Chennai Super Kings overcome Deccan Chargers

Chennai Super Kings fought back after a huge scare from the Deccan Chargers to win their home game by 19 runs on Sunday, May 1st.

I don’t know what it is about DC that brings out the slapstick in CSK, this happened in 2009 and this happened two nights ago. Sample this:

1.6

Bollinger to Dhawan, 1 run, you can’t pack more action in one ball, this one was cut away towards point, non-striker wanted the single and ran all the way to the striker who hadn’t budged much, the throw comes to the striker’s end, and misses, if it had hit both batsmen would have been short of the crease, fielder backs up, not very cleanly, but manages to throw it back to Bollinger, who still had ages to take off the bails, but he missed the stumps on the first attempt, he tried to throw the ball on the stumps on the second attempt, but missed again, all these men collectively wouldn’t have hit a wall from a foot away

That’s not to say DC didn’t have a shtick of their own called Sunny Sohal. The shots he played to the pacers Morkel and Bollinger were ridiculous. He didn’t have a bucket of luck as much as a torrent that he rode to get to his 50. Sohal repeatedly backed off to the leg to make room for hitting on the off, found the ball following him, closed his eyes,  even fell over and swung. Each time he got lucky, edging it AND getting boundaries. Only when he was facing Randiv did he play ‘shots’, slogs over midwicket and long on added to the misery for CSK. Then like most lucky fools who don’t acknowledge the luck they had, he tried one reverse sweep too many and was bowled.

But he left DC at a very comfortable position, requiring just 95 off 13.1 overs to overhaul CSK’s score of 165.

That CSK score didn’t look like it would happen at one point in time. Steyn wasn’t playing but DC’s bowlers did a great job to restrict CSK to a sedate start. Ojha removed Murali Vijay and the part timers were rushing through rather tight overs. Mike Hussey bot was grafting runs at one end when Raina decided to break free. A little success but he got out just when he got CSK to a 18th over par score. Thankfully Morkel the batsman turned up and tonked the ball over the ropes for one medium and two humongous sixes in the 19th over. That last flourish pushed the total from a tricky 140-ish score to a certainly defendable 165/5.

Sohal’s periscope shots studded innings though looked good to push all that aside. It was irritating to watch good bowling from Morkel and Bollinger not just rendered ineffective but costly. 94 from 13.1 should be cakewalk ideally but the rest of the DC batsmen couldn’t do it. Dhawan had been rotating strike earlier but lost his wicket when he tried to take charge. Jakati, already having dismissed the openers, took a brilliant catch to dismiss Chipli, White struggled and that led to Sanga going for the big hits and being bowled. Bollinger and Morkel returned to finish their quota and this time got the rewards they deserved, snagging White, Christian, JPD helped along by tighter fielding.

The margin of victory may not say it but the match was as good as lost for CSK for a long period of time. It seemed for a while that they just waited for Sohal’s luck to run out before thinking out a fresh plan. That luck running out bit didn’t happen against Punjab and we know how that ended. MSD needs to work out his set pieces and contingency plans for his set pieces to avoid being blown away by upstarts again. The table’s pretty even at the moment and these little things will matter if CSK are to make it to the top two.

Paul Valthaty Update:
First Virat Kohli overtook both Paul Valthaty and Master Performer Sachin Tendulkar™. Then Sachin overtook them again, then Virender Sehwag overtook  everybody but Sachin and Valthaty overtook just Kohli to get behind Sehwag and Sachin. Paul Valthaty also had a disappointing game at his IRL home ground, scratching his way to 33 off 38 in the same game that Sachin reclaimed the Orange cap with a 51 as MI surged to a 33 run win with the help of some good ole cheating . How many more obstacles must this man face? How many more twists will his story of eventual triumph take?