A brilliant 64 off 55 balls from Anirudha Srikkanth and a superb last over from Tim Southee helped Chennai Super Kings beat Kolkata Knight Riders by 2 runs in a thriller at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chepauk, Chennai.
Super Kings won the toss and elected to bat but got off to a bad start losing Murali Vijay in the very first over caught at mid-on by Rajat Bhatia off Iqbal Abdulla. Raina who came one down continued his good run with the bat as he added 75 runs in just 9.3 overs with Anirudha Srikkanth.
Srikkanth looked in good touch as he hit Kallis for three fours in an over. Raina was then dropped by Yusuf Pathan, who dropped Srikkanth too. Srikkanth was again dropped on 39 by Eoin Morgan but Raina finally departed in the 11th over trying to slog-sweep Yusuf Pathan only to be caught by Sarabjit Ladda in the deep.
Srikkanth and skipper Dhoni played cautiously adding just 49 runs in 7 overs as Srikkanth brought up his half-century from 43 deliveries. Dhoni (29), who hit a huge six off Ladda, then departed in the 18th over trying to pull a slower bouncer from Kallis only to be caught by Bisla.
Kallis then cleaned up Srikkanth in his next over to reduce Super Kings to 138 for 4 with four balls remaining. Srikkanth played an aggressive innings of 64 off 55 deliveries with six hits to the fence and two over it. Scott Styris then hit a boundary off the third ball of the final over before Albie Morkel finished off the innings with a four and a six off the final two deliveries. Chennai posted a challenging total of 153 in their 20 overs.
In reply, Kolkata Knight Riders got off to a brilliant start with openers Kallis and Bisla adding 64 runs in 9.3 overs before Bisla was stumped by Dhoni off Jakati for 27. But Kallis carried on playing a gutsy innings as he hit two consecutive boundaries off Albie Morkel in the 10th over.
Kallis added 29 runs for the second wicket with Yusuf Pathan, but a brilliant run out of Pathan by skipper Dhoni in the 13th over changed the course of the match. Kallis who hit a gutsy half-century (54 from 42 balls) finally departed in the 16th over trying to paddle sweep a full-toss delivery from Ashwin only to be caught at short fine leg.
Eoin Morgan Started off brightly with a two and a boundary but couldn't last long as he was stumped off Raina in the 17th over and things got worse for the Knight Riders as they lost their skipper Gautam Gambhir, who had demoted himself to no.6, via a silly run out in the same over. With 26 needed off 12 deliveries, Laxmi Ratan Shukla hit the first ball off the 19th over from Suraj Randiv to the boundary and then two brilliant sixes in a row on the leg side from Manoj Tiwary brought the equation down to nine from eight balls. But there was a twist in the tale as Randiv hit back having Tiwary stumped off the last delivery having bowled a dot ball earlier. With nine runs needed off the last over, Shukla started off with a couple hitting a paddle sweep on the leg side but the very next ball he was caught at third man.
Iqbal Abdulla then hit two off the first ball he faced to bring the equation down to 5 from 3, the very next ball was a brilliant Yorker from Southee which didn't fetch a run, and with 5 from 2 deliveries, Abdulla could manage only a single off the second penultimate delivery which meant that Rajat Bhatia was left with a daunting task of 4 from the last delivery, but a superb Yorker from Southee made sure that the batsmen could manage only a single, falling three short of the required total.
Anirudha Srikkanth was named the man of the match for his brilliant innings of 64 from 55 deliveries.
Result: Chennai Super Kings won by 2 runs
Scores: Chennai Super Kings: 153/4
Kolkata Knight Riders: 151/7
Man of the Match: Anirudha Srikkanth
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