Chennai Super Kings defeated Sunrisers Hyderabad by 2 wickets in the first qualifier played at Wankedhe Stadium, Mumbai just finished a few moments ago. CSK captain MS Dhoni won the toss and elected to field first. Their bowlers did a great job to restrict Kane Williamson led SRH to 139 for 8. Chasing 140, CSK struggled but Faf du Plessis showed great composure.
Chennai Super Kings captain won the toss and elected to field first. Deepak Chahar got the big wicket of Shikhar Dhawan in a very first ball of the innings. Sreevats Goswami and Captain Kane Williamson played positive strokes. Lungi Ngidi ended Goswami innings with a good caught and ball. Both of them added 34 runs for a 2nd wicket.
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Kane Williamson was dismissed by Shardul Thakur for 24 runs. At the end of 6 overs, Sunrisers Hyderabad was struggling at 47 for 3. After the power play overs, Shakib AL Hasan, Manish Pandey went cheaply while Yusuf Pathan also went scoring 24 runs which left SRH in big trouble at 88 for 6. Carlos Braithwaite played a cameo innings scoring 43 not out off 29 balls while Bhuvneshwar Kumar scored just 7 runs. Both of them added 51 runs for the 7th wicket. For Chennai Super Kings, Dwayne Bravo picked 2 wickets for 25 runs. Ravindra Jadeja was a most economical bowler with figures of 1/13 in 4 overs.
Chasing 140, Chennai Super Kings too lost a wicket in the very first over as Bhuvneshwar Kumar dismissed dangerous Shane Watson for 0. Suresh Raina played some brilliant strokes. Siddarth Kaul got the big wicket of Suresh Raina and Ambati Rayudu in successive balls to leave CSK in big trouble at 24 for 3.
At the end of 6 overs, Chennai Super Kings were also struggling at 33 for 3. After the power play overs, Rashid Khan dismissed CSK captain MS Dhoni for 9 runs. Rashid Khan bowled a great spell picking 2 wickets for just 11 runs. Sunrisers Hyderabad bowlers picked wickets at regular intervals but Faf du Plessis did not lose his composure and reached his half-century off 37 balls. The biggest moment came out when Faf du Plessis reviewed the as the umpire gave it out and the ball was going past the leg stump, the umpire has to overturn the decision to not out.
Carlos Braithwaite gave away 19 runs in the 18th over. With 23 runs required off 2 overs, Shardul Thakur came to the crease and scored a quick-fire 15 off 5 balls. Faf du Plessis hit a six to give Chennai Super Kings memorable 2 wicket win. Faf du Plessis remained not out on 67.
CSK 140 for 8 in 19.1 overs ( Faf du Plessis 67*, Suresh Raina 22, Shardul Thakur 15*, Rashid Khan 2/11, Sandeep Sharma 2/30, S Kaul 2/32) beat
SRH 139 for 7 in 20 over’s (Carlos Braithwaite 43*, Yusuf Pathan 24, Kane Williamson 24, Bravo 2/25) by 2 wickets.
SRH captain Kane Williamson said: We were short by 20 runs on this pitch. The bowlers were outstanding but did not execute our plans. Hopefully, we can play good cricket in Kolkata and come back here to play the finals. Credit to CSK lower order who played some brilliant cricket. Faf du Plessis a great knock.
CSK captain MS Dhoni said: SRH bowlers did a great job to pick quick wickets. Their bowling attack put pressure on our batting line up. Faf du Plessis experience showed with the way he batted in this tough situation. He did not play enough matches in this tournament but stayed calm. Our bowlers did a superb job and restricted them to 139.
Man of the match Faf du Plessis said: Very happy to contribute in a winning cause since I have not played many games in the tournament. Shardul Thakur played cameo knock and that helped us to win the match. Rashid Khan was very tough to pick and wanted to take singles.
CSK enters into the finals. Kolkata Knight Riders will take on Rajasthan Royals in tomorrow”s eliminator at Eden Gardens, tomorrow.