By BV Swagath
Spectacular T20 knocks from Suresh Raina and MS Dhoni blasted Chennai Super Kings to a 12-run win over Sunrisers Hyderabad in a high-scoring contest at Ranchi. Sunrisers Hyderabad gave stiff fight to CSK despite chasing a tall target of 203. It was an evening where it rained sixes all parts of the ground. The spectators had the luck of witnessing as many as 16 sixes and 28 boundaries.
Ranchi boy MS Dhoni gave full value to the paid spectators with a brutal knock of 63 from 19 balls with a four and 8 sixes! Even before Dhoni had freed his arms, it was Suresh Raina, who provided all the impetus and took the CSK innings forward with an excellently paced knock of 84 from 57 balls with 9 fours and a six.
Chasing an improbable target of 203 in 20 overs, Sunrisers surprisingly got off to a dream start of 88 for 1 in 9.2 overs. Skipper Shikhar Dhawan looked awesome before he got out on 48 (from 34 balls) to Ashwin. The match was certainly over when Thisara Perera got out at 106 for 4 in 13.1 overs. Darren Sammy ensured that the match wasn’t going to finish on a dull note. The former West Indies Captain came up with some massive hits to score 50 from 25 balls which included 5 sixes.
Toss and Teams: Sunrisers Hyderabad have won the toss and asked Chennai Super Kings to bat first at Ranchi. Both the teams are unchanged and go into this game with a win in their first match. Although the pitch is prepared to be batsmen-friendly, the rain that has been around Ranchi could have dampened it to help the seam bowlers.
Chennai Super Kings: Michael Hussey, Murali Vijay, Suresh Raina, S Badrinath, Dwayne Bravo, MS Dhoni (C&WK), Ravindra Jadeja, Albie Morkel, Jason Holder, Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohit Sharma
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Parthiv Patel (WK), Shikhar Dhawan (C), Jean-Paul Duminy, Hanuma Vihari, Thisara Perera, Darren Sammy, Ashish Reddy, Karan Sharma, Amit Mishra, Dale Steyn, Ishant Sharma
