Looks like this is not the city of destiny for the Deccan Chargers. Staying away from Hyderabad, where they have won once in 14 matches, the Chargers searched out this port city as their opening-game home venue but are yet to find luck. They have one more chance of setting the record straight here, but Saturday night was not the super show they had prayed for.
Thanks to a late assault by Chennai Super Kings, Deccan Chargers batsmen had a mountain to climb, and their bowlers left to sulk a dismal outing where Super Kings struck more sixes than fours --- 12 to 10.
As expected of any champion T20 team, Chennai Super Kings bat very deep. And hence, despite the Deccan Chargers continuously chipping away at them by picking wickets at regular intervals, the Super Kings were never really thwarted.
Chargers captain Cameron White tried shuffling his bowlers but Faf du Plessis gave the Super Kings an early boost by hitting four sixes. This was after White's gamble paid off in the form of introducing slow bowler Ankit Sharma in the first over and accounting for Murali Vijay's wicket. S Badrinath and Suresh Raina didn't build on their starts but Ravindra Jadeja flourished. Before finishing the day on a high with a fifer, he cracked three sixes to rush to 48 but was unfortunate to get out hit-wicket trying to shuffle across the stumps and clip Dale Steyn's pace.
BRAVO BLAZE
MS Dhoni was expected to do an encore of his memorable 148 here seven years ago but Dwayne Bravo provided the fireworks at the end. He took a heavy toll on Deccan's Indian recruits TP Sudhindra and Manpreet Gony in the death when Chargers leaked 71 runs in the last five overs.
Chasing 193 was improbable but not impossible. Deccan Chargers tried to force their issue with a few boundaries but the pitch started to become slow and low.
© HT
