The Super Kings stormed back in style on Tuesday night, hammering the Kolkata Knight Riders by 55 runs to take them into third place in the nascent IPL league table. As this correspondent noted two days ago, the Bengali outfit are nearly as overhyped as their owner’s acting skills, and their meek capitulation to a Dhoni-driven Chennai side went some way towards proving it.
KKR got off to a more than decent start, getting rid of the potentially dangerous Matthew Hayden early on. Things were going swimmingly, with regular wickets being taken, until MS Dhoni got going with Badrinath providing an able supporting role. Shane Bond bowled a beautiful line and length, while Murali Karthik made yet another case for a return from the international wilderness – his 4 overs yielded no boundaries, a rarity in this form of the game.
However, Ganguly’s men were powerless when faced with the might of the Indian Captain’s bottom hand. Having scored a measly 81 runs from the first 14 overs of their innings, one would have thought anything from here on in would be too little too late. What followed was nothing short of a violent assault, as 83 runs came off the final 36 balls, Dhoni finishing with a stunning 66 of 33 deliveries – the highlight undoubtedly being the flattest six you will ever see, knocking over a couple of tiger mascots stationed just beyond the mid wicket boundary.
In reply, Kolkata were never really allowed to get going – the rot started in the first over, when Brad Hodge pulled the ball straight to Ashwin at mid wicket. Manoj Tiwary smacked a couple of fours off Manpreet Gony before having his stumps rearranged – he scored 8 runs off 3 balls. Wickets continued to fall with alarming regularity, and every single bowler (bar Suresh Raina) got in on the act. A great team performance by the boys in yellow.
Tomorrow night promises to be a right corker though – the Mumbai Indians take on the Delhi Daredevils in what promises to be the match of the tournament thus far. Come back tomorrow for the review.
Picture Courtesy: Chennai 365
![[del.icio.us]](http://images.del.icio.us/static/img/delicious.small.gif){kind=small}
Tags: Chennai Super Kings, CSK, IPL, KKR, Kolkata Knight Riders, Save Our Tigers
This is uncalled for. They are definitely not as hyped as the owner’s acting skill. Not even close.
Though well written, the article smacks of a bit of anti-KKR tone as was evident from certain statements in the beginning of the piece. Maybe the correspondent is biased towards a certain team. But quite frankly, I think KKR need a break. In IPL 1 and 2, they performed shoddily and were made target of a lot of jokes (fakeiplplayer etc etc). This time around, they have managed to pitch in some decent performances which don’t seem to be going well with some of the people. Lets not forget, they have Gayle and McCullum coming back and the team can pose a decent challenge.
So lets try to be unbiased, shall we
why are other people posting as Oasisboy?
There’s only one Oasisboy, I reckon. Perhaps he’s a KKR fan.
Regardless, he raises a couple of fair points. They do stand a chance this year – particularly if they can use their pride as motivation. Gayle and McCullum will do them no end of good, so a decent start could see them reach the semis with ease.
Aruni – I’d like to think i used the word ‘overhyped’ in the sense that the team has more visibility than most. As if having SRK as an owner wasn’t enough, they’ve also got a barrage of ads hitting TV screens. It’s a little hard to take, to be honest with you. (Although I’m sure it’s managing to garner the team a lot of support from unlikely quarters).
Perhaps ‘overpromoted’ would have been a better word.
Unfair to compare SRK’s acting to anything not even the Rugby team of Indore. Unpardonable.
SRK does not know how to act. He can only overact.
He does not know much about cricket either. A little about how to sell it maybe, but about the game – as close to Zilch as an Indian could get.
And why do I see Bruce talking to Batman! Holy coverup Oasisboy!
looks like history is repeating itself again… and if so, I will be happy if CSK reaches to SF/finals sans Dhoni…
Err…T20 is the most random sport I’ve seen. Does it even merit a discussion?