IPL 2013: CSK inflict heavy defeat on Delhi Daredevils

To begin the end game,Pune captain Ross Taylor tossed the ball to Ashok Dinda,not the greatest death bowler in this land. First ball,the big leaping Dinda pitched the leather down Morkel’s sweet slot. The South African swiped at it and the ball flew with intent towards the sight screen. Could this be it,the fans must surely have thought. But Pune’s Aaron Finch seemed to be in no mood for a dramatic end. With a high leap just ahead of the ropes,Finch latched on to the ball as Pune did the match. The visitors soon won by 24 runs.

It was a just end,considering Finch’s heroics with the bat had put enough on the board for the Pune bowlers to have enough to play with. And they played with it exceedingly well as Bhuvneshwar Kumar delivered as many as 18 dot balls in his spell of 24. He also delivered the crucial strikes of Anirudha Srikkanth off the second ball of the innings and Suresh Raina four overs later.

With IPL’s top run-getter Raina going for just eight and captain MS Dhoni dismissed for 10,a chase of 160 was always going to be difficult. While S Badrinath (34),Ravindra Jadeja (27) and Murali Vijay (24) did their bits,what Chennai really needed was an innings of destruction. That,though,occurred twice in the first innings itself. First by Finch and then at the fag end by Steven Smith.

It was of paramount importance for Pune,who had lost three out of four games this season,to receive some solidity from their openers,especially with the further weakening of their middle-order following Yuvraj Singh’s injury. And the visitors couldn’t have asked for a better start than the one Finch gave them in the first over of the game.

Off Dirk Nannes’s bowling,Finch expelled three hits to the boundary,one straight down the ground,the second over mid-off and the third past fine leg. Nannes was at the receiving end of Finch’s pyro again in his third over,this time conceding two fours and ten runs from it. Nannes would eventually go for 42 in his four,while Finch would end up with 67.

While an opening stand of 96 (in a little over 12 overs) did half the job for Pune,Smith performed the other half. Walking in as late as the 15th over,Smith scored 39 runs from 16 balls. That run-making was ably helped with two fours in the 16th off Dwayne Bravo,a six off Morris in the 18th,a six and a four off Nannes in the 19th and the shot of the day in the last over.

Bravo,bowling fast and full,pitched one such ball on Smith’s off-stump. Without breaking a sweat,Smith turned around and reverse pulled it for six over third man. It was the most outrageous moment of the day. Until the perennial underdogs beat the two-time champions.