kings were 83 for three at one stage.
Dhoni got his eye in before unleashing a fierce assault on the Royal Challengers in the later overs.
He plundered 45 runs off 16 deliveries at one stage disfiguring the bowlers’ analysis to a great extent before trying for another big hit only to be caught in the last over.
Dhoni’s contribution in the last 45 runs he added with Hussey (47) was an amazing 43 and his 65 came off 30 balls with 9 fours and three sixes. He had reached 50 in 24 balls earlier.
Matthew Hayden, Parthiv Patel and Suresh Raina fell after a slow start with only 83 runs coming off 12 overs. But the Royal Challengers lost the ascendancy once Dhoni came to the crease. Source:inhome.rediff
