MAY 22, 2018
Brief Scorecard: Chennai Super Kings (du Plessis 67*, Raina 22, Rashid 2-11) beat Sunrisers Hyderabad (Brathwaite 43*, Bravo 2-25) by two wickets
May 22, 2018: Sunrisers Hyderabad v Chennai Super Kings, 1st Qualifier, Mumbai Du Plessis sealed the win with a six to guide CSK into the final – BCCI
MUMBAI – South Africa captain Faf du Plessis took Chennai Super Kings to the final of the Indian Premier League as they beat Sunrisers Hyderabad by 2 wickets in the first qualifier at the Wankhede stadium on Tuesday.
du Plessis remained unbeaten on 67 off 42 balls to help CSK chase down 140 in a low-scoring thriller in Mumbai.
The 33-year-old smashed five boundaries and four sixes during his knock to take CSK to their 7th IPL final.
He had started off his innings very slowly and didn’t get to bat for nearly three overs after opening the innings with Shane Watson. But du Plessis batted superbly in the second half of his knock with the tail-enders – adding 30 runs with Deepak Chahar, 21 runs with Harbhajan Singh and 27* with Shardul Thakur – to take his team over the line with 5 balls to spare.
Suresh Raina also made a useful contribution with 22 runs while Shardul made 15 not out, which included two boundaries off Siddharth Kaul in the penultimate over which tilted the equation in CSK’s favour.
CSK needed 6 runs to win in the final over and du Plessis smacked a six off the first ball from Bhuvneshwar Kumar (1/14) to finish the match with 5 balls to spare and triggered massive celebrations in the CSK dugout.
For SRH, Rashid Khan starred with the ball with figures of 2 for 11 while Sandeep Sharma and Siddharth Kaul took 2 wickets each but took a beating in the latter stages.
Kane Williamson’s team will now face the winner of the eliminator between Kolkata Knight Riders and Rajasthan Royals in the second qualifier. The second qualifier will be played at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on May 25.
Earlier, Hyderabad rode on a quickfire 43 off 29 to post 139 for 7 in 20 overs after being put into bat by Dhoni.
May 22, 2018: Sunrisers Hyderabad v Chennai Super Kings, 1st Qualifier, Mumbai Chennai Super Kings sent in Sunrisers Hyderabad to bat at the Wankhede Stadium – BCCI
The low-scoring match saw the batsmen struggling to score freely and it was only because of Brathwaite’s flourish in the death overs which gave SRH bowlers a defendable score.
Yusuf Pathan and captain Kane Williamson also made useful contributions to the total scoring 24 runs each while Shakib Al Hasan (12) and Shreevats Goswami (12) made identical scores as well.
For CSK, Dwayne Bravo picked up two wickets while Deepak Chahar, Lungi Ngidi, Shardul Thakur and Ravindra Jadeja got a wicket each.
Courtesy/Source: India Today
