Suresh Raina
The Chennai Super Kings have done it yet again. Another finale, flawless performances, blistering knocks and unbelievable cricket year after year. This is what Chennai Super Kings is all about. They showed everyone that they are the team who would always settle for nothing less than a final slot.
This time around, Suresh Raina steered the Super Kings into the final for the 3rd time in 4 years, beating the Royal Challengers Bangalore by 6 wickets. 3 Finals out of 4; this shows the consistency of the side. The Super Kings are without doubt the best team in the IPL throughout the 4 seasons.
The Chennai Super Kings beat the Royal Challengers Bangalore in a thrilling encounter, chasing a difficult 176. But the Super Kings have done it time and time again and this time the night belonged to Suresh Raina and a thunderous cameo by Albie Morkel.
Chennai won the toss and MS Dhoni opted to field first. All that Chennai would have wanted was to see the back of Chris Gayle early, who earlier thrashed the Super Kings when the two sides met a couple of days ago. Chennai got the much needed breakthrough, getting the dangerous Gayle in the 3rd over, courtesy to some impressive bowling from Ashwin. However, young Mayank Agarwal looked in fine touch and scored a fine 34 before perishing to Bravo. However, in-form Virat Kohli continued with his fine touch as he was impressive yet again. He has been outstanding throughout the tournament and he stepped up at an important junction. He started getting into rhythm quickly and scored at a brisk rate. AB Devilliers failed to deliver and perished for just 11.
However, the new inclusion to the team, Pomersbach, stepped in, and he along with Kohli steered Challengers innings. He delivered some lusty blows and scored a quick fire 29 before he was clean bowled by his Aussie team-mate Bollinger. However, Kohli continued with his hammering and played quite an extra-ordinary knock in the latter over to give Challengers a healthy scorecard of 175. Kohli scored a thunderous 70 of just 44 deliveries.
The Chennai side knew that the target was gettable but difficult. They got off to the worst possible side, losing Hussey in the 1st over, courtesy to a beautiful in swinger by Zaheer Khan. To make matter worse, Vijay followed Hussey in the very next over. Raina and Badrinath had to make it happen. Both tried to balance the innings, but the Challengers bowlers were hard to score off. Chris Gayle was the stand out bowler for the Challengers, conceding only 19 runs of his 4 overs. However, both balanced the innings well and played some sensible cricket and kept the scorecard ticking. However, singles would never be enough as the run rate kept piling up. Badrinath then tried to free his arms, but only to find the fielder in the deep. He made a well fought 34. However, it was time to hit out or get out. Raina stepped up the gear and smashed the bowlers all over the park. Dhoni too supported Raina and smashed a quickfire 29 before being held out to Zaheer Khan.
Raina was harsh on the bowlers and continued with his hammering. However, still they needed to get one good over and they got it in the 19th over. Albie Morkel along with Raina thrashed the Challengers bowling attack, scoring 60 runs in the last 4 overs. Morkel at the end smashed some lusty blows to give Chennai a 6 wicket win and a place in the finals. Suresh Raina scored an unbeaten 73 of 50 deliveries and Morkel played a much needed winning cameo of 28 of just 10 deliveries.
This win means Chennai have entered the finals for the 3rd time out of the 4 finals. That is quite an achievement. They will be playing at home in the finals which will add and boost their confidence of winning the Cup for the 2nd time in a row.
Tags: Chennai Super Kings, Cricket, CSK, IPL, IPL 2011, IPL 4, RCB, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Suresh Raina
