It was a critical game for the Chennai Super Kings who were coming off an indifferent start to the tournament and were languishing at the 7th position in the points table. In contrast, Delhi were well placed in the better half of the table as these two teams met at the Wanderers, Johannesburg.
It was the 2nd match of the double-header for the day with the MS Dhoni-led Chennai beating Delhi in a real tight contest by 18 runs. Chennai’s slow left arm bowler Shadab Jakati was awarded the ‘Man of the Match’ for his brilliant spell of spin bowling in which he got four crucial wickets giving away only 24 runs.
Having won the toss, Delhi who was being led by Gautam Gambhir [Sehwag was nursing an injured finger] put the opposition into bat. Chennai had made a change at the top of the order with Murali Vijay getting in a game ahead of the struggling Parthiv Patel. Along with the orange-cap holder Mathew Hayden, the pair got the innings off to a brisk start.
Despite losing Hayden when he was beginning to look really threatening, the momentum was well carried over by the in-form Suresh Raina and S. Badrinath. The latter was especially aggressive post the strategy break and eventually ended up being the top scorer with 45 from 34 balls.
Unfortunately for Chennai no one amongst the top four could stay on till the end as the innings faltered towards the end with MS Dhoni, Albie Morkel and Jacob Oram all of them falling in single digit scores. Infact, despite being at 106/2 at the end of the 12th over, Chennai ended up at a relatively modest 163, which on that flat batting deck seemed like a below par score.
For Delhi, Dirk Nannes and Ashish Nehra were the most successful bowlers with identical bowling figures of 3/27 from their allotted 4 overs.
Delhi’s chase started on a slippery note with both Gambhir and AB De Villiers losing their wickets early; Suresh Raina bringing about Gambhir’s downfall with an absolute blinder of a catch at short point. Dilshan then joined David Warner who was making his IPL debut. The two added valuable 33 runs before Dilshan was bowled by a real beauty off Shadab Jakati.
In came then, Dinesh Kartik and till the end of the 15th over, it seemed as if along with Warner he’ll guide Delhi to safety. The team required only 44 runs off the last 5 overs with both Kartik and Warner still at the crease and going strong. But then Warner was out to a smart piece of stumping, again off Jakati and that triggered a collapse with Kartik too perishing in the next over from the same bowler.
In the end, Delhi ended up losing 4 wickets within the space of 8 runs as the innings completely fell apart. Kartik was his team’s top scorer with his 52 coming off 31 balls while Warner took 40 balls to compile his 51.
With this win, Chennai were back in business by climbing upto the 4th spot in the points tally. But how closely fought this IPL might turn out to be can be best understood by the fact that the top 7 teams are separated by a mere two points!