Indian Premier League 2 : IPL 2 : IPL 2009

The Chennai Super Kings have beaten Kolkata Knight Riders by 10 wickets as per the D/L method in a storm-hit IPL tie at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata.

The game came to a halt due to a storm followed by rains when Super Kings were 55 without any loss of wicket in eight overs. According to the D/L method, they were 3 runs ahead of the revised target of 52 runs. Chennai Super Kings openers Stephen Fleming (32) and Parthiv Patel (19) remained unbeaten.

There is no shuffle in the points table but the Super Kings have gained two points and retain their third slot. It’s definitely not a very good news for Kolkata Knight Riders as now Delhi Daredevils and Mumbai Indians are pushing themselves strongly for the fourth place in the semi-finals.

Earlier, after winning the toss, Kolkata Knight Riders made 149 runs at the loss of five wickets against Chennai Super Kings. Chennai pacer Makhaya Ntini made early inroads and stopped them from getting off to a flier.

He picked four wickets and was declared as the ‘Man of the Match’. Interestingly, he also picked the third hat-trick of the DLF IPL tournament. This the first disjointed hat-trick of the event.

Delhi may have conceded their sixth defeat in 11 matches but skipper Virender Sehwag insists semifinal hopes are not over yet for his side.

Talking to reporters after Delhi lost a weather-marred tie to Mohali via Duckworth-Lewis method, Sehwag said it was sad to lose such a tight match but his team was not out of the reckoning yet.

“I don’t think the semifinal hopes are over. We have to win the next three games and continue the way we are playing. I guess we have to force win in tight matches,” he said.

Sehwag conceded his expensive over proved costly in the end in the truncated tie. “In hindsight, may be bowling that over with Glenn McGrath would have been a better idea but then we did not expect rain and I thought of saving him for the later stage.

“Had the match been played full 20 overs, we would have scored nearly 200 runs, which should have been good enough,” he rued.

Mohali captain Yuvraj Singh admitted rain favoured his side, though he felt his side needed to improve in fielding. “The rain helped our cause and I wanted to chase right from the start. Anyway, our fielding has been quite sloppy and I started it by dropping Viru (Sehwag), which could have proved costly but rain saved us,” he said.

Mahela Jayawardene, whose unbeaten 36 off 17 ball not only saw Punjab through but also earned him the Man of the Match award, said he had decided to go after Sehwag.

“It was a challenge to get ahead of them, especially after losing three wickets. I knew we were some 15-20 runs behind them and had to take chance.

“So when Viru came, I decided to go after him and that paid off,” added the Sri Lankan.