Super Kings shoot at their own foot, lose to Challengers by CricketArchive Staff Reporter

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Scorecard:	Chennai Super Kings v Royal Challengers Bangalore
Player:	A Kumble, DW Steyn, MS Gony, JA Morkel, RS Dravid, P Kumar, MS Dhoni, SP Fleming
Event:	Indian Premier League 2007/08

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DateLine: 22nd May 2008

 

The 46th match of the DLF IPL was played between the Bangalore Royal Challengers and the Chennai Super Kings, and there seemed to be only one winner through the first 35 overs of it; Chennai Super Kings. And by quite a margin.

 

What happened at the end of the 40th over was not at all on the expected lines, the Royal Challengers had shocked the living daylights out of the Chennai team, after getting restricted to 126 in their 20 overs! And chasing 127 in the 20 overs, at 85/2, the match seemed to be going only way. It was some mindless batting by Stephen Fleming and the other batsmen in the top order, S. Badrinath, Albie Morkel and S. Vidyut that send panic waves through the team, culminating in an unprecedented collapse that saw the Super Kings collapsing 112/8 in the 20 overs.

 

Earlier, Bangalore Royal Challengers skipper Rahul Dravid won the toss and elected to bat first on a track that had been under covers and so was expected to do a little in the early part of the inning. The Challengers were off to a worst possible start, losing Kallis, Sreevats Goswami – last match’s Man-of-the-Match – and Virat Kohli by the 8th over for 33, and the Misbah-ul-Haq at 41. In fact at the end of the tenth over, Bangalore was 41/4, one of the lowest half way mark totals in the tournament. It was only a 39-ball 47 by the skipper Dravid himself and some lusty hitting at the end by Praveen Kumar who scored an 11-ball 21, that got the Challengers to the lowest ever score in a completed inning of a team batting first, 126/8.

 

Chennai got a rollicking start by their openers, Parthiv Patel and Stephen Fleming, the latter was looking in a particularly good touch, as the two scored 60 for the first wicket in only 9 overs. Unfortunately none of the rest assisted the openers, as Anil Kumble ran through the middle order, with some frugal bowling, his end analysis reading a wonderful 4-0-14-3!

 

This performance also enabled Kumble to win the Man-of-the-Match award, and helped Bangalore get their third win in the IPL. Chennai now are 14 points off 12 matches, Mumbai are at 12 off 11, breathing down their neck!