A fighting unbeaten half-century under pressure from Faf du Plessis helped Chennai Super Kings edge past Sunrisers Hyderabad by two wickets in the first qualifier on Tuesday to enter the final of the Indian Premier League in Mumbai.
Needing 140 runs to win, Chennai made a mess of what should have been a comfortable chase before crossing the line with five balls to spare.
Du Plessis batted through the innings to remain not out on 67 runs, with five hits to the fence and four sixes studding his 42-ball knock. The opener kept on playing sensibly throughout even as no other batman clicked at the other end.
For Hyderabad, spinner Rashid Khan, Siddarth Kaul and Sandeep Sharma scalped two wickets
Hyderabad will now face the winner of the match between Kolkata Knight Riders and Rajasthan Royals in the Qualifier 2 on 25 May in Kolkata.
With this win Chennai Super Kings make it to the final of the Indian Premier League for a record seventh time. Mumbai Indians come a distant second with four appearance in the IPL final. It will also be Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s record-breaking eighth IPL final (in IPL 2017 Dhoni led Rising Pune Supergiant to the final). In their six final appearance till now Chennai have managed to win twice in 2010 and 2011.
Hyderabad opener Shikhar Dhawan continued his poor form in the IPL play-offs when he got out for a duck in the very first ball of the match. In the nine play-off matches he has played till now, Dhawan has scored only 99 runs at an average of 11.00 with a best score of 33.
Earlier, Carlos Brathwaite’s unbeaten 43-run knock took Sunrisers out of troubled waters. Brathwaite smashed one boundary and four sixes in his innings which comprised of 29 balls. He put up a 51-run stand for the seventh wicket with Bhuvneshwar Kumar, which is the second highest partnership for Hyderabad for that particular wicket.
(Statistics by Arun Gopalakrishnan)
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