Twist in Cobras tale

Bravos late charge sees Chennai Super Kings chest the tape in close finish for their first win.

With Chennai Super Kings needing 37 from 22 balls,with five wickets in hand,Dale Steyn pounded in to bowl the third ball of the 17th over. An instant later,the ball sailed into the air above covers head,slicing high off MS Dhonis blade. Jean-Paul Duminy,running in rapidly,overshot his mark,and clutched at thin air as the ball dropped into unmanned territory.

Earlier,it was in the 17th over that the Cape Cobras innings came unstuck after a promising beginning and middle. At the start of that over,their score was 124/3. A score of 160 looked on the cards,with Owais Shah and JP Duminy at the crease with a partnership of 57 to their name.

But both fell within the space of three balls from Albie Morkel. Duminy was well caught by Shadab Jakati,running towards the boundary from short fine leg,while Shah miscued to midwicket. The Cobras only scored 21 in their last four overs,and finished on 145/7.

The Dhoni drop wasnt to prove particularly costly for the Cobras. An over later,the Chennai skipper was bowled,dragging a slower delivery from Vernon Philander onto his stumps. But the men in yellow still had Dwayne Bravo.

Three balls before Dhonis dismissal,the Trinidadian had swung his bat through a murderous yet graceful arc,with his feet moving barely an inch from their initial position,to dump Philander over the extra cover boundary.

In the next over,Steyns last,Bravo sent his entire frame through a violent swivel to take a waist-high full toss and deposit it beyond the square leg fence. The equation now read 16 required from 9. The next ball,Bravo stayed slightly beside the line of the ball,barely an inch outside off stump,and opened his face to send it racing between short third man and backward point,leaving both fielders in futile pursuit.

Steyn then sent down a full,wide delivery that Bravo creamed through the covers for another boundary. A double from the last ball left Chennai only six to win from six balls a task they accomplished with two balls to spare and no fuss whatsoever.

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How different it had all seemed when Bravo made his way to the wicket. Duminy had just taken his third and fourth wickets,the off spinner removing Wriddhiman Saha and Suresh Raina in the same over. Before that,Duminy had slipped one between the bat and pad of Michael Hussey,who had charged down the wicket,to have him stumped for a well made 24-ball 29. The Australian left-hander had once again made scoring look easy on a slow wicket,stroking the ball crisply all around the dial,pulling Charl Langeveldt authoritatively for four,blitzing Vernon Philander over midwicket for a massive six.

The wickets of Hussey and Raina,especially the latter caught and bowled dismissal,had sent the Chennai fans,filling one half of the stadium nearly to capacity,into a disbelieving hush. Another defeat,on the back of their opening-game loss to Mumbai,would have seriously dented Chennais semifinal hopes. But as they have continually done,over their short yet trophy-filled history,they found someone to pull them over the line.

Brief scores: Cape Cobras 145/7 O Shah 45,JP Duminy 29,D Bravo 2/23,D Bollinger 2/25 vs Chennai Super Kings 146/6 in 19.4 overs D Bravo 46 n.o,M Hussey 29,J Duminy 4/20,V Philander 2/36