 Chennai Super Kings beat Kolkata Knight Riders via D/L method
18th May 2008 23:03 IST
Agencies
Earlier, the South African Ntini came up with a fine hat-trick to restrict the Kolkata knight Riders to a modest total.
The 30-year-old new ball bowler got rid of Knight Riders skipper Sourav Ganguly with the last ball of his third over, before he was taken off the attack by stand-in skipper Fleming, who called the shots as regular captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni retired to the dressing room with an injured finger.
Ntini came back in the 17th over and immediately struck a double blow, by showing the door to Debabrata Das (27) and David Hussey (0) with his first two balls, to complete the third hat-trick of the tourney after pacer Lakshmipathy Balaji and leg spinner Amit Mishra.
He finished with highly impressive figures of 4-0-21-4.
For the Knight Riders, Pakistani left hander Salman Butt (73; 84b, 10x4, 1x6) deftly anchored the innings after the hosts lost two early wickets and steadied the ship by putting on 86 runs for the third wicket alongside the young Das.
Ntini broke the rollicking stand by castling Das with a low full toss, reducing Knight Riders to 114/3 in 16.1 overs.
The Knight Riders received a further setback as Ntini welcomed the dangerous Hussey with an angled delivery, which the Australian played across the line and saw his off stump go cartwheeling.
The twin blows threw a spanner in the Knight Riders bid to post a huge total and in the end they could only set an asking rate of 7.50 runs for the visitors.
Butt, who delighted the crowd with delectable shots all round the park, departed an over after Ntini's feat that had initially gone unnoticed with even the official scorer missing it.
The Knight Riders yet again made a bumpy start losing their first two wickets within the opening five overs on a track, which played slow initially but eased out as the innings progressed.
Ntini got the first breakthrough in his second over as opener Mohammad Hafeez (6) failed to keep a flick down and Manpreet Gony had little difficulty in taking the catch at fine-leg.
Skipper Ganguly (2), looking tentative from the beginning, survived only eight balls. The Prince of Kolkata went for a mighty heave without going behind the line of the ball and played too early to see his middle stump knocked down, as the Knight Riders became 28/2 in five overs.
Ganguly's aggression seemed needless, as Butt had picked up two back-to-back boundaries earlier in the over. |
