Chennai Super Kings had reasons to be wary of Kings XI as they had lost three consecutive matches to them in the last two seasons. Yet they looked confident before the match. And when the match started at Mohali, the confidence showed on field also. First they bowled the hosts on 138 runs and then reached the target without much fuss to open their IPL 2013 account.
The old horses of CSK, Dirk Nannes and Michael Hussey, came up with big guns, while the young guns stuttered. Murali Vijay took 50 balls to score his half-century (Hussey took 35 balls), and dropped a sitter also. Piyush Chawla could not hold a simple catch. Other youngsters of Kings XI failed with bat. Even the old horses of Kings XI, who are the stars of their team, failed to go the long way. David Hussey stayed longer but Gilchrist and Azhar Mahmood failed with bat as well as in fielding and bowling, respectively.
Match Facts
- Biggest opening wicket partnership for current edition, by CSK.
MOM: Michael Hussey
50+ wicket takers in IPL: Bravo (52), Ashwin (51) (CSK)
Final Score: 138 (KXIP), (CSK)
6 overs: 43/2 (KXIP), 38/0 (CSK)
10 overs 72/3 (KXIP), 65/0 (CSK)
50 runs: 6.4 ov (KXIP), 8.3 ov (CSK)
100 runs: 13.1 ov (KXIP), 14.3 ov (CSK)
6s/4s: 1/13 (KXIP), 3/14 (CSK)
Best Bowling: (KXIP), 17/2 Nannes, 3/27 Bravo (CSK), 21/0 Piyush Chawla (KXIP)
Best Batting: 41 David Hussey (KXIP), 86* Michael Hussy, 50* Vijay (CSK)
Kings XI Batting
Sent to bat first by Chennai Super Kings, Kings XI Punjab started with Mandeep Singh, their MoM for last win against Kings XI in 2012 and Gilchrist, the established champion of the world and also the MOM in 2012 against CSK for the winning knock. The old horse Nannes, playing for his third IPL team after Delhi Daredevils and Royal Challengers Bangalore, started the inning. Mandeep Singh started with a first-ball boundary, and Gilchrist added two boundaries in second over that Rajpoot bowled. Till second over with 16/0 Kings XI looked well on course for a big challenge. But Nannes put them on back foot as his second over sent both the openers back to pavilion. Both scored 9 runs. 20/2 after three overs with both openers back, gave a picture of the score after 20 overs.
David Hussey, till now the second highest run scorer in T20 history, faced his first ball on the IPL debut ball of Chris Morris, the prize pick of CSK for 2013 season. The MOM of first match against Warriors, Manan Vohra started with 10 runs of the first over from Morris. Nannes bowled his third over in search of another wicket but David Hussey extracted 7 runs out of it and after the second over of Morries where Murali Vijay dropped an easy catch of Hussey, Kings XI had scored 43/2 in six overs. Next over saw Jadeja and although Vohra (16 runs, 11 balls, 3 boundaries) hit him for a boundary, Jadeja sent him back on the last ball. 50/3 was the score after 7 overs and Gurkeerat Singh joined David. Both added 56 runs in 7 overs and Kings XI looked set for a decent score.
15th over saw Ashwin sending David Hussey (41 runs, 4 boundaries and a six) back. and after that the procession started. Kings XI Punjab folded on 138 runs in the last over. Gurkeerat (31 runs, 26 balls, 3 boundaries) went in the next over. Azhar Mahmood (8 runs, 7 balls), Sathish (8 runs, 6 balls, a boundary), Chawla (4 runs), Harris on duck, and then Praveen Kumar run out (3 runs) were mesmerized by CSKs death bowling.
For CSK old horse Dirk Nannes had the best economy (17/2), while Bravo was most successful with 27/3. Morris (27/2), Jadeja (29/1), Ashwin (22/1 in 3 overs) were other successful bowlers.
CSKs Chase of 139 runs
For CSK 139 run should have been a cakewalk.
Murali Vijay and Michael Hussey started the chase. Praveen Kumar, Harris, Azhar Mahmood and Awana could not break the partnership, although run rate was in control as CSK openers scored 38/0 in 6 overs. Kings XI needed something special to get the breakthrough.
First over of Piyush Chawla, which was the eight over of the inning gave them two chances. First Chawla dropped Hussey as he failed to hold on to a simple return catch, then after two balls Gilchrist missed an easy stumping chance of Murali Vijay. That was the best over for Kings XI. After that Hussey upped the momentum and from there on victory was just 81 runs away with 10 wickets in hand and 11 overs remaining.
They needed 17.2 overs to complete the chase registering their first 10 wickets win, which was overall 5th such win in IPL. Kings XI suffered second such massive defeat. Delhi Daredevils defeated them by 10 wickets in 2009. Michael Hussey was unbeaten on 86 runs (54 balls, 11 boundaries, 2 sixes), while Murali Vijat was unbeaten on 50 runs (50 balls, 3 boundaries and a six).
For Kings XI except Piyush Chawla (21/0), none of the bowlers could hold forte. Awana gave 20 in 2 overs, Azhar (34/0), Harris (30/0), and Praveen Kumar (18/0 in 2.2 overs) failed. Even part-time bowler Sathish went for 15 runs in one over.
CSK has left Kings XI with lot of questions to answer, if they want to consider them as serious contender.
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