Chennai clinch 2-run win over Kolkata by D/L method

Soon after the thunderstorm, calculators were out and match officials swung into action and declared that the visitors, ahead by three runs on the Duckworth-Lewis method, were the winners, leaving the hapless Kolkata Knight Riders to kicking themselves for messing up the crucial eighth over of Super Kings’ chase. Today’s win virtually put Chennai Super Kings in the semi-finals

Little did Ajit Agarkar realise that his second over would be the turning point of the match. Eight runs came off the eighth and last over of the curtailed match, and local boy Dinda dropped a sitter fourth ball of Parthiv Patel (19 not out) at long-off. The next ball saw Fleming gliding a straying Agarkar down the leg-side fence, which proved to be decisive.

As the southpaw duo of Fleming and Patel (55 runs off 8 overs) neatly went about the chase with proper cricketing strokes, the darling of the 85,000-strong crowd, Shoaib Akhtar, couldn’t recreate the magic of the last match, giving 14 runs off his two overs, and losing his breath and breaking down time and again.

The Knight Riders got off to yet another sluggish start, and for the umpteenth time in the IPL, Sourav Ganguly & Co choked on the run-rate front. After an unimpressive start—they were 28/2 after 5 overs—John Buchanan’s boys were crippled by a delayed hat-trick from the intimidating Ntini before eventually recovering to a respectable 149/5 off 20 overs.

After several failures, Salman Butt finally made his knock count for at the top of the order, carving out a hard-fought 73 off 54 balls. But for him and local boy Debabrata Das (27 runs off 32 balls), the Kolkata team would have had a tougher time. The duo added 86 off 67 balls for the third wicket, before the deadly Ntini came back in his last spell to end the partnership that was studded with some lusty hits from Butt and the little-known Bengal boy.

Skipper Ganguly couldn’t inspire yet again on his home turf, departing for a miserable two off eight balls. After struggling to put bat to ball, the left-hander made harakiri, getting cleaned up by Ntini as the batsman went for a wild slog.

And that dismissal was the beginning of the tournament’s third hat-trick. Returning with figures of 4 wickets for 21 runs, Ntini’s hat-trick is Chennai Super Kings’ second in the tournament after Laxmipathy Balaji, with Delhi Daredevils’ Amit Mishra registering the other one.

After knocking down Ganguly’s middle-stump off the last ball of his third over—Kolkata were 28/2 in 5 overs—Ntini came back for the second spell in the 17th over and cleaned up Das and David Hussey (0) off the first two balls to complete a well-deserved hat-trick.

Interestingly, the tournament’s third hat-trick came in a delayed effort, and the entire crowd missed it for a long while, including the official scorer at the Eden.