IPL 2 Game 51: KKR Arrive At Wrong Chennai Party

Being second on the points table can mean nothing, especially in the IPL season 2. That is because there are still quite a few teams looking to make a late dash for the semi finals and anything is possible, like Kolkata Knight Riders actually winning a match!
The Chennai Super Kings team have a few obvious deficits they have trying to rectify from the beginning of the season since IPL moved to South Africa. While their batting cannot be faulted, not its composition anyway, their bowling has looked quite inept at times and their fielding appears in tatters at the best of times.
The show was not dissimilar in Supersport Park, Centurion where the CSK team managed to make 188 but failed to defend it against a resurgent KKR batting line up. Shah Rukh Khan may have abandoned his team, but the team showed heart to come back and win despite losing some encounters in embarrassing fashions, others in close tussles and watching their team dissected through controversies.
CSK’s batting was solid, beginning with the openers, Parthiv Patel and newcomer George Bailey, who made a fifty-nine run opening start. Scoring matters were then taken over by Suresh Raina, with a half century, and captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, in the absence of Matthew Hayden. Albie Morkel’s twenty-one from ten balls provided the final knife edge.
For a team that has been floundering, a target like 189 should have spelt doom. Instead the Kolkata Knight Riders started on a promising note with captain Brendon McCullum particularly ruthless on Sudeep Tyagi, hitting him for four consecutive fours and following it up with a six. McCullum’s eighty-one from forty-eight was reminiscent of the resplendent shot making he treated everyone to in the opening game of the first IPL season in Bangaluru.
Brad Hodge was the other star of the show and his seventy-one from forty-four was just the continuation of McCullum’s enterprise to overhaul Chennai’s rather spectacular target. Keeping Hodge company was the dynamic wicket keeper Wriddhiman Saha and the duo together kept their cool to get KKR past the finish line even as Dhoni was fuming and livid at the result and unexpected turn of events.

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