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Chennai Super Kings beat Delhi Daredevils by 5 wickets at the Feroz Shah Kotla on Friday. It was a thrilling encounter in which the crowd witnessed a superb display of batting and splendid catching. Delhi Daredevils won the toss and chose to bat first.

Mathew Hayden

There are many statements made about the glorious uncertainties of cricket but one quote stands true today that ‘catches win matches’. It was three good catches from Chennai’s new stand-in captain, Suresh Raina, and a spectacular effort at the boundary from Justin Kemp, that kept Delhi below the 200 run mark.

Delhi Daredevils scored 185 for 6 and the main contributors to their total were Sehwag 74, Manhas 32 and R.Bhatia 21. In reply thereto, Chennai Super Kings scored 190 for 5 with Hayden 93, Badrinath 14 and Raina remained not-out on 49. 

Hayden smacked 93 off 43 and almost single-handedly overhauled Delhi Daredevils’ score of 185. If  put  more mildly,  it was a match between Sehwag and Hayden and whosoever dominated the proceedings, won the match for his team. Delhi’s innings featured a similarly dominant effort. If Hayden scored 93 during his teams innings,  Virender Sehwag slammed 74. 

Apart from the batting, Chennai Super Kings were also superb in fielding today. There is no denying the fact that the credit of the wicket goes to the bowler because he produced the ‘ball’ which resulted in a catch; but the credit/mention  for spectacular catches has to be given to the fielder also.  Kemp produced the moment of inspiration for CSK, jumping at the right time and taking a left-handed catch at the long-off boundary. 

Just before and after that, Raina produced two good catches to get rid of Dilshan and AB de Villiers. Raina took 3 catches and Kemp took a one-handed catch to dismiss Virendra Sehwag and this was the key to the success of Chennai Super Kings today. 

Hayden was hitting so clean that even his mistimed shot in the Dilshan’s over also managed to send  the ball over long-on for a six. That six also brought up his fifty, off 24 balls. 

On the other hand, Delhi captain Dinesh Karthik brought in his best bowler, Nannes back in the 13th over which was too late to curb the CSK onslaught. An over later, Hayden hit Amit Mishra powerfully down the ground, and Dilshan ran in and caught it inches off the ground. Tillakaratne Dilshan took an almost blind catch charging in from long-on to deny Hayden a century. 

For the Chennai Super Kings, Albie Morkel and Justin Kemp failed to contribute much,  after Chennai lost three wickets for 27 runs, and the onus fell on Raina who scored 49* and carried Chennai home with five balls to spare. 

Dellhi have now lost two consecutive matches and Chennai Super Kings have two wins from three  encounters. 

Unquestionably, Mathew Hayden was declared the Man of the Match since he single handedly turned a big chase into a laughing matter.

Ravi Matah

Tags: Chennai Super Kings, Delhi Daredevils, Justin Kemp, Mathew Hayden, Suresh Raina, Virendra Sehwag

This entry was posted on Friday, March 19th, 2010 at 9:51 pm and is filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.