Mike Hussey scored a brilliant hundred, the fastest hundred of this tournament and built a strong foundation to Chennai Super Kings innings. The good toss was won by Dhoni and he decided to bat first. The two openres--Parthiv Patel and Hayden gave a good start. Patel was the first to go before he hit 3 consecutive fours of Sreesanth. It was a short of length, raising well and a speedy delivery from Lee, which took the outside edge and flew to keeper. Hayden looking good was bowled by inner edge off Irfan Pathan.
Dhoni, the highest paid player of IPL did not prove his worth in this match. He was judged leg before for 1, though the replay showed inner edge.
Raina played sensibly along with Hussey, who crossed his 50 off 31 balls with 4 fours and 3 sixes. Raina fired a quick 32 off 13 balls with 2 fours and 3 sixes that helped Chennai to add more runs to the board. They were maintaining a run rate of 10 per over throughout the game. Oram was out for 13 off 10 balls paving way to Badrinath.
Badrinath and Hussey added 73 runs for the 6th wicket in 27 balls. Badrinath hit 17 runs in the last over bowled by Praveen Kumar and Hussey hit 8 runs. Hussye crossed his 100 in 50 balls with 8 fours and 7 sixes. He finished his innings at 116 not out off 54 balls with 8 fours and 9 sixes. Badrinath was not out on 31 off 14 balls with 3 fours and 2 sixes.
Piyush Chawla conceeded 19 runs in his 1 over, Hopes gave 53 runs in his 4 overs with a wicket.
The chase of 241 is almost impossible to get, but the fighting innings by Hopes, once again did not help his team to taste the victory. The last time he played a similar fighting innings was against Indian in the second Commonwealth Bank Series final, which India won. Similary, his valiant innings for Pubjab Kings XI did not help them as they lost by 33 runs. His reached his 50 in just 24 balls with 8 fours and 2 sixes. Sangakkara also scored a good fifty in 29 balls.
Though Pubjab reached the 100 in 9.2 overs, it was not enough to reach 240 in 20 overs. Requiring 91 runs in 38 balls was almost impossible and Pubjab Kings XI lead by Yuvaraj Singh surrendered to Chennai lead by Dhoni.
Muralitharan was the economical bowler for Chennai. He gave away 33 runs in 4 overs with the wicket of his Sri Lanka team mate Sangakkara.
Man of the Match was given to Hussey for his wonderful hundred.
Match 2
Venue: Punjab Cricket Association Stadium, Mohali, Chandigarh
Date: April 19, 2008
Teams: Kings XI Punjab v. Chennai Super Kings
Captains: Yuvaraj Singh and Mahendra Singh Dhoni
Toss: Chennai Super Kings and decided to bat
Result: Chennai Super Kings won by 33 runs
Man of the Match: MEK Hussey of Chennai Super Kings (Australia)
Points: Chennai Super Kings-2; Kings XI Punjab-0
Score:
Chennai Super Kings 240 for 5 in 20 overs (PA Patel 15, Hayden 25, MEK Hussey 116 Not Out, Dhoni 2, SK Raina 32, Jacob Oram 13, S Badrinath 31 Not Out, Extras 6--lb 2, wide 3, no ball 1, Brett Lee 4-0-35-1, S Sreesanth 3-0-35-0, Hopes 4-0-53-1, Irfan Pathan 4-0-47-2, K Goel 2-0-25-0, Piyush Chawla 1-0-19-0, WA Mota 2-0-24-1) beat Kings XI Punjab 207 for 4 in 20 overs (K Goel 24, Hopes 71, Sangakkara 54, Yuvaraj Singh 23, SM Katich 21 not out, Irfan Pathan 3 not out, Extras 11--b 2, lb 4, wide 5, Jacob Oram 4-0-37-0, M Gony 4-0-42-1, Muralitharan 4-0-33-1, P Amarnath 4-0-42-1, Joginder Sharma 4-0-47-1)
