SRH sink Chennai
Pacer Harshal Patel made the best use of a sluggish Chepauk surface as Sunrisers Hyderabad put Chennai Super Kings on the brink of exit door by winning the battle of back-benchers by five wickets in the Indian Premier League here on Friday.
Harshal, a fine exponent of the slower delivery and the knuckle ball, took 4/28 as Chennai Super Kings endured another poor outing with the bat and were bowled out for 154 in 19.5 overs.
Despite getting assistance from the dew-laden surface, SRH made heavy weather of the chase before finally knocking off the target in 18.4 overs.
Ishan Kishan (44 off 34 balls), after his brain fade against Mumbai Indians, played a responsible hand at the top before Kamindu Mendis (32 not out off 22 balls) and Nitish Kumar Reddy (19 not out off 13 balls) got the visitors two points with a 49-run stand. This was SRH’s first win at this venue.
With six points from nine games, SRH’s playoff qualification hangs by a thread as they need to win all their five matches and that too by a fair margin to end on 16 points, which is a safe cut-off.
SRH leapfrogged Rajasthan Royals to the eighth position in the 10-team table as Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s men remain at the bottom of the heap.
For CSK, their seventh defeat in nine games practically ends their hopes as they now need wins in the next five games and hope that the playoff cut-off remains at 14 for the fourth-placed team.
The confidence of CSK batters has been shot to pieces and the lack of a collective effort from their bowlers only compounded the problems. Harshal, who cleverly used the change of pace, was complemented well by skipper Pat Cummins (2/21), ambidextrous spinner Kamindu (1/26), veterans Mohammed Shami (1/28) and Jaydev Unadkat (2/21).
Dewald Brevis (42 off 25) was the top scorer while Deepak Hooda (22 off 21) played some lofty shots towards the end to take CSK past 150-run mark.
In his 400th T20 match, Dhoni failed to fire, falling for 6 off 10 balls. A visibly upset Dhoni later admitted that the below-par total wasn’t “justifiable” on a Chepauk surface that didn’t have any demons in it.
“I think we kept losing wickets and in the first innings, the wicket was slightly better and 154 wasn’t a justifiable score. It wasn’t turning a lot, may be a little two-paced but nothing out of the ordinary,” Dhoni said.
Dhoni felt that in the second innings, SRH batted on a slightly tackier surface. “Yes, second innings there was a bit of help. Our spinners, the quality was there and they were bowling in the right areas, but we were 15-20 runs short,” he said.
For Dhoni, the most frustrating thing is that there were too many loose ends. “In a tournament like this, if there are one or two areas to plug in the holes it’s good, but when a majority of the players are not doing well you need to make changes. You can’t just keep going. We are just not putting enough runs on the board,” he said.
Brief scores: Chennai Super Kings: 154 all out in 19.5 overs (Brevis 42, Mhatre 30; Harshal 4/28, Cummins 2/21, Unadkat 2/21); Sunrisers Hyderabad: 155/5 in 18.4 overs (Ishan 44, Kamindu 32*; Noor 2/42).
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