Monday 4 May 2015 16:13, UK
Suresh Raina hit fifty and Ashish Nehra continued his good tournament with three wickets as the Chennai Super Kings beat Royal Challengers Bangalore by 24 runs in the Indian Premier League.
Raina scored 52 from 46 balls as Chennai scored a challenging but by no means insurmountable 148-9 from their 20 overs.
Mitchell Starc (3-24) again impressed with the ball for Bangalore, only to be outdone by Nehra (3-19) as the Super Kings successfully defended the total, bowling RCB out for 124 with two balls to spare.
The win for Chennai sends them to the top of the IPL table above the Rajasthan Royals, with seven wins from their 10 games. Bangalore stay third for now, with four wins from nine.
MS Dhoni decided to bat first after winning the toss, but opener Dwayne Smith looked all at sea when facing Starc in the first over of the innings, bowled by the final ball of a wicket-maiden.
But Suresh Raina – well-supported by Brendon McCullum (20 off 15 balls) and Faf du Plessis (24 off 20) – helped lead the recovery and at 101-4 after 15 overs when he finally departed, lbw to Harshal Patel (2-12), Chennai had a good platform to build on.
Dhoni pitched in with a typical swashbuckling effort – 29 off 18 balls including a pair of big sixes – but the rest of the Super Kings lower order generally disappointed, with seven wickets falling for 48 runs as they finished on 148-9.
Dhoni fell in the penultimate over, holing out to Starc off David Wiese, before Starc accounted for two more – Pawan Negi and Dwayne Bravo – in the final over.
They were two wickets out of three to fall in the final three balls of the innings as Mohit Sharma was then run out off the last ball.
Set 149 to win, Nic Maddinson – making his IPL debut in place of the rested Chris Gayle – made only four before being bowled by Ishwar Pandey (2-28).
AB de Villiers looked his fluent best, with five fours to race to 21 off 14 balls, but then hit a Pandey full toss straight to South African team-mate Du Plessis.
After Mandeep Singh was run out without troubling the scorers, Virat Kohli (48 off 44) rebuilt with Dinesh Karthik (23 off 20), putting on 63 runs together before they both fell to consecutive deliveries.
Kohli was first run out brilliantly by Bravo at the end of the 14th over, short of his crease when the bowler fielded off his own bowling and fired the ball at the stumps, and then Karthik perished in the deep off Nehra.
That signalled a collapse, as only Wiese of the remaining passed double-figures with 17 off 14 deliveries.
He ran out of partners though as Bravo (2-17) took a couple of wickets at the death to dismiss Bangalore for 124 and clinch a 24-run win for Chennai.
