Chennai wins as bad weather intervenes

A floodlight disruption and a norwester played spoil sport in what could have been a fight-to-the-finish as the Kolkata Knight Riders took on the Chennai Super Kings in Match 41 of the DLF Indian Premier League (IPL).

In an earlier encounter between the two teams, the Chennai side came out victorious beating Kolkata by 9 wickets at their home ground. This time, the MS Dhoni’s Super Kings only proved that they are a better side even on the opponent’s home turf. They defeated the Kolkata Knight Riders at the Eden Gardens by 3 runs by the Duckworth-Lewis method with Makhaya Ntini registering the third hat-trick, a split one, of the IPL.

The match kick-started when Sourav Ganguly won the toss and chose to bat first. The home side lost two wickets before it could reach the fifth over with Mohammad Hafeez and Sourav Ganguly both contributing with insignificant scores.

Salman Butt (73) and Debabrata Das (27) then put on an 86-run partnership to get Kolkata to a defendable score. Some valuable last-minute hitting by Kolkata keeper, Wriddhiman Prasanta Saha (15 off 9) took Kolkata to a decent 149 in their 20 overs.

South African paceman Makhaya Ntini registered the third hat-trick of the IPL when he dismissed Sourav Ganguly off the final ball of his opening spell and then came back to claim Debabrata Das and David Hussey off the first two balls in his comeback over at the death. He ended up with 4 Kolkata wickets for 21 runs in his 4 overs.

MS Dhoni, skipper of the Chennai Super Kings, left the field in the fifth over with a finger injury and his duty with the gloves was then taken over by Parthiv Patel.

Former New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming, who took on the role of Chennai skipper after Dhoni’s departure, opened the batting for his side with Patel. Fleming looked in good form for the first time in the series as he scored a brisk 32 runs off 20 balls putting on 55 runs in 8 overs with Patel (19) when strong winds disrupted play.

The norwesters, which are strong winds distinctive to the Kolkata climate, then made the players leave the ground. They also accounted for the loss of some bulbs from each of the four light towers at the Eden Gardens.

The climate worsened when rain subsequently followed the bad weather forcing the match to be called off. As per the Duckworth-Lewis system, the Chennai Super Kings were adjudged the winners by 3 runs as they had a good run rate and more importantly, did not lose any wickets.

Makhaya Nitni was declared the Player of the Match for his fine bowling figures for Chennai.

This reinstates Chennai’s position at number 3 on the IPL points table. Kolkata’s chances of making it to the next round now look dim. The Knight Riders would have to win the next three matches convincingly and hope for the other teams to crumble to have any chance to play at the semi-finals at the Wankhede Stadium at Mumbai.