Bangalore stop Chennai, enter final by CricketArchive Staff Reporter

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Scorecard:	Chennai Super Kings v Royal Challengers Bangalore
Player:	MK Pandey, RS Dravid, V Kohli, M Muralitharan, PA Patel
Event:	Indian Premier League 2009

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DateLine: 23rd May 2009

 

Manish Pandey and Rahul Dravid steered Bangalore Royal Challengers to a six-wicket victory over Chennai Super Kings and in the process booked a place in the final of IPL II.

 

Chasing 147 to win, Bangalore got off to a flier courtesy the in-form Pandey (48) who hit two boundaries off the first over bowled by Albie Morkel. His opening partner Jacques Kallis joined in the carnage, hitting Manpreet Gony for consecutive boundaries in the next over. Gony though struck in the same over sending Kallis back to the dug-out. The scoreline read 17 for the loss of a wicket at the end of the second over.

 

In came Roelef van der Merwe (2) which was surprising. He was sent in as a pinch hitter but the move failed as Morkel cleaned up his leg-stump after the batsman was dropped off the previous ball by Muttiah Muralitharan.

 

On the other end though one thing was consistent. Pandey kept hitting boundaries and looked as if he never left the ground after his century in the previous game. He and Dravid (44) then added 72 runs.

 

What was a delight to the eyes were some exquisite cover drives by the 19-year-old. Seeing that the situation was under control, Dravid happily played the second fiddle. He never missed an opportunity to hit a boundary though and the Chennai bowlers were generous.

 

Pandey finally fell to Jakati. Trying to slog the bowler over the mid-wicket fence, he failed to connect, instead the ball connected with his stumps. Dravid also fell after 16 more runs were added to the tally.

 

This was one time when the game when the momentum seemed to be shifting towards the Chennai side again but Ross Taylor (17) and Virat Kohli (24) had other ideas. Both of them hit two sixes apiece and made sure that the team crosses the winning line without any further hiccups.

 

Earlier, batting first after losing the toss, Chennai managed to post 146 for five in their allotted 20 overs. The innings was a mixture of some fireworks at the beginning by the Chennai openers and then some very good bowling which somehow managed to keep the total in check whenever the batsmen looked to take the game away.

 

Opening the batting for the Chennai outfit, Matthew Hayden (26) and Parthiv Patel (36) came out firing to give them a fabulous start. The duo took off from the word go and showed little mercy on the Bangalore bowlers. Patel was especially scintillating in his approach which kind of took the Bangalore attack by surprise as the little man at one time even outscored the orange cap holder.

 

After adding 61 runs in a mere seven overs, Hayden departed trying to lift a Vinay Kumar delivery over mid-wicket only to be caught at the deep by Pandey. Patel followed his partner after just eight more runs were added to the total. He fell victim to a Kallis in-dipper.

 

The fall of these two wickets brought Mahendra Singh Dhoni (28) and Raina (30) together. Dhoni had promoted himself up the order ahead of Raina. The duo added 35 runs but surprisingly both were a little slow. Dhoni scored 28 runs off 30 balls and was not able to touch the fence even once.

 

Praveen Kumar, Raina's Ranji state-mate finally put an end to his stay at the wicket. The medium-pacer bowled a slower delivery and foxed the left-hander who tried to come down the track and hit a huge one, only to successfully loop it straight over the top for Boucher to take a simple catch.

 

The struggle to score big continued and though a few lusty ones came from the willows of Albie Morkel (20) and Jacob Oram (9) but the yorkers and changes in pace in the slog overs made sure Chennai did not run away with a huge score on the board.