Ntini, Rain and Duckworth-Lewis see the Super Kings through by CricketArchive Staff Reporter

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Scorecard:	Kolkata Knight Riders v Chennai Super Kings
Player:	M Ntini, Salman Butt, SC Ganguly, Shoaib Akhtar, SP Fleming, MS Dhoni, PA Patel
Event:	Indian Premier League 2007/08

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DateLine: 19th May 2008

 

Chennai Super Kings continued their winning run against the Kolkata Knight Riders, at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata, as stormy conditions, rains and Duckworth and Lewis won the first IPL match of the day for the Super Kings.

 

Having said, it was a very clinical bowling performance by the Super Kings, to restrict the Knight Riders to a score of 149/5 in 20 overs. Makhaya Ntini was the star of the show for the Kings, as he finished with more than satisfactory bowling figures of 4/21 off his four overs, which also included a hat-trick spread over two overs. Salman Butt did score a 73, but none of the other batsmen came to grips with a pitch that was slow and on which the ball did not come onto the bat too well. Manpreet Gony continued to impress with his amazing control over the lines and lengths that he bowled and ended up conceding only 17 runs off his four! Muralitharan was hit for a couple of sixes as he conceded 41 in his four.

 

Chennai Super Kings was solid, with the intentions of seeing through the new ball and Shoaib Akhtar. Stephen Fleming, who opened the innings with Parthiv Patel, seemed to have found his touch, hit 6 boundaries in his unbeaten innings of 32 off 20 deliveries. Patel scored an unbeaten 19, and after eight overs, the Super Kings were 55/0, when strong winds blustered across the ground and the lights in one of towers went off. Just when they were getting fixed, it started raining, and ultimately, the match had to be called off at the same score.

 

Chennai were 3 runs ahead, the par score at that stage was 52/0, thus clinching the match by the same margin. Makhaya Ntini was adjudicated the Man-of-the-Match for his stupendous bowling. With this win, the Super Kings are at the third position in the table with 14 points off 11 matches, where as the Kolkata Knight Riders are at number six, with 10 off 11 matches.