Deccan Chargers VS Chennai Super Kings - Match 29 - Buffalo Park, East London

Chennai Super Kings are on a roll, winning their third consecutive match, which propels them from seventh spot in the points table a week back to the first spot. Almost everything this match went Chennai's way - Dhoni won the toss, decided to bat and the openers backed his decision by providing a wonderful opening partnership. Hayden blasted 43 from 26 balls, while Vijay made a solid 31 from 33 balls. Once the wickets of openers fell, Raina and Dhoni took over and treated the crowd for their money with some excellent display of strokes. Raina provided the much needed momentum after the strategic time out scoring 32 of just 19 balls, while Dhoni came to form with a brilliant, unbeaten 58 from 37 balls. Some good bowling at the death by RP Singh restricted Chennai to 178 from a posistion where they were looking good for 200.

Chasing 179 for victory Deccan started catastrophically loosing three wickets for just one run on the board. Gilchrist was out leg before the very first ball of the innings from Albie Morkel. In the next over Sudeep Tyagi rattled the wood work of Gibbs and in the third over VVS Laxman flicked one straight to the fielder. With their top three gone for "DUCKS", the lucky Dwyane Smith who was dropped twice of consecutive balls counter - attacked with some mighty blows. Smith along with Sharma brought the scoreboard from 1/3 to 73/3, before Jataki made a double strike removing both Sharma and Smith in the same over. With the return of dangerous Smith to pavillion, the Chennai bowlers ran through the remaining batting line up and the Deccan Chargers ended up loosing all their wickets in 14.4 overs with just 100 runs on the board. Jakati once again bowled brilliantly and returned with the figures of 4/22. Murali will be on a hat-trick the next match and ended up with figures of 2/11. The only worrying factor for Chennai would be their catching. Chennai dropped loads of easy catches that too of consecutive deliveries. If only Chennai could have held on to these catches, the match would have been over much earlier!

TOSS

Chennai Super Kings won the toss and chose to bat

BRIEF SCORES

Chennai Super Kings - 178/3 in 20 overs(Dhoni - 58*, Hayden - 43, SM Shohaib - 1/14, T Suman - 1/29)

Deccan Chargers - 100 all out in 14.4 overs(D Smith - 49, R Sharma - 21, S Jataki - 4/22, M Muralitharan - 2/11)

RESULT

Chennai Super Kings won the match by 78 runs.

Chennai Super Kings Vs Deccan Chargers - Match 16 - Kingsmead, Durban - Bulletin

Deccan Chargers are on a roll after defeating Chennai Super Kings and making their tally four out of four. The wooden spoon winner have come out all guns blazing in this season of IPL and the results are here to see. Gilchrist and Gibbs were on fire and literally destroyed the Chennai bowling after being set a target of 166 runs. Gilchrist was in punishing mood as he sent the cricket ball flying to all parts of the ground scoring 44 off just 19 balls which included five 4's and three massive sixers. With all his regular bowlers being hit out of the park, Dhoni threw the ball to part-timer Suresh Raina hoping for a magic. And magic did happen with Raina picking up the wickets of Gilchrist and Laxman in successive overs. But the damage was already done. With run-rate at a manageable level and wickets in hand Gibbs guided Deccan to a emphatic six wicket victory.

Earlier in the day Mathew Hayden's 49 and Jacob Oram's 41 helped Chennai reach a respectable score of 165, after being put in by Deccan. But the inability to forge good partnerships and good bowling from Deccan spinners meant that Chennai could never really go into the full throttle mode. Raina and Dhoni made some useful contributions but were out when they started to look good for bigger scores. This season so far for Chennai has been a season of missed opportunities. They have been in winning positions in most of the matches but let the opportunity slip. If Chennai wants to better or atleast repeat their last year's performance, they have to make sure they grab all the opportunities.

Toss
Deccan won the toss and elected to field

Teams
Deccan Chargers
A Gilchrist, H Gibbs, VVS Laxman, R Sharma, Dwyane Smith, Venugopal Rao Rao, A Bilakhia,
P Ojha, RP Singh, SM Shohaib, F Edwards
Chennai Super Kings
P Patel, M Hayden, S Raina, J Oram, M S Dhoni, A Morkel, S Badrinath, J Sharma, L Balaji,
M Muralitharan, M Gony

Brief Scores
Chennai Super Kings - 165/6 in 20 overs(Hayden - 49, J Oram - 41*, P Ojha - 2/11,
R Sharma - 1/18)
Deccan Chargers - 169/4 in 19.3 overs(H gibbs - 69*, A Gilchrist - 44, S Raina - 2/18,
M Muralitharan - 1/17)

Result
Deccan Chargers won by 6 wickets