September 11, Durban: The lights were on at Kingsmead, Durban when IPL Champions Chennai Super Kings took on the domestic T20 champions from New Zealand Central Stags. MS Dhoni’s luck with the coin persisted and the Chennai skipper opted to bat saying, “We want to play to our strength and put runs up on the board.”
CSK lost Matthew Hayden and Suresh Raina within the first ten deliveries of their innings. Subramaniam Badrinath then made his way out and his presence at the crease prevented a CSK collapse. He was joined by young Anirudha Srikanth and between them the duo put on 73 for the fourth wicket with Anirudha playing more of the big shots (42 off 29 balls). At the fall of Anirudha’s wicket, Albie Morkel joined Badri and with same big-hitting late in the innings, the pair took Chennai to a respectable total of 151. Badri remained not out on 52.
Doug Bollinger kept things tight at one end and Morkel complemented him nicely. Peter Ingram was the first to fall to the sustained pressure created by CSK’s opening pace combination. Jamie How fell to L Balaji in the latter’s very first over. After that, Muralitharan and R Ashwin moved in for the kill. The spin duo had the Central Stags batsmen struggling to figure which way the ball would turn and between them gave away only 43 runs and accounted for 4 Stags wickets.
No. 8 Doug Bracewell, played bravely for his 30 runs, hitting a couple of fours and one six in his innings, but it was too much for him alone to swing things around for the Stags. Balaji was brought back into the attack and he hastened the Stags collapse by taking two wickets in the eighteenth over. In the end, Dhoni’s words at the toss rang true, as the New Zealand club were handed a 57-run defeat at the hands of the reigning IPL champions.
Brief Scores – Chennai Super Kings 151 for 4 (S Badrinath 52*, S Anirudha 42, Doug Bracewell 2-28)
beat Central Stags 94 (Doug Bracewell 30, L Balaji 3-20, Bollinger – 2-10) by 57 runs
Man-of-the-match – Subramaniam Badrinath for a well played, and undefeated, 52
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