October 4, 2014
Brief Scorecard: Chennai Super Kings 185 for 2 (Raina 109*, McCullum 39) beat Kolkata Knight Riders 180 for 6 (Gambhir 80, Uthappa 39, Negi 5-22) by eight wickets
Suresh Raina hit his third T20 century
October 4, 2014
Brief Scorecard: Chennai Super Kings 185 for 2 (Raina 109*, McCullum 39) beat Kolkata Knight Riders 180 for 6 (Gambhir 80, Uthappa 39, Negi 5-22) by eight wickets
Suresh Raina hit his third T20 century
BENGALURU, INDIA: Suresh Raina once again showed why he is called Chennai's 'Mr Consistent' as he blasted his maiden Champions League Twenty20 hundred against Kolkata Knight Riders in the final on Saturday. Chennai beat Kolkata by a comfortable 8-wicket margin to win their second CLT20 title as Raina also took the honour of the highest run-scorer in the tournament.
Chasing a challenging 181 to win, Chennai were dealt a major blow when Pat Cummins knocked over Dwayne Smith in the first over of the match. However, the duo of Raina and McCullum had other plans as they put on a solid 118-run partnership for the second wicket to completely take the game away from IPL-7 champions Kolkata.
Raina's knock of 109 not out was laced with six fours and eight sixes. In the 13th over of the match, Raina even took on Kolkata's successful chinaman Kuldeep Yadav and put him away for two colossal sixes. Kuldeep had on Saturday been selected in the Indian ODI squad for the upcoming West Indies series.
Missing Narine because of a suspect action controversy, Kolkata looked completely out of sorts as Raina effortlessly cleared the boundaries on a consistent basis for Chennai.
Gambhir and Robin Uthappa put on 91 in under 11 overs. Uthappa's timing was terrific yet again but Gambhir stepped up after having had a lean tournament. Pulling, cutting, steering and slogging boundaries, Gambhir raced to 80 off 52 before holing out off Ravindra Jadeja in the 17th over.
Negi, playing only his second match of the tournament, had already removed Uthappa and Jacques Kallis in successive overs, deceiving both with plenty of flight and turn. With Dwayne Bravo taken for 18 runs in the 16th over and Ashish Nehra going for 20 in the 18th, Dhoni handed the 19th to Negi with R Ashwin and Mohit Sharma having an over left each.
Negi gave away two runs, including a wide, in the over, and took out Manish Pandey, Ryan ten Doeshcate and Suryakumar. Yusuf took 19 more off Nehra in the 20th to make it 62 off the last five, but Raina was unstoppable in the night.
Ahead of the CLT20 competition, Raina had been the lone star for the Indian team during a disastrous tour of England. The Chennai batsman had recovered some lost ground for the visitors by hitting a century in the 2nd match of the ODI series, which India won 3-1.
Courtesy: NDTV
